Fanny Ardant is known as the grande dame of French movies. In 1979, she was a 36-year-old actress in a French soap opera when the late Francois Truffaut saw her.

The great director cast her opposite Gerard Depardieu in The Woman Next Door. She became a star, and their collaboration became personal: They had a child together.

Now 58, Ardant was in Washington and New York last week, performing a one-woman play by Marguerite Duras and promoting the movie Paris Je T'aime, or Paris, I Love You.

The movie is a collection of 18 vignettes, each set in a different Paris neighborhood. She and Bob Hoskins play a married couple in Pigalle, trying to rekindle the romantic flame.

Ardant talks to Robert Siegel about the film, her acting career and what she thinks about being known as a grande dame.

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