For such a young woman, Julie Delpy has had an incredible career. Born in Paris to two French actors, she appeared in Jean-Luc Godard's Détective as a teenager, launching a series of roles in European cinema: Leos Carax's Mauvais Sang, Agnieszka Holland's Europa, Europa, Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy, Roger Avary's Killing Zoe. She made her mark in American cinema as the co-star of Richard Linklater's wandering Before Sunrise, and returned to the story nine years later to co-script and co-star in the sequel, Before Sunset. In between, she made her own short films and a feature-length video experiment, which prepared her for her own theatrical directorial debut, the new 2 Days In Paris, a low-key drama in which she and co-star Adam Goldberg play lovers whose relationship begins to disintegrate during a vacation to her hometown. Delpy's real-life parents play her parents in the film. During a Chicago trip to promote her film, Julie Delpy sat down with The A.V. Club to talk about directing her own parents, working with Godard and Kieslowski, and how Bowfinger inspired her when she risked coming apart on set.
The A.V. Club: How did 2 Days In Paris come about? What was it like making it?
Julie Delpy: Well, basically, a few years ago, I thought it would be a funny idea—in 2001, I had a few days in Paris that were kind of horrible, and I was like, "Maybe it would be funny to take a couple and have their relationship affected by their environment." It was just an idea at the time. I called Adam Goldberg and said, "Hey, would you like to do a little film?" Years went by, and I wrote Before Sunset. I set it in Paris because I wanted to do a film there, but after Before Sunset, I still wanted to tell a story about a couple, because my idea was very different. So I called Adam again, but this time I said, "I want to find money, not just, like, take a camera and film in Paris." So I found a producer who raised some financing. It's a typical story: you think of something, it stays in the back of your head for a while, and then you finally do it, you know?
AVC: Was there any problem getting funding as a first-time director?
JD: It was very difficult. The producer had no money; he was just looking for financiers. He really believed in the film, but it was a horror. The horrible thing was pre-production, because he made a budget for the film according to what he thought we were going to get from the French government, from [the economic development group] Paris Region, from German funding, from this and that, and every day, we would find out that we didn't get the money. So every day the budget would go down, down, down, down, down. At one point, we found out that Adam couldn't show up until a week later. That extra week of pre-production made us lose the entire amount of money for the film for post-production. So when I started shooting the film, I knew that I had no money to finish the film. To finish shooting, yes, but not to finish the film. So then the producer says, "I swear, I swear, swear, swear, I'll find money afterwards." And he did. Last-minute. [Laughs.]
AVC: And you pretty much just went on faith that it would work out?
JD: Yeah. I mean, it was weird to believe in it, because I tell you, he had said that he would get this and that, and he didn't get any of it. And then I didn't know if Adam was going to show up, so that was very stressful also, because my film was tiny, and he was shooting a big movie. We had no power to say to his agent, "Hey!" [Laughs.] You know, they could tell us, "Fuck you, fuck off." Which they almost did, and maybe did a few times.
AVC: Was directing a theatrical film the experience you thought it would be?
JD: No. I enjoyed the process. What I don't enjoy is when—I mean, you know, it was a little tough sometimes to have two days to shoot, like, 10 minutes that end up in the film. We had a very short period of time to shoot the film. Sometimes it was a little stressful. But I really enjoyed the process. It was different in a sense that—I thought I would have less of a sense of what I was doing, that I would be more confused, maybe. I've done short films and I never was confused, but maybe, I thought, in a big movie, I wouldn't have the endurance to do the entire film. And then it never came up—I was actually stronger as it went, and more and more together, and the crew was listening to me. Everything I said was done. No one ever argued with me. Not that I was, like, tough. Actually, it was the opposite, I was nice, but everyone was nice, too.
AVC: Were there specific things that were harder or easier than you thought they would be?
JD: I knew it was not going to be easy, so I was prepared. What was hard… [Laughs.] Well, you know, when you work on a movie, you have to deal with people's egos. And some people have bigger egos than others. You have to take a lot of abuse, and take it in and not respond, because you don't want conflicts on the movie, you don't want to start screaming at people even when they treat you —even when they're not behaving properly, because you want them to do their job, and keep on doing it. I would take—like, if people were behaving a certain way but I needed them to do something, I would just not acknowledge how they would behave. You have to be like a punching ball. Like, you get punched in the face 20 times a day and you have to keep it together. I was thinking of that film Bowfinger, and the character of Eddie Murphy, who's like, totally crazy, and he's always saying, "Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together." That's what I was constantly thinking of. Because you have to keep it together, you have to stay calm. I was always calm. People would be crazy on the set and stuff, and I'd be like, "It's okay, we'll do it, it's over, we can't finish the film, but it's okay, we'll do it." Like, super-Zen. Which is really weird, because I'm quite neurotic, usually. But when it comes to work, I become extremely focused. I think that's how I was able to finish the film.
AVC: What was it like directing your parents?
JD: It was actually a lot of fun. I had a lovely time, because my parents are both real actors, they're not just my parents that I put in a movie. It was very sweet to see—the minute they were on set, they became actors and I became the director, and they were actually quite cute, because they were really impressed that I was able to handle all those people. And I was not showing off at all, I was trying to get all the shots in, you know? They were like, "Oh my God, we can't believe you're doing this." They're such sweet people. And they were wonderful. They were so good! They're just wonderful actors, and I wanted to work with them.
AVC: Your character in the film isn't a villain, but she isn't very sympathetic, either. Were you ever tempted to make her more heroic, to get the audience on her side?
JD: You know, it's funny, Adam was always telling me, "Your character is horrible, she's such a bitch, blah blah blah." I was like, "Yeah, but for me, if I'm doing a sweet woman that's kind of endearing and has no edge and isn't snapping and she's not a bad girl in some way—it's not right." What was more work to me was to make his character likeable. I really worked on the editing a lot on his character, because I needed people to empathize with him, mostly, so I needed him to be likeable even if he's neurotic, I needed him to be charming. So there's certain things that he couldn't say, certain things that were very important. I really built his character in the editing room, because there were things I had written or things that were making his character much less likeable, and that was the hard challenge for me. It was much more important to make his character likeable, because you relate to him, than hers. And hers—I kind of like that she's Mike Tyson. She snaps at people, she attacks people, she lashes. I think it's more fun. It's a comedy. If she's perfect, she's like the perfect girlfriend, it's such a bore. It needs to be a little edgier. Because the film is like that. The film is politically incorrect and people just throw things at each other. No one's nice, you know? Nobody. But in the end, people still love each other.
AVC: There's sort of a temptation for viewers to say, "She created this role for herself, so this must be what she wants to play, this must be her ideal role." But is it?
JD: It's not an ideal role, because really, I'm not the central character, Jack is. I mean, an ideal role, it wouldn't be this. It doesn't have the big emotional moments, it's not an actor-showoff role. But in a way, I don't love parts that are obviously showoff, you know? I don't play a man, or… The actors' dream, it's always something that involves, like, a fake nose or something. This is definitely not like that.
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