French actress Julie Delpy has been making films since she was 14. Now she has turned her attention to writing, directing and producing. Steve Pratt talks to her.

Julie Delpy admits that it took a lot of time and trouble to raise the finance for her first film as a director. "I didn't have to have sex with anyone, luckily," she volunteers.

But she did have to sell her talent to people. To get music rights, for instance, she promised the company who owned them that she'd compose a song for them.

"It was not easy. It was a very small film financially and I had to take on more hats than I am credited with. All the stuff no director has had to deal with," says Delpy - who's director, writer, star, editor and composer of Two Days In Paris.

"I had to sell my talent to people. Really weird stuff that I would never do but had to do for the film. I had to give away ideas for films to people."

The movie follows two stormy days in the relationship of a New York-based couple, French photographer Marion (Delpy) and American interior designer Jack (Adam Goldberg). Her overbearing parents, old boyfriends and his jealousy make for a difficult time.

The story is not, as you might think, autobiographical, even though she has her real parents (Marie Pillet and Albert Delpy) as her screen parents. "There are things similar to me, like a French woman living in the US," explains Delpy, on a trip to the Edinburgh Film Festival where Two Days In Paris was the closing film.

"It's a little annoying sometimes when people think it's autobiographical. I don't think Marion is such a good person. I'm much nicer than her. At the same time I like her, but I am not her.

"She's fearless. I wouldn't attack people, I don't like arguing or conflict. I can be argumentative when I need to be, but I'm not like that.

"People think I am Marion. Luckily, I already have a boyfriend who knows I am not like Marion, or I would be alone for the rest of my life.

Delpy has been acting since she was a teenager, having been cast by director Jean-Luc Godard in his film Detective when she was 14. Since then she's worked all over the world with her US credits including The Three Musketeers, Killing Zoe, Before Sunrise, The Hoax and An American Werewolf in Paris.

She first started putting together Two Days in Paris six years ago, and despite the problems, she found the whole process "really exciting", she says.

"It's much more work, much more time-consuming than acting. It's like a whole year has gone, with acting you could do five movies. I've been wanting to direct for years. I wrote my first script when I was 17. I couldn't get any finance. I wrote another at 22 and 25 and 29.

"This time people gave me - how much did I get? - 500,000 Euros and extra money to finish the film."

The genesis for the story was spending a New Year weekend with a friend and having the worst time of their lives, with one bad thing after another happening.

"Luckily, it was with a girlfriend of mine, a good friend, but I was imagining what if it was a boyfriend and it was one thing after another. Horrible things, fights, people. That could destroy a relationship over 24 hours," she says.

"That's when it came to me. Basically, the film is a reflection of my own paranoia, losing someone I love through a series of events."

It was always going to be an American man because she wanted the contrast with the French. "People say 'you made it that the French talk about sex all the time'. Why not? French people talk about sex, food and politics," says Delpy.

"I need to feed Jack's paranoia. His worst fear is to share his woman with someone else. I know men like that. They almost wish their girlfriend was a virgin even though she's 34.

"The film will scare some men because the woman is the one protecting him. I reversed the roles without thinking about it.

People have noted a lot of references to castration. It's because I truly empathise with men in a way because they feel in danger of castration since women have taken, not power, but are more independent. For some men, it feels like castration when it should not.

"To me, the message of the film is that it doesn't matter if a woman is strong, it doesn't mean she can't love or want to be loved. Love has nothing to do with strength or being a working woman."

Perhaps there should be a men's liberation movement, she continues, and men should accept they're as sensitive as women, if not more so.

"The idea that the role of men is to be strong is all bulls**t. If some men want to be fathers and raise children, great, if it's a natural choice and they don't feel threatened by it."

She wants to direct again but, unlike many actors who start directing, isn't about to say she doesn't want to act again. "I love acting. Sometimes it's a bit frustrating. I don't want to act just to act. I would never do a money job again, I just want to act with directors I admire and, when I'm not, I'd like to do my own films."

She's already preparing her next film, The Countess, telling the story of a real-life 17th Century Hungarian countess who bathed in the blood of virgins to stay young and beautiful. You may remember the plot from Hammer's Countess Dracula.

Delpy has written the script. "There's very little bleeding and killing. It's about power. There are only a few people in the cast, it's not a big epic. And there's no vampire in my film."

Two Days In Paris (15) shows at Newcastle Tyneside cinema (at the Old Town Hall, Gateshead) from Friday.