Michèle MANCEAUX : One felt up to now that the world perplexed you. It seems that you have acquired an understanding that you did not have before.

Isabelle ADJANI : It's true. Life has brought me work to do on myself these past two years. Deep, internal work...

Work that you have done alone, or with help?

There has already been the karmic work : that what life has transformed in me, this initiation brought on, of necessity, by trials. It's a road one goes by oneself, but always accompanied. By visible helpers and more invisible guides.

Books? Therapists?

Yes, but "therapists" means not only "psychotherapists". There are also beings that primarily take care of the soul. I have directed myself to those. I believe in angels, so it's simple. I think that we all carry the divine within us.

Is it work to find it, the divine?

To change, that is the most difficult thing to accomplish. There are people who never experience that, who remain closed until death, from fear of change. If I had not passed through trial - through passion, one could say - through these years so painful and so rich, I don't believe I could take on my life and my career as I do today.

Would you say today that passion is ill-fated?

Does passion rhyme with peace...? Before, for me, peace could have been synonymous with boredom. One believes that if nothing happens, one disappears. That is not true.

Now you know how to fill the "nothingness"?

At any rate I try. Nothingness not being nothing, nothingness being emptiness. One can be emptied out and be filled up. It's a form of meditation. A nice exercise to do, because I'm basically impetuous and reactive. This exercise calms me and leads me to more listening, more availability. Maybe, at the same time, to more depth and lightness.

Did your malaise come from your success? From a success particularly difficult to accept in relation to your modest family background?

One is never ready for success. It consecrates and looses you at the same time. To leave in search of yourself, of your real needs, is easier when you don't have to justify yourself to anyone, when there are not too many people bestowing you their attention. I was very young.

Did you lack freedom?

Enormously. I only begin to take and learn that freedom. I want to work beyond external aggressions, forget that one has something to do for others if it's not for oneself. I do not want to work to correspond to an image.

Do you still have vague fears?

Less and less. That's the purpose of learning to love oneself, to be self-sufficient.

Is to love oneself sufficient not to suffer from passion?

Passion is all but soft, it's not tender, it's violence to which you get hooked by pleasure.

Is it a suffering that's worth the trouble?

That depends on the person who's the object. In love, one should simplify, choose persons worthy of their promises and leave them if they don't keep them. But no one frees himself from being in love in three days.

Do you regret the passions you have had?

No, that not.

Are you ready to begin again?

Passion surprises. One doesn't search it. It can happen to you tomorrow... I believe that when you work on yourself, you are attracted by different, more positive beings. Beings that can bring you more of what you need.

You have stopped working, for three years, because of a passion. Would you do it again?

I don't believe so.

At the same time you think that it was worth it?

Yes, because it has also allowed me to advance, to learn English. It's anecdotal, it's a turn, but okay, it has given me desire to know better where I was, to want to known more about myself... One can not love without opening oneself, and opening oneself, that's taking the risk of suffering. One does not have control.

Is passion of necessity physical, for you?

If it's not physical, I don't know it.

Can it be purely physical?

I believe it's possible. That passion cuts everything else, it blocks all, it's what psychologists call unhealthy. It's what one calls total alienation.

Nonetheless you grimace saying that.

Because at times when you're quiet, reassured, you're not interested in that anymore.

At the same time you know that it will come back to you.

My limits will be better marked. Both the limits I will set, and my own limits. You protect your being when you love yourself better. That's the secret. Clearly, if they haven't repeated to you all your childhood "Love yourself, love yourself", it's not when you're actress that you can believe it.

Are you afraid of one day being less beautiful?

It's alright, it hasn't happened to me yet. I have no fear of being less beautiful, I've always been afraid of not being beautiful.

Do you accept that the marks of age appear?

I'll accept it very well the day that I no longer do this work.

What will be the reason for you to stop doing this work?

I don't think of it at the moment, but the roles that interest me are those of young people.

In the period behind you, what has hurt you most? The gossip? The attacks? The treachery?

There has not only been that. There has also been much love, joy, evidence of admiration, there has never been one without the other. You can't believe completely neither in one, nor in the other.

Do you feel alone at the moment?

Alone, but not lonely. I'm in an agreeable state: busy, enthusiastic, curious. I live with all antennas out.

One can tell, you sparkle. You're no longer afraid to speak about yourself.

I've suffered too much to hide my feelings. I've learned that to expose yourself, to reveal yourself is a test of your humanness. You must take the risk to disclose yourself in order to become more real, more human. And even if the price is high.

What do you know today that you did not know yesterday?

I know that the only question is: "What do I want to do with me, with my life? Who do I want to be?" It seems an egoistic question, it's just the opposite, it's a generous question, turned to the outside. Today I trust my instinct, I trust myself. Finally.

When you began at age sixteen, so wonderful when playing Moliere, did you trust your instincts?

Yes, that came from childhood. What beauty in childhood, what purity, what openness before one lets oneself be killed and cruelty recloses all. And then one passes the rest of ones life repairing all that's been broken.

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