Blond hair cut short, no makeup, and a long loose dress made to hide the the roundness of her belly, Vanessa Paradis, 26, is today far from the image of the "Lolita schoolgirl" dear to Gainsbourg if not for the charming little-girl voice. Her head on her shoulders, and always on guard: with her, no questions about her private life or her future role as mother... In the new Patrice Leconte film, The Girl on the Bridge, she is Adele, a fragile girl, looking for Mr. Right. Rather than throw herself off a bridge, she will follow a certain Gabor (Daniel Auteuil), a knife thrower, from Paris to Instanbul, as his target... A splendid role. Patrice Leconte and his writer, Serge Frydman, wrote the part of Adele for you. Difficult to refuse, right? Certainly, it's a true gift for an actress. In certain scripts, there are sometimes things I have to modify, words that I don't want to say. In that script, nothing had to be changed. I reread the script many times, each time concentrating on specific parts: the story, the dialogue, the characters, the scenes, everything was incredible. After White Wedding, your first film, you've taken the roles of the fragile and disenchanted girl, though you are the opposite in real life. Why? Yes, but if you look hard, there is always a ray of hope in these girls, because they are always looking to rebound and to achieve their destiny. In The Girl on the Bridge, Adele is not disenchanted. She's had catastrophes and failures, but they don't stop her from being enthusiastic, ready to start over. She thinks she deserves happiness. The problem is, she is always looking for it in the wrong places. The film begins with a long monologue where she tells all her unhappy moments. You find her next on a bridge, ready to throw herself in the water, by as luck will have it, Gabor, a knife thrower, appears... With this character, do you have the impression of doing something new, of moving on? That was my intention. I really wanted to lose my expressions, my intonations, my walk, to become somebody different. Adele herself helped me a lot. Her character traits are imposed on me. She was so present that I just let myself be carried away by her. This girl is not stupid nor naive, just as carefree as a child. The children aren't afraid to burn themselves, to hurt themselves, to fall. Thus it was necessary that I find a way to keep her merry and carefree without being a child-woman. After last year's bomb of Half a Chance, did you have a kind of revenge to take out on Patrice Leconte? No. The script for The Girl on the Bridge was written before Half a Chance. Thus, I was going to make the film no matter what happened. I thought of it incessantly, I waited for only one thing: to begin filming. After Jean Reno is Witchy Love, you find yourself in the arms of Daniel Auteuil. Impressionable? That made me really happy, because I knew him already. There wasn't the timidity of "getting-to-know-each-other-and-all-that." He's a great acteur, very easy to get along with, very merry, and he made me laugh a lot during filming. Patrice Leconte says this about you: "I have never met someone so sensational and so gifted." Do you return the compliment? Me, I rarely meet people who bring so much joy to the people around them. Because of that he is very rare, very precious. You understand everything he wants, if he is happy or not, surprised or not. His indications and his reactions are very clear. That's very reassuring for an actor. I want to work with him again. At the age of 14, success snuck up on you. 12 years later, do you have the impression that you've finally dealt with it all? Yes, I learned a lot. I understood some thing, I didn't understand other things. In the beginning, everything happened so fast. But after a few years, it's me who chooses the rhythm, and I try to control myself from getting frenzied and wanting to do so many things. Why do you protect your private life so much? Because you are very exposed in this profession. There are people who do it to be "rich and famous." That's what really frightens me. Money, that's good, certainly, it makes life easy. But fame, even with its advantages, it terrorizes me. And even if I do films and I do music, I don't have any reason to share my private life with everyone. You are going to give birth to a child. Do you want to talk about it? Not at all. Why? I don't respond to personal questions. I do interviews to support a film. That's all. Contrary to other artists, you prefer to remain in hiding? Come on, talk about something else. That's just shit.