Carl Theodor Dreyer on casting Renée Jeanne Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928):
"I went to see her one afternoon and we spoke together for an hour or two. I had seen her at the theater. A little boulevard theater whose name I have forgotten. She was playing there in a light, modern comedy and she was very elegant in it, a bit giddy, but charming. She didn't conquer me at once and I didn't have confidence in her immediately. I simply asked her if I could come to see her the next day. And during that visit, we talked. That is when I sensed that there was something in her to which one could make an appeal. Something that she could give; something, therefore, that I could take. For behind the make-up, the pose, behind that modern and ravishing appearance, there was something. There was a soul behind that facade. If I could see her remove the facade it would suffice me. So I told her that I would very much like, starting the next day, to do a screen test with her. "But without make-up," I added, "with your face completely naked." She came, therefore, the next day ready and willing. She had taken off her make-up, we made the tests, and I found on her face exactly what I had been seeking for Joan of Arc: a rustic woman, very sincere, who was also a woman who had suffered. But even so, this discovery did not represent a total surprise to me for, from our first meeting, this woman was very frank and, always, very surprising. I therefore took her for the film, we always understood each other very well, we constantly worked very well. It has been said that it was I who squeezed the lemon. I have never squeezed the lemon. I never squeezed anything. She always gave freely, with all her heart. For her heart was always committed to what she was doing."
— "Interview with Carl Theodor Dreyer" by Michel Delahaye, Cahiers du Cinéma, no. 170 (September 1965). Translated by Rose Kaplin
⬇️ Carl Theodor Dreyer / Renée Jeanne Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc.