Prot-a-gonist* People always like things that seem exotic | Jane Birkin, 1946-2023
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“I loved having a crew. I loved being the person who woke at six in the morning and
knew where to put the camera. I loved watching the actresses cry, and to know that if
you were clever and didn’t do too many rehearsals, that it just came that way.”
“I grind my teeth and keep my thumbs in so tight that I’ve dislocated them, just not
to scream. Sometimes as an actor one is lucky enough to be asked to scream.”
“When I made mistakes, people used to laugh. I could have learnt better,
but I’ve always liked to make people laugh.”
“Everything I wear doesnt put me in the league of women. If I were a boy,
I could look a lot prettier than a lot of boys I know.”
“I didn’t really think of myself as being a muse.”
“When I was at school I used to scream in trains, in those concertina things between
the carriages. I used to try to be so good that sometimes I couldn’t bear it any more.”
“If I were mayor, I’d invite everyone to have free boat trips on the river and free
balloon rides over the city. I’d let the elderly in residential homes wander free.”
“One of the things I’ve discovered, thanks to the Japanese, is that you should enjoy yourself.
In the old days, I used to think: ‘Oh, never be satisfied, never admit to being happy.’
But there’s no curse in being happy.”
“Any film I see at two o’clock in afternoon with my mother seems to cast a strange
spell that means we both come out sobbing.”
“If you fall in love with a country and its people, that makes any country warm to you.”
“People always like things that seem exotic.”
“I know what it’s like to have someone coming home who looks at you not in the way they used
to in the old days, and I’ve seen my own face contorted with sadness and rage in the mirror.”
“I don’t know why people keep banging on about the ’60s. I was very conventional because
I came from a conventional family and I didn’t go off with different people – I rather wish
I had now, seeing all the fun everyone else was having.”
“I love Dickens because it makes me chuckle to myself so. He has taken me to
another world and out of so many earthly miseries.”
“Robert Louis Stevenson… I’m focusing on the late short stories that I was ignorant of.
I always thought he was a boys’ author, but he’s not at all.”
“I’d rather live on my own than live with a face that looks at me with the wrong eyes.”
“My look is a cocktail. I’m not as nicely turned out as the french, but I don’t care like the English.”
“Keep smiling – it takes 10 years off!”
Jane Birkin
