I remember Truffaut saying that he had gone too far with this character he had created with Jean-Pierre Léaud because French audiences like to see masculine actors for male parts. The French audience doesn’t like to accept the fact that the man is broken, castrated, girlish, or wounded in any way. So many academics have noted that in the work of many American actors there is this feminine aspect of what it is to be a man, which is to be wounded. Therefore there is a difficulty it seems to me in France to invent good male heroes who—to my mind—are more complex like American actors. Both Mathieu [Amalric] and I share concerns about these representations. It’s difficult to grow up in France at 11 or 12 where you don’t want to become the adult men that you see in French movies. You don’t know who you will become but you know for sure you can’t relate to Jean Gabin. It’s impossible. It’s disgusting to be Jean Gabin.