John Wilson

When you started thinking, actually, I want to act, were there particular actors that you emulated or who were your favourites?

I mean, who were the role models?

I remember seeing French films, I don't know how, it must have been very late at night, I shouldn't have been awake, on television and seeing Anoukéme in Anoukéme and thinking, oh, that is what I want to do.

I want to run along beaches in Macintoshes and look like Anoukéme and be, you know... But you've had such a lifelong association with France.

Do you think it goes back to seeing those early films, Anoukéme?

Yeah, I do.

Did your mother introduce you to those French films, do you think?

She certainly introduced us to French.

I mean, it was packed off to French lessons with the nuns at seven.

So she was a Francophile?

She was an everythingophile.

She was a very, very curious, greedy for knowledge, greedy for experience.

I think it must have been very difficult for her, stuck in the country with five small children.

But, you know, she learned Greek.

She learned French.

She spoke Italian.

She was interested in words and the musicality of words.

I mean, obviously, I'm talking about her nonstop.

So she must have been a very big cultural influence in my life.

And I'm proud of that.