"Walking around a city, like its inhabitants, stopping in front of stalls, shops and shop windows... It's my way of visiting, a rhythm that I enjoy. And what a pleasure it is when, after five or six hours wandering around, I come back to the hotel, exhausted, only to fall asleep and not wake up until dinnertime... In Siem Reap, Cambodia, I remember a street restaurant: paper tablecloths, children, an atmosphere... almost like North Africa, where I come from!
Then I went back to the hotel. I don't like ostentatious luxury, marble and all that... I appreciate much more the space that a room offers, and above all the charm of a hotel! On Koh Samed, a small, little-visited Thai island, the Paradee hotel is fantastic: little white houses with private pools, planted on the edge of an 800-metre long beach of fine sand, the sea at 32°C... a paradise, reconstituted, but a paradise nonetheless. Because outside the hotel, the setting is very different.
In France, when I leave Paris to take a rest, I go to Ramatuelle, my home in the middle of the forest. I'm very attached to everything French: it's my anchorage point, you always need one! I think I'm incredibly lucky to have come across this country, with its history, its quality of life, its landscapes... When you see Bangkok, for example, blurred by so much pollution!
There are also marvels to be found in Asia; Cambodia, for example, which I discovered fairly recently and which enchanted me! Even though I'm not particularly drawn to the cultures of this region, the Angkor site touched me deeply: there's such spirituality in the air... even for an agnostic! Nature, at once wild and gentle, must certainly play its part in this very special atmosphere.
These exotic settings give me food for thought about civilisations. I'm fascinated by the survival of civilisations: Angkor made me think about this, and while I'm at it, about the end of human societies too. There are so many traces left there by the ancient inhabitants! Today, even if the people seem happy, you can sense the persistence of a kind of leaden blanket. The Khmer Rouge episode is not really over. Terrifying.
Travelling excites me, of course. But I wonder if it's not more a question of simply leaving. You tell yourself that you're going to escape, at least for a while, from the sadness, the harshness, the roughness of certain moments in life... It allows me to bring a kind of airiness to a world - which I love! - a world that I love, with its relationship to words, literature and theatre, which I also find essential. When I leave, I 'drop out', as they say, and to be honest, it's very pleasant to leave something you cherish, precisely because you know you'll be coming back...".
Five dates
1941 I was born in Oran, Algeria.
1955 My father dies; I'm 12.
1968 The first major demonstration in May shocked me.
1971 I meet my current wife.
1985 My first production (Tailleur pour dames) at the Bouffes Parisiens theatre was a real success.
