There are few actresses in the history of cinema who have illuminated the silver screen with such grace as Isabelle Adjani. There are also very few outlets who are privileged enough to spend some time with her, so needless to say we were thrilled to be granted such access during our stay at the Marrakech International Film Festival, and it only took a few seconds to appreciate we were in the room with a real icon. Taking her sunglasses off as she sits down, she smiles, “too bad we’re not in the sun”.

Adjani, a two-time Academy Award nominee, was in Morocco to celebrate her tribute, a grandiose affair where eminent filmmakers such as Maiween, Abderrahmane Sissako and Cristian Mungui spoke about their own personal adoration for the star, as several clips of her movies, ranging from the likes of Queen Margot, Nosferatu the Vampyre and Possession played out to a spellbound audience, before she took to the stage to speak emotionally, and candidly, about her illustrious career.

What followed was a screening of her latest production, Carole Matthieu, and then the following day we had the chance to sit down and discuss with Adjani this latest project. She also explains to us why she has made so few films in America, what was behind the prolonged breaks in her career, and on her very personal affiliation she carries with every character she embodies.

Last night at the tribute you said the characters you play always stay with you, and form you as well. Don’t you ever lose characters?

I’m a part of them, and they’re a part of me. They give me a reason to think that being an actress all your life, since I started very young, hasn’t been a waste of time. It’s really important that it ends up meaning something, because we’re one. We met, we become one person. It’s not like there are a lot of entities taking possession of my being, it’s just like when you fall in love with a book and a character becomes like some kind of guide within yourself and it changes you, and it can even change your destiny, and who are you and the choices you make. Deep down I became an actress to be able to make some of my dreams that were coming from literature come true, which is why I love period pieces so much. They take me somewhere else, to another way of being. It’s what makes me happy to act.

Is there any specific character that is especially near to you?

Camille Claudel, and nobody who about her when we did the film, she was a totally unknown figure, very few people even knew she was the mistress of Auguste Rodin, and the film contributed to put light on her and her work, she was an amazing sculptor. Anna Karenina too, usually very beautifully eccentric characters that have too much heart to be in this world.

Your latest role is that of Carole Matthieu, how similar are you to that particular character?

What I have for her is empathy, and it’s what makes me really close to her. I love her humanity, even if she takes the wrong path, she’s become blinded by her task as a saviour. In order to go all the way she’s gone too far and now she cannot go back. It’s more a character I have compassion for rather than one who has anything to do with me, even though I am able to take care of others, because I love that, it’s part of me. For me to be an actress should also be a way to take care of people, because that’s what we do, what we do is transmit a certain type of emotion that can awake you, that’s what great actors and actresses do for me, it’s something I feel very grateful for, so I love to be able to do that sometimes, to feel that what I’m doing has real meaning, a deep one, not just to entertain people and let them have a good time for a couple of hours, because that’s not enough.

Do you think you need to have compassion, and empathy for every character that you play?

Yes I do, but that doesn’t mean I’m not able to play an awful person. It can be fun, but it hasn’t really happened to me very often, but it’s more like a catharsis, it can be fun to embody a nasty person and try to make sense out of them. But to me a character is sometimes a sister, sometimes a baby, sometimes a mother, sometimes a grandmother, you have different ways to care about them depending on their needs, but I love the idea of nursing them, to have them guide me and for me to guide them, they nurture me, I nurture them, I love that notion of exchange.

Carole MatthieuCarole Matthieu is very relevant, was your choice of getting involved in this project based on defending the rights of the people who are somehow oppressed, or put under stress by their work?

It’s something the director and myself got really concerned by, we thought there was some kind of emergency to talk about such a topic, and we wanted the film to happen as quickly as possible ad try to give people who don’t have an open space to speak up some good support, even if through fiction, but we wanted them to be able to use fiction to approach their reality. Louis-Julien Petit, the director, only wants to make social films, he’s a great admirer of Ken Loach and wants to get into a field of problems we have in France that are not being addressed as they should be.

On the subject of society, are you concerned about what is happening in the world after Trump’s election and whether this right-wing movement will become bigger in Europe?

Of course, anything can happen in Europe as well. We’re in a very strange place at the moment, we don’t know what to decide for ourselves, we’re choosing the wrong leaders. I’m not happy, I’m stunned, like most of the people who are concerned by the protection of democracy, but we’re seeing things that just don’t make sense any more. It’s like an infection of the mind. Every single place in the world we’re seeing crazy decisions being made.

What happens if Marine Le Pen wins in France?

Well I’m not going to be like George Clooney who said ‘well forget about Trump he’ll never win the election’. I’m not going to say that Le Pen will never be President of France, but, well you know, there are always nice countries where we can go and live if so. But no, seriously, I still don’t believe French people are out of their minds.

You choose your projects so carefully these days, so what is it that ignites that desire to get involved in a film, what do you look for?

To me it’s all about making sense to myself, because there are so many films you can do, and there are reasons that come from you, reasons that come from circumstance. For me the idea is to just feel that whatever you choose to do is the most important thing that can happen to you, otherwise I get really bored, even guilty, like what am I doing here? Is this film going to mean something to me? Might this film mean something to others? If the answer is yes, absolutely, then I have no hesitations whatsoever, and it’s pretty rare to find such a beautiful combination. I admire the father of my child, Daniel Day-Lewis. He is never asked about why he’s not working, why he doesn’t do films back-to-back, he makes them like every four years, because they become him, the film becomes the centre of his life, the full reason of being an actor. I have to say this is what I respect most in actors, I love actors who do that. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy actors who don’t care for a second and yet are really great to watch on screen, giving us a lot of fun and laughter, but I love actors who give you the feeling they had to do it, the film had to exist. My favourite actresses are like Meryl Streep, women that have found a way to make their convictions come true.

Yourself and Daniel seem to have a similar criteria and viewpoint on cinema and what it should mean – did you ever consider making a film together?

We almost worked together on the same film, but it didn’t happen.

You’ve never been too heavily involved in American cinema, why is that?

I kind of stayed away, and I refused quite a few a significant amount of American films. Some I regret, but it’s just the way it is. Maybe it happened while someone around me was dying, I’ve always chosen my life and my family first, whether it was the right thing to do or not, it’s just me. When my second son was born I stopped having an agent there, but now there are a few things I’m thinking about. The world is opening up and there are many movies, and series, that are going to be made, I have one I can’t talk about, that will be made in English. Europe is bringing films to America, and now there will be far more space for subtitled films, and also far more European actors and actresses to be involved in American productions. I like this prospect.

You once said that acting no longer amused you – and you’ve had a few prolonged breaks away from the screen in your career. What was behind them?

It’s just life, I’m not obsessed with time passing by. I don’t like to know about my age, I hate my age being said. I’m a dreamer, I let time go by, I’ve never been in a hurry, or thinking, ‘Oh my God – I need to be on screen because people might forget about me’. I totally ignore that. I’m lucky actually to still be around, and be able to choose the right project when it comes to me, and to make it happen. But the reasons for the breaks are rational only for me.

Finally, though you seem divided by cinema and family, do you have a passion outside of those things where you can just escape, where you feel free?

I like to travel, I like to backpack. I like the idea of just being free. I love the feeling of freedom, and that I can take off and go, just go. My niece, who is starting to be an actress and just turned 18, she wants to travel around the world before she really settles, and starts working in a serious way, so I told her I would do a quarter of the trip with her. I’ve kept that excitement in me to just take off and not care, and see what happens.