1982 : Romy Schneider, la dernière interview

Romy Schneider, with the film by Jacques Ruffiot, La Passante du Sans-Souci, you are, for the first time in your career, at the origin of a great adventure, because this film is a great adventure. How did you like this film? Have you read the book? Yes, a long time ago. Two years ago, I called Jacques Ruffiot to ask him if he had read the novel by Joseph Kessel, La Passante du Sans-Souci. I told him, let's do it together. He accepted. And that's all. I didn't do the work of Jacques Ruffiot and the work of Jacques Kirschner, which is a huge and beautiful work. I played my role. That's all. You told Daniel Ehman, in L'Express, coming out tomorrow, that this film is more than a film. By the way, Daniel Ehman writes, wanted, lived, inhabited by Romy Schneider. I suppose that the fact that this film is shot in Berlin is perhaps not strange to this remark. No. Berlin. Berlin represents a shame for everyone, a shame that we have been dealing with for 30 years. Imagine Paris or any other city cut in half. Berlin is also a city full of personal memories for me. Let's go back to La Passante du Sans-Souci. You are Elsa Wiener, the wife of an editor. You are separated from your husband, who was deported by the Nazis. And you come to France where you pick up little Max, whose adult role is played by Michel Piccoli. Little Max, who is an orphan, was also a victim of Nazism. In your opinion, does Nazism still mean something in Germany today? And in your opinion, how will this film be received there? In Germany and everywhere. We just have to watch TV to realize it. Every day, every day. How the film will be received in Germany, I don't know. I hope well. I hope a lot. Because it's a beautiful film. Romy Schneider, you shot this film at a difficult time in your life. I reassure you right away, I won't talk about it. But I would even like to know if you have thought for a moment to give up your job. Yes, I thought about it, but I won't do it. I love my job, it helps me. You told me while preparing this show that you wanted to shoot a little less to try to succeed more in your life, which is a difficult thing, sometimes compatible with the job of an actress, especially at this level. I want to take much more care of my personal life, of my private life, it's true. I shoot less films than before. But to succeed in my private life, I can't be alone, I'm not alone. Above all, to finally leave me alone. If we know, you know, what some so-called photographers are able to do, I think the public has the right to know, that we disguise ourselves as nurses to photograph a dead child, that there is a certain press that buys and publishes, one-sidedly, as they say, where is morality, where is tact?