A biography for Anna Karinahasn’t been written yet.
“I had only one pair of white shoes with a very high heel, and they were terrible. They got terribly dirty, because I had no money and I walked all over Paris by foot. I also only had one black dress, which I had to wash every night.”
“We did not see ourselves as remaking cinema at the time, at least not in my view. Myself and the other actors were not part of the industry; we weren't inside the star system. We were running around, shooting in the streets, hiding behind trees to do our makeup. It was a very simple way of working.”
“Suddenly I had a call one day saying they'd like me to come to the office to see Jean-Luc Godard. 'He is preparing a film called 'Breathless.' Jean would like to see you.' I said yes. I thought he was pretty strange, because at that time nobody was wearing those kind of glasses where you couldn't see the eyes.”
“I went to Paris when I was 17 and would sit in a cafe called Les Deux Magots, in the Latin Quarter. I spoke English, but not a word of French.”
“Jean-Luc is a person who has a lot of feelings, and he knows that to listen and look at a person is very important. You have to listen when you act.”
“So I called and said, 'Mommy, I'm doing a political film with Jean-Luc Godard. You have to come and sign the contract.' She thought I was lying, so she hung up the phone. But then she came the next day, even though she had never taken an airplane in her life. She came to Paris and she signed my contract.”
“To make films one has to take everything seriously.”
“I think it's very touching to see young people interested in what we did a long time ago. They don't say, 'Well, I saw this old film with you.' They say: 'I saw this wonderful film. I really love it.'”
“Jean-Luc Godard saw me in a commercial. He first asked me to play a little part in 'Breathless' of a girl who is taking her clothes off. I said, 'No, I don't want to take my clothes off.' But he called me again for 'Le Petit Soldat.' He said it was a political film, so I didn't have to take my clothes off at all.”
“It was always the same thing - no script, dialogue at the last minute. Everyone always thought we just said anything we wanted. It's difficult to explain - some actors want to know why they have to do this and that. It was so simple and natural with Godard.”
“Jean-Luc didn't like me to say any bad words in real life, and I would always do it on purpose, just for fun. And he would go crazy! Then he had Brigitte Bardot do just that in 'Contempt.' And in that film she also has this line - 'I want red velvet curtains, or nothing at all in the apartment' - which was something I would always say.”
“Every character is so different, if you put the photos next to each other, you see how different I looked and how different I tried to be. And that's what I really enjoyed, that I could really be a different character every time.”
“I was in many of Jean-Luc's movies, but I wasn't in 'Le Mepris.'”
“I always loved New York.”
“In older Hollywood movies, a character will make an entrance, close a door, light a cigarette, sit down, have a drink. In Jean-Luc's movies, you were doing everything at once, and sometimes you wouldn't shut the door all the way.”
“I had some bad times. We got married because, you know, I was pregnant. But then I lost the baby. Ups and downs. And then when 'Bande a Part' came along, I was in a really bad shape. I didn't want to be alive any more.”
“Well, I think life is politics anyway. You can't ignore it, but you can go very wrong in politics. You can say what you thought 50 years ago, but maybe you're wrong today.”
“I think personally that every actress should do a little film. Even a short film. And all directors should act, to know how difficult it is also the other way around.”
“There were a lot of ups and downs in my life. And the downs were, you know, very down. Very low.”
“You can always tell a man's nationality by introducing him to a beautiful girl. An Englishman shakes her hand; a Frenchman kisses her hand; an American asks her for a date; and a Russian wires Moscow for instructions.”