NOTES FROM A DRESSING ROOM
* WHEN I OBSERVE HOW EARLY HAPPINESS HANDICAPS PEOPLE, I DO NOT REGRET TO HAVE BEEN DEEPLY UNHAPPY, TO BEGIN WITH. THERE’S SOMETHING ROMANTIC ABOUT FALLING.
* The world embarrasses me.
* I might as well not quit smoking after all. To star in a French film you must be smoking at all times; even when you are in a bath, in the hospital, or wandering through a warehouse full of dynamite. Cigarettes might be my big break.
* Wednesday: the sound of this off-key flute mixed up with heavy rain, and the so familiar and guilty smell of old cigarettes buds makes me think of J. I’ve never been with such an unstable person. I feel safer being next to a dying dog. It must be midnight somewhere. Not here.
* The wild me, the animal me. Me, in the ultimate role: myself. What is myself? Myself is when I’m alone. Who claims the opposite is a liar. Myself is the animal me, the untrained me, the “me” that doesn’t have to act to accommodate social standards. The “physical” me. How do I walk when I’m alone in my apartment (my back is facing down more than usual, almost as if imitating a monkey). How do I dress, sit, eat, masturbate? How do I look when I’m eating? How’s my posture? I have an over-relaxed expression when I eat, read, sleep, pee. Idiot face. Monkeyface. Idiot monkey face. Notice the plastic of your face in these moments of deep intimacy, and then compare it with your physical behaviour in social activities. I talk like a fucking anthropologist. An ACTRESS must have no mouth, no feet, no shoulders. Loose, loose. Hanging loose. Focus my thought on the partner, feeling it at the end of my fingers. It starts from the feet. Below the feet. It’s all in my feet.
* I find myself tormented by conflicting feelings. My heart is divided between two men and two cities. It’s like being in a damn ice-cream parlour.
* How many times do I say “I” per day? it’s so egocentric.
* My dad, a kind of bourgeois nudist communist, sent me off to strict catholic schools to let me know the enemy first-hand.
* I’m finding out that sincerity and to be simple or direct is often mistaken for stupidity. But since it is not a sincere world, it’s very probable that being sincere is stupid.
* Get an interest in broken people, as broken people are unbreakable. How to recognise them? They have sad-like abandoned puppy eyes.
* You don’t realise that people act (instinctively) much more than you do because when you act, you’re fully aware of it. So, are they better actors than you? In day-to-day life? Real-life is only what’s going on in your mind. Is it? So, are you the worse actress in the world, inside your mind? If that’s so, you must be the best one outside your body. Is it?
* Challenge: find a Parisian psychotherapist that doesn’t have pastis for breakfast.
* VOICE. Husky voice, nasal voice. Sweet and strong at the same time. Talk from your mind (sexy). Talk from your stomach (stupid).
* I will take my rightful place on the stage and I will be thyself. I am not a cosmic orphan. I have no reason to be timid. I will respond as I feel; awkwardly, vulgarly. But respond. I will have my throat open, I will have my heart open. I will be vulnerable. I will admit rejection, admit pain, admit frustration, admit even pettiness. The best and most human parts of me, are those I’ve inhabited and hidden from the world. I will work on it. I will raise my voice. I’ll be heard. Stop laughing inside.
* Acting is just making stuff up, but that’s okay. I’m going to have a special microphone placed in my coffin so that when I wake up in there, six feet under the ground, I’m going to say: “do it differently”.
* London is becoming like Monaco with bad weather. It’s depressing. The only thing that keeps me alive is the thought that I will be soon in Paris… But tonight, I’m stunned, amazed, absolutely blown away, looking at some portraits made by famous Belle Epoque artists. I’ve decided, if my life would be a portrait, it would be a Boldini one.
* My ex-boyfriends have been my best critics so far. That’s why they’re exes.
* I don’t excel at anything, but I’m good at everything.
