Interview with Isabelle Carré

Isabelle Carré, from cinema to literature

She has won a César, two Molières, and published three novels: the actress-writer has become a prominent figure on the jury of the Prix des Deux Magots.

Ready to deliberate for a new edition?

I can’t wait! The team is great and besides the pleasure of finding a nice place that I know since my teenage years since I lived not far away, I like the Prix des Deux Magots which, moreover, allows to reveal an author. Discovery is what sets us apart from other awards.

Your first novel, Les Rêveurs, was 20 years in the making. Why did you wait so long?

A problem of legitimacy, I guess. Acting means being at the service of authors. Pretending to write after having performed Shakespeare, Molière or Chekhov is difficult, very inhibiting.

Interview with Isabelle Carré

I’ve always written, even a first novel at 23 called The Cage that I didn’t show to anyone. I stopped at about 35, because I had important roles in movies and little time. But the regret was getting stronger and stronger and today I am in the urgency to write!

Is the power of words stronger than the power of images?

Yes, I think so. I was a fragile teenager and it was a sentence in the film Une femme à sa fenêtre by Pierre Granier-Deferre that saved my life: “Prefer the risks of life to the false certainties of death. I then decided to take the risk of living. Words are imagination and books are guides on the dark path of our life. We read to read ourselves!

Aren’t screens killing the book?

No, I am optimistic, because young people are always reading, questioning and writing. Screens are certainly omnipresent, but they are using them better and better. They are not fooled. Finally, graphic novels and manga, which they like a lot, are good gateways to literature. Whether in film, theater or literature, art must be a mirror that allows us to be better armed, stronger.

Interview by Philippe Latil.