Scott Thomas plays Josephine, comtesse
de Cagliostro - an immortal countess and a jewellery thief.
"More countesses - I never get away from them,"
she joked.
The actress, 44, thoroughly enjoyed the role.
"I never die, never get old. It's fantastic. I have
to keep sipping very strange elixir, and I have all sorts
of strange things up my sleeve, like knives and poison."
"She's calculating, scheming, wicked, evil,"
she said.
"There's nothing nice about her, basically - apart
from her corset, which is quite wonderful."
Independent film-making
Scott Thomas said French directors have begun making
a wide variety of films now that they feel they "don't
have to reply to the American market so much".
"We're far more independent really, so we are able
to make all sorts of different films - from very small,
intimate problems to fantastic, all-singing, all-dancing
things like Arsene Lupin.
"I think that stems from the fact that the directors
in France are also the writers, so it becomes a very personal
commitment."
"They're taking a lot of time, putting a lot of
energy into it, so sometimes the commercial side has been
forgotten."
"But they're beginning to regain territory on that.
They're making big, successful pictures."
New project
She credited much of the transformation to Amelie, which
had excited France's domestic audience and "made
so many people happy."
The Chorus, too, has been a smash hit not only at the
theatres but in the music charts, with the soundtrack
becoming a huge seller.
"These films have a feel-good thing about them,
and people just come out of the cinema beaming,"
Scott Thomas explained.
That's just such a great thing to have."
Scott Thomas has just finished filming her next project,
Keeping Mum.
A rural English comedy, it stars Rowan Atkinson as a
pastor so intent on writing the perfect sermon he does
not notice his wife is having an affair with a golf instructor.
