When Sophie Marceau made her acting debut in the 1981 French hit La Boum, she was too young to possess any of the qualities we usually demand of our Gallic starlets: the pouty lips, the va-va-va-voorn figure, the penchant for arguing with directors. (All of those things, fortunately, would come later.) But even at 13, Marceau's natural talent and breezy charm were enough to earn her all instant European following, one that has grown with each of her 12 subsequent films - even though those movies, as she admits, "were not all masterpieces". Today, Marceau routinely tops Deneuve and Adjani in French popularity surveys, and when she strolls along the streets of her native Paris, has been approached by fans armed with bouquets of flowers. "It's wonderful, " she says, splaying her limbs over a plush chair here at a swank hotel on Paris's Left Bank. "It's like getting a present every day."

But last winter in Dublin, where Marceau spent two months shooting Braveheart, she didn't receive so much as a shamrock. Upon her arrival in Ireland, the actress was not only ignored in the streets, but on the set as well: she had no scene for the first several weeks. "When you're used to working in Europe, a Hollywood production can seem like a huge machine, " she says. "It can leave you feeling sort of lonely. I thought, 'Should I just wait at the hotel ? Should I go to the set and watch everybody else ? Maybe they'll call me tomorrow !'" Instead, she began exploring Dublin and hanging around in museums. "I know that city by heart, " she says.

In the end, though, Marceau had a chance to strut her stuff, or at least some of it. The role - her first in English - is that of Princess Isabelle, a sort of 13th-century, French-born Lady Di. Cold-shouldered by her cruel husband, the future Edward II (whom director Mel Gibson chose to depict as a cartoonishly weak homosexual), Isabelle suffers in virginal silence until she's sent on a mission to negotiate a settlement with the dashing Scottish freedom fighter Sir William Wallace (Gibson). When the two finally meet, Isabelle gets a taste of what she's been missing. "Bing !" Marceau says. "It's love at first sight !"

Gibson's reasons for choosing Marceau were fairly straightforward. "Well, she's beautiful, she's French and she's a good actress, " he says. "The character needed to be at least two of those things." Like most of his fellow Anglo-Saxons, Gibson knew almost nothing of Marceau's previous film work, or indeed of her stature in France (she was invited on President Mitterrand's tour of the Far East last year). Her French box office triumphs have proven resolutely success-proof in the English-speaking world. (In 1991's For Sasha, she played a young violinist on an Israeli kibbutz. In the recent D'Artagnan's Daughter - which at least received a UK release - she livened up Bertrand Tavernier's light comic swashbuckler - "It's not every day all actress gets all action part.")

Though Marceau has had an agent in Hollywood for the past five years, she's never been willing to tempt fate and move to Los Angeles, Julie Delpy-style, and read for every part in town. "To do auditions in LA, then wait a year for the phone to ring ? Completely depressing, " she snorts. "For me, things don't happen when I try too hard. I have to go on with my life, working here in my country. If that leads to other things, great."

Still, Marceau makes no attempt to hide her ennui with the current state of French cinema. "It's suffering from all overwhelming sadness, " she says. "Did you see the list of nominations for this year's Césars ? We've already forgotten those movies. In France, you can't be too much the star. You can't be too pretty. Look - our national star is Gérard Depardieu ! So sometimes we think about what it must be like to do Lethal Weapon. To play Sigourney Weaver's role in Alien. It's so far removed from reality - it's fun. In Hollywood, you can play witches, martians ! Actors can be heroes before they even reach the screen. Here, I'm always offered more or less the same kind of role - very realistic. I'm always looking for something a bit more extraordinary."

In French artistic circles, where Hollywood films are Public Enemy Number One, Marceau's staunch anti-protectionist stance has ruffled a few plumes. "The best way to protect the Culture is by making it worthy - not by passing laws, " she insists. "France is a country of subsidies. Socially speaking, that's fine, but culturally it can create problems. Nobody is challenged or forced to question their work, and that leads to an extremely conservative environment. There are no new ideas. France is not a modern country ! And cinema is a modern art.

"So I think it's great that American cinema poses such a threat, " she goes on. "I don't think we should imitate it - it's not our culture. But right now we have all these pseudo-auteurs who bore me, who don't have a new idea in their heads. And since they are so well-protected against the American invaders, they live among themselves in total autocracy. Outside France, their ideas interest nobody, but they won't change, because they're not really in danger."

Marceau sets down her glass of mineral water, leans forward and lets rip. "What I wish for the French cinema - and this is terrible, because I'd be the first victim - is that it gets even worse. Because then, at least, we'll look for new solutions. The problem with the French, in politics as well as in cinema, is that we say nothing, we change nothing until we're pushed to the limit. Someone once said, 'The French hate change, but they adore revolution.' It's true. We can't change day by day. We wait and wait, and we say nothing. And then, one day we can't stand it any longer, we kill everyone !"

Perhaps in all effort to stave off a murder spree of her own, Marceau has recently tried channelling her energies into directing. This spring, she shot an eight-minute short based on a script she wrote during her downtime on Braveheart. Its reception at the Cannes Film Festival was encouraging enough for Marceau to consider doing another.

"Directing gives you the chance to explain the world as you see it, " she observes. "And I feel that urge right now, to explain things the way I see them myself."

Marceau, who once lent her chic to everything from haute couture by Dior to the French railways, is currently rumoured to be one of the candidates to replace Isabella Rossellini as the face of Lancôme. But she points to the path taken by her fellow French actress, face of Chanel Carole Bouquet, as one she'll be avoiding.

"It is dangerous, because she is not really an actress, " says Marceau. "But I am an actress and when I look at Carole Bouquet I feel almost sorry for her. Is she an actress or Chanel ? It is confusing. Of course you make a lot of money when you do that and it can help you abroad."

So isn't Marceau tempted by the large amount of cash on offer if she did go down the modelling route ?

"Not really. If you represent something else, you are not an actress anymore, " she says. "I'm not a very material girl. If I was richer, I would live exactly the same. Though I would have a private plane. I like travelling and it would be much easier."

At the moment, the 28-year-old actress is expecting her first child, whom she'll raise with long-time partner Andrzej Zulawski, a Polish director 24 years her senior. Though Marceau has been notoriously tight-lipped in the press about her private life, she can't resist sharing a few personal ruminations as she enters into her last month of pregnancy. She says she'll miss the last nine months, which have brought her unprecedented serenity and grace.

"It's a boy, " asserts Marceau. "I don't know exactly who he is yet, but I think he's already someone with his own tastes, his own needs, his own point of view."

A chip off the old block, perhaps ?

"I hope I can show him some short cuts, " she muses. "But the most important thing for me is that he's someone with a clear view of the world. Someone who doesn't misunderstand life. Someone I'll really enjoy talking to."