I just found this interview of Lou, I hope it's not a repost. It's from 2003
Keeping a close eye one...
Lou Doillon
She could have contented herself with being “the daugh-
ter of...” but didn’t. From early on, Lou Doillon wanted to
push aside the barriers of a gilded life. She is one of
France’s most unpredictable actresses, easily moving bet-
ween auteur film sets and the more attention grabbing
fashion catwalks. Liberated, cerebral and incredibly beau-
tiful, she’s disarmingly forthright in a discussion that
skips from topic to topic.
When, at the end of the conversation, we ask her what her resolu-
tions for the New Year will be she responds with her radiant smile
that “it’s simply to not make any resolutions.” How right you are,
Miss Doillon, don’t ever change...
"To give oneself over, body and soul to the point of forgetting that it’s only a
film... Even if I’d appeared in Agnès Varda’s Kung-Fu master (Master), Too
Much (Little) Love was really the first film I performed in as an actress. I was completely caught up in the role. At the end of the shoot, when I returned to
Paris alone, I suddenly realized that I no longer knew who I was. I didn’t
know if I was Lou or Camille (my character in the film). I was completely lost
and overcome with anxiety. I gave up school. I fixated on this idea: movies. I
then played in Jean-Pierre Améris’s Bad Company, the first film in which I
was without either my father or my mother. I handled the situation with
more ease and everything went well. The role didn’t entirely hold me in its
sway. On the other hand, the next film, Mamirolle, was very intense. I’d injured my knee and was on morphine during the shoot. I was consumed by my character and developed an intense relationship with Brigitte Coscas, the director, a wonderful woman I really adore. I was fifteen and lost myself completely. I shed ten kilos, became a vegetable and was taken home in an ambulance. My family was very worried about me. For six months afterwards, I was depressed. I was convinced that my destiny was tied up with the tragic fate of my character and that I could never love anyone living. It was a real nightmare. Little by little, I told myself that I had to calm down. I understood that I mustn’t live the life of the characters I portrayed. I learned not to tire myself out. I worked again with my father in Carrément à l’ouest. My father can only work with people prepared to strip themselves bare. Right from the first week I sensed danger. I said to myself: ‘Here we go again, I’m giving everything I’ve got to the role, I’m going to be totally wasted again. I’m going to suffer’. Gently, with my father’s help, I learned to take things into consideration and to leave doors open without letting that throw me off balance. With more experience, I’ve understood how to handle myself both mentally and physically. A certain amount of experience of life and film is required to have a clear idea of respecting the limits of one’s head and heart. In Blanche, I really had to be careful, get plenty of sleep at night, keep an eye on myself. See How They Run was the first time that, thanks to my experience, I finally understood that it wasn’t necessary to scour the lower depths. You’re asked to act on a set, not lose yourself. There’s a clear line separating the two. I think I’m now beginning to understand how not to step over it. For me, acting means giving yourself two hundred percent except I’ve now structured my inner self, I’ve put it into order. I can give my all in a performance without upsetting my personal life. But I also don’t intend to become a chunk of cement that gets the job done and then goes home without learning anything along the way. My characters are like a challenge I have to respond to. The more difficult it is, the more I want to throw myself into the fray. As no one has yet written a role custom made for me, I treat each film as a new challenge that I must face. Mamirolle was written for a twenty-year-old. Its many nude scenes scared away actresses. Although only fifteen, I accepted the part because I found it troubling. I think my reaction had something to do with wanting to make myself suffer. I wanted to hurt myself, I even liked it. Maybe this feeling has something to do with my parents, my background. I never wanted to settle for what I had, what I was. I didn’t want to take the easy path of making a nice film in a cosy setting, surrounded by velvet cushions. I was convinced that I would be better accepted in
this business if I made films in which I really took risks. Mamirolle wasn’t a success, but even so, no one could accuse me of being ‘the daughter of...’ who makes easy films. “It’s rather exciting to play horrible characters. From the first read-through, I loved the screenplay for See How They Run written by Michel Blanc. On paper, the character of Emilie was a real b*tch. Once screenwriters have met me, they generally rewrite the character into someone more charming. This doesn’t interest me at all. I really like the idea that someone is deeply nasty with no redeeming qualities. I wanted to play Emilie exactly the way Blanc had written
her. Michel then let me imagine her clothing style so that I could truly adopt the character. I drew sketches of Emilie, exaggerating her outlandish side because I really wanted her to be a ghastly person whereas Michel wanted to make her more personable. I begged him to let me play her my way. At the first screening, I was delighted that audiences were so horrified by her. With my earlier films, people would come up and take my hand with compassion whereas this time they hoped that I wasn’t like Emilie in real life. This made me laugh, because, actually, I am rather sweet off screen...
An actor’s job is to adapt to other people. I have no acting technique. I believe, moreover, that acting techniques don’t actually exist. I adapt to the director each time. Each director works in a different way and therefore my way of approaching a character depends on the director. In Michel Blanc’s film, the shoot had already been underway for six weeks when I arrived on the scene. It’s not easy to arrive this late into a shoot, particularly when the first scene involves making love with Sami Bouajila in a bathtub! I have no problem being naked in front of forty people because I’m aware that making films is an expensive business and I can’t allow myself to start trying to cut a deal with the director once I’ve agreed to a part. My only technique during moments like these is to tell myself that I’m up against the wall and I’ve no other option than to go through with it! I often have ideas about the screenplay, which I read over and over, but I do very little preparation. It’s not my job to imagine how the film should be directed.
I am an actress, not a director. I’m rather docile during a shoot. I respect the director’s decisions. I’m there to serve the director, not vice versa. If I want to make the film of my dreams, then I’ll write and direct it myself even if that seems a little narcissistic. I actually find it more pleasant to give in to other directors. I’ll never get used to seeing myself on screen. I refused to see Too Much (Little) Love. My father pushed me into the theater at the Berlin Film Festival to see the film during a press screening. I saw the film... This remains the worst experience of my life. I spent two hours covering my eyes with my hands, humming a song to myself so I wouldn’t hear my voice. I hate it, even now. It’s a real nightmare, incredibly brutal. Strangely enough, when my face is pasted up on the walls of Paris in a fashion advertisement, I don’t feel the same emotions because the image is of a character with no voice and is therefore easier to bear. My voice annoys me in films. Hearing it is agony for me. When I do, my heart starts racing and I want to vomit. I’d like to be weak for once in a film. I’m fed up with playing strong characters. That’s the way people imagine me, when in fact I’m not that strong. I don’t constantly cope with everything. I’m even quite shy. I’ve come a long way since I turned fifteen. With age, I’ve fewer things to prove. I’ve calmed
down and become more peaceful. I’m taking small steps on the path to serenity. I don’t deny the hysterical part of me, but I don’t let it rage all the time. I’d like to branch out into different roles, different feelings. It’s difficult being a woman in this business. When I was a young, I was the ugly girl and therefore only got the loser parts. Now that I’m a little prettier, I’m only offered love scenes. Between these two extremes, there’s not a lot on offer. I’d like to be directed by a woman. I recently saw Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry. What an interesting part Hilary Swank had to play, very unsettling. Unfortunately, in France, there are very few parts like this. When you perform in films made by a man, you act out his
fantasy. In Blanche, I was acting out Bernie Bonvoisin. The same for Carrément à l’ouest. When I saw the film, I realized that my character was my father. It’s complicated.
“I’ve never been a fan of a particular artist. I like and respect many people in this business. Only David Lynch could make me crazy. I crossed paths with him at a festival and was incapable of talking to him because I felt as though I was in the presence of a demigod. I like actresses from the fifties. Marilyn Monroe’s fragility over- whelms me, she’s despair in its pure state. She makes me cry. Her voice brings tears to my eyes. There is something extraordinary about being the most beautiful woman in the world and not realizing it. Even speaking about her to you gives me goose bumps. She is so disarming. In terms of movie couples, Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn do it for me. I could watch Roman Holiday over and over. They’re so fragile and beautiful that it bowls me over. You want to protect them. Audrey Hepburn is magical. She’s elegance incarnate. Recently, I was stunned by Bette Davis in All About Eve. Her performance in it is incredible. I wonder how she managed o express so many things with a gazes or gesture. She is fascinating. Among the new generation, I love Lili Taylor who moves me a lot, and Juliette Lewis because she is a real extra-terrestrial in this business. They both knock me out."
source: http://a334.g.akamai.net/f/334/7470/3h/img4.allocine.fr/unifrance/00/01/60/45/lettre33gb.pdf 
Hopefully cameras are allowed!
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