Audrey Hepburn Interview

How long has it been since you've been back here in the country? About a year and a half. Are you glad to be back? Oh, I'm thrilled. I'm really very, very happy. I always love being here. And it's marvelous to see our friends again, and the sunshine, and being back at Warner's. Now, we hear about working conditions in Europe, but we've heard both sides. We've heard that the American producers go over there to save money, and when it is all over with, perhaps they haven't saved that much money. The working conditions are difficult. Tell us about it. How do you find it, by comparison? Well, perhaps I'm not the right person to ask, because I'm not a producer, and I don't know about that side of the business. Where do you feel more comfortable? Let's put it that way, as a performer. I think it's too difficult a question to answer, because I've, as you know, I am a European, and I was brought up over there, and I have many friends, and I know a lot of the people I work with, and I adore working both places. And I'm not just trying to avoid answering your question. I've had, you know, very happy times working in Paris or Rome, some of the great times doing The Nun's Story in Rome. Some of the difficulties in production don't rub off. I think definitely that this is a place that's really geared for making motion pictures, and you have fewer occupations, technically, yes. But I depend a great deal emotionally on the atmosphere when I work, and on the people I work with, and I'm less aware of technical difficulties, being an actress and not a director or an art designer or a producer. In other words, those things really don't bother you. And I've very sincerely, I've been very, very happy both in Europe and here. Tell me this. When you're given a script and asked to decide, do you want to do this, what is it that makes you decide one way or another? How do you know that the part is right for you? It's very hard to say. I just like it, or it doesn't strike me as anything I particularly would like to do. Does it ever boil down to just the business end of it? In other words, you say, is this a good thing business-wise? In other words, have I ever done a picture that I didn't like for the money? Yes, for the money. Never. No, I've never done it. Do you think that perhaps too many performers today do, and therefore jeopardize their career? I've never spoken to them. I don't know for what reason they accept the pictures. I think most, most people and most performers in general, you know, have a dream when they start a picture and think they have something very, very good, and they often, part of the quality falls by the wayside for some reason or other, or even if they make a good picture, the audience doesn't always like it. It's a very tenuous, elusive thing, you know. It's a very fickle business. I don't know if it's so fickle. It so much goes with the times, and something the public liked, let's say, five or ten years ago might not appeal to them now. Do you actually decide? That's also very exciting about the business we're in. You can't predict. You can try, and you can follow your instincts and do the best you can. Do you follow your instincts? Do you say to yourself, this is what I like, and this is what I want to do, and is the decision yours, or does someone help you make the decision? I do follow my instincts. That's all I have to go by, because I do not have a great deal of experience. I don't have a great deal of knowledge. Not a great deal of talent. I was born, thank you, I was born with my own instincts, which I try to stay true to, and so far they've made me very happy. Is it difficult in this business to stay true to your instincts? It's never been hard for me, and I'm saying that humbly. I'm saying that I'm perhaps a really fortunate person, because I followed my instincts, and they've brought me nothing but blessings and good fortune and terribly kind people to work with, and so far it's been all right. Thank you.