Jane Birkin - biography

“I grind my teeth and keep my thumbs in so tight that I’ve dislocated them, just not to scream.  Sometimes as an actor one is lucky enough to be asked to scream.”

“When I was at school I used to scream in trains, in those concertina things between the carriages.  I used to try to be so good that sometimes I couldn’t bear it any more.”

“Any film I see at two o’clock in afternoon with my mother seems to cast a strange spell that means we both come out sobbing.”

“My mother was right: When you’ve got nothing left, all you can do is get into silk underwear and start reading Proust.”

“At 18, I was the oldest virgin in Chelsea.”

“He painted me when I was young because he was in love with me, but now that he has loved me he doesn’t paint me anymore.”

“I don’t know why people keep banging on about the ’60s.  I came from a conventional family and I didn’t go off with different people - I rather wish I had now, seeing all the fun everyone else was having.”

“I know what it’s like to have someone coming home who looks at you not in the way they used to in the old days, and I’ve seen my own face contorted with sadness and rage in the mirror.”

“I love Dickens because it makes me chuckle to myself so.  He has taken me to another world and out of so many earthly miseries.”

“I only like boutiques.”

“I’d rather live on my own than live with a face that looks at me with the wrong eyes.”

“If I were mayor, I’d invite everyone to have free boat trips on the river and free balloon rides over the city.  I’d let the elderly in residential homes wander free.”

“If you fall in love with a country and its people, that makes any country warm to you.”

“Keep smiling - it takes 10 years off!”

“People always like things that seem exotic.”

“Robert Louis Stevenson...  I’m focusing on the late short stories that I was ignorant of.  I always thought he was a boys’ author, but he’s not at all.”

Jane Birkin has appeared in the following films:
The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965)
Kaleidoscope (1966)
Blowup (1966)
Wonderwall (1968)
La piscine (1969)
Slogan (1969)
Les chemins de Katmandou (1969)
Sex Power (1970)
Alba pagana (1970)
Cannabis (1970)
Trop petit mon ami (1970)
19 djevojaka i Mornar (1971)
Romance of a Horsethief (1971)
Trop jolies pour être honnêtes (1972)
Dark Places (1973)
Don Juan ou Si Don Juan était une femme... (1973)
La morte negli occhi del gatto (1973)
Projection privée (1973)
Le mouton enragé (1974)
Comment réussir... quand on est con et pleurnichard (1974)
La moutarde me monte au nez (1974)
Sérieux comme le plaisir (1975)
La course à l’échalote (1975)
Catherine et Cie (1975)
Sept morts sur ordonnance (1975)
Bruciati da cocente passione (1976)
Je t’aime moi non plus (1976)
Le diable au coeur (1976)
L’animal (1977)
Death on the Nile (1978)
Au bout du bout du banc (1979)
Melancoly Baby (1979)
La miel (1979)
Egon Schiele – Exzesse (1981)
La fille prodigue (1981)
Rends-moi la clé! (1981)
Evil Under the Sun (1982)
Nestor Burma, détective de choc (1982)
Circulez y a rien à voir! (1983)
L’ami de Vincent (1983)
Le garde du corps (1984)
La pirate (1984)
L’amour par terre (1984)
Dust (1985)
Le neveu de Beethoven (1985)
Leave All Fair (1986)
La femme de ma vie (1986)
Soigne ta droite (1987)
Comédie! (1987)
Kung-fu master! (1988)
Jane B. par Agnès V. (1988)
Daddy Nostalgie (1990)
La belle noiseuse (1991)
Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma (1995)
Noir comme le souvenir (1995)
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (1995)
On connaît la chanson (1997)
A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries (1998)
The Last September (1999)
Ceci est mon corps (2001)
Reines d’un jour (2001)
Merci Docteur Rey (2002)
Mariées mais pas trop (2003)
La tête de maman (2007)
Boxes (2007)
Bunker (2008)
Les plages d’Agnès (2008)
36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup (2009)
Thelma, Louise et Chantal (2010)


Jane Birkin directed the following films:
Contre l’oubli (1991)
3000 scénarios contre un virus (1994)
Boxes (2007)