Another inspiring story about perseverance.

Today I spent the whole day at the Sundance Comedy Shorts Lab. I will report on it next week, but couldn't wait to share this anecdote with you.


The only reason Julie Delpy started acting is because Godard put her in a movie. At 14, she approached him because she wanted to work on his crew and he told her that she instead was going to play mandolin in his movie. She wrote her first screenplay at 16, wrote 15 more over the years. It took 20 years to get to 2 Days in Paris. She showed Sam Shepard a script while they were making Voyager (1991) and he told her it was shit and to stay pretty and keep acting.  Everyone told her she was shit but she kept on writing. She was wasting away locked up in her house when friends literally dragged her out and convinced her to start work on Before Sunset.  Then her agent fired her and told her "you're writing a shit sequel to a shit movie." (He wanted her to play a latina in a Rush Hour movie). Even after the Oscar nomination people told her she was shit. And then one person liked the 2 Days in Paris screenplay and raised 400,000 euro for the budget. Because the film was successful, she was given the money for the sequel, 2 Days in New York.


She stressed that not giving up is the most important thing and obviously she's right.