As for the superficial similarities between 2 Days in Paris and Before Sunset, Delpy maintains that the film wouldn’t have got made without them. She has been writing scripts of wildly different kinds since she was 16. There was Tell Me, about a hostage who charms her kidnappers by telling them stories. And Bathory, about a countess who bathed in virgins’ blood. (The latter is currently in production as The Countess, with Delpy once again directing and starring.) Getting them financed was another matter. As far as backers were concerned, she was a cutie-pie, and they wanted a script that reflected that persona. “The response I got whenever I pitched something was, ‘Why don’t you write something sweet?’”
She had co-written Before Sunrise with Hawke, Linklater and Kim Krizan, though she and Hawke were not credited. “It was very painful for Ethan and me. Richard ‘didn’t have the power’ to get us credited.” She makes sarcastic quote-mark signs with her fingers when she says that. On Before Sunset, both actors received not only their dues but an Oscar nomination for best screenplay to boot. Still it was clear that she would only be trusted to direct something within the confines of the romantic comedy genre. “So I wrote 2 Days in Paris,” she shrugs. “But I twisted the idea of Before Sunset. I love that film but the characters are in a bubble; Paris has no influence. Here, it’s the opposite. The city is destroying Marion and Jack — their environment is literally attacking them.”
Delpy still has a home in Paris, but spends much of her time in Los Angeles where she writes furiously in between other pursuits — singing, for instance (she released a self-titled CD four years ago), or plugging away at her acting career, which shows no signs of becoming any more predictable or purposeful than it is now. Delpy merely does whatever piques her interest: a walk-on as the girlfriend walking out on Bill Murray in Broken Flowers; playing the actress Nina Van Pallandt in The Hoax, opposite Richard Gere; or appearing with Forest Whitaker in the ensemble drama The Air I Breathe.
“I love acting,” she says, “but I’m not a very actressy person. I don’t like the vanity it encourages, the way it makes you concerned about your age or your appearance. Writing doesn’t have that problem. For me, writing comes — well, I wouldn’t say before love but... .” She thinks for a moment, gives a little wobble of the head and changes her mind. “Yeah, I’d say it comes before.”
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