Was it difficult to be the director and the main actor at the same time?

It was not, because the movie lends itself to it. As Mélanie and I had very little scenes together -since we are always separate by the two apartments- I was not actually the one playing opposite. So when we were filming her scenes, I was focusing on the staging and direction of actors when another actor would answer her cues.

How did this first experience as a director benefit you?

This experience allowed me to measure the extent of my deep attachment to cinema, one that has been haunting me from the very first day of preparation up until the release of the film. The notion of spectacle is very important to me. I had an idea, a forceful idea about the movie, in terms of graphic imagery, in terms of sound, which was fundamental to me. I was attached to the idea of beauty. There was that necessity, that urge for finding the settings, the lights, for making the right choices. In both apartments, there is space to be dealt with. How should it be handled? What should be done with it? How could you build with that? I work, I devise my shooting script, the scenery, the costumes, the actors, the light, the setting, the editing . . . All of it is essential. This is, in my mind, the very idea behind directing a movie: to take on all its components, every nook and cranny. You find yourself beguiled by a tea spoon. This is the amazing part of film directing, everything is important: the ground, the objects, the light . . . whereas in ordinary life I do not pay any attention to these things. Here, each detail means something. These are continuous choices to be made, and they are yours; which is awesome. You are God for a short time, which is not unpleasant. It lasts what it lasts.