'There's no doubt she's very beautiful," my French friend said as we left the cinema. "But she's not an actress. No Juliette Binoche. All she does is play herself." Paris, late June, and the cinema had been packed, even though Le Fabuleux Destin d'AmΘlie Poulain (as the original French title goes) had already been playing for two months, leaving the summer invasion of US blockbusters trailing helplessly in its wake.
But what only becomes clear on meeting her is that Audrey Tautou (pronounced "toe-too")is far from your usual bouteille de Perrier. Far from "just playing herself", she is already, at 23, an actress of extraordinary ability. Her own personality is as distinct from the eponymous daffy heroine as the film itself is from the brooding intensity of what we normally think of as French cinema.
Tautou's on-screen image of Betty Boop meets Minnie Mouse is the epitome of gawky innocence (think Annie Hall with a Gallic twist and Doc Martens) and matches the fantasy Paris of Montmartre, where the film is set.
Although ostensibly set in 1997, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's portrayal is pure 1950s: the cafΘ with its selection of misfits; the surly market-stall owner and his put-upon slave; and, at its heart, the apartment block where AmΘlie lives and spins out her dreams.
Jeunet's original choice for his put-the-world-to-rights heroine was Emily Watson - the screenplay had already been altered to accommodate an English-speaking actress (her involvement lives on in the name). When she pulled out, he chanced to see Tautou's face on a poster for the film VΘnus BeautΘ, and called her in for an audition.
"I couldn't believe it when I heard he had asked me to read for it," Tautou says. "It was just too good to be true. I never thought for a moment that I would get it, but knew that I had to really do the best I had ever done. If I did anything less than the ultimate then I would always reproach myself."
Tautou - who has been compared with Audrey Hepburn both in looks and gamine insouciance - sprawls on a sofa in the five-star hotel suite where the interviews are being held. My young interpreter (male) finds it hard to concentrate, too busy just gazing at the gazelle in front of him: long limbs swamped in baggy jeans that barely stay up, riding low on delicate hip bones; tight camisole and skimpy sequinned cardigan; the toes of her bare feet (red nail varnish) stretching and moving as she speaks; her face a perfect oval, dominated by eyes twice the size of anyone else's I have ever seen.
What preparation did she do for her test? Watched Delicatessen on video. She had heard of it but never seen it; ditto Alien: Resurrection. Jean-Pierre Jeunet says that he knew within 10 seconds of meeting her that she was the one. Not only did she look the part, he says, "but she is a true character actress, which is quite rare in France".
Audrey Tautou never set out to be an actress. She was born into middle-class provincial France - the unusual surname is typical of the region. Her father is a dentist, her brother a gendarme, her sister studies political science at Toulouse University.
She was studying English at the Sorbonne when she went on a two-week summer school at the Cours Flourant, France's top drama academy. When it offered her a scholarship to go straight into the second year, she didn't think twice. Until then, her interest in spectacle had been on the design and production side.
"I was attracted to the making, the infrastructure of performance, the organisation, the creative side," she says. As a child, she was clearly indulged: she played the oboe and the piano, and did dance, martial arts and horseriding. Provincial life offered little in the way of live theatre, but there was the cinema. By the time Jeunet spotted her face on the poster, she had already been awarded a CΘsar for Most Promising Young Actress, as a young beautician in VΘnus BeautΘ, the only one of her previous six films that has been seen outside France.
International acclaim seemed guaranteed when AmΘlie - an innovative mix of creative animation and live action - was entered for the Palme D'Or in the Cannes Film Festival last May. But to everyone's surprise, the film was turned down and five other French films were accepted.
"In fact, I wasn't really surprised, except in the sense that everyone else thought that it was a foregone conclusion," Tatou says. "Because I never saw it as a Cannes film. It's not an arthouse film. A festival that represents French cinema doesn't choose films like that. They go for more profound, intellectual films."
The press however, had already been given a screening and when they heard that AmΘlie had been rejected, they rent the air with cries of foul. The result was a free publicity campaign that soon had French audiences breaking attendance records. Everyone from Jacques Chirac to Lionel Jospin jumped on the "we love AmΘlie" bandwagon. It was a film, the politicians decided, that totally justified state support for French cinema.
Not everyone was so struck. The film critic for the left-leaning Liberation accused Jeunet of pandering to nostalgia, labelling the film "Eurodisney goes to Montmartre". Things hotted up when Serge Kaganski, editor of an arts and listings magazine, wrote: "If Le Pen \leader of the French National Front was looking for a film to promote his vision of the French people and his idea of France, AmΘlie Poulain would be the ideal candidate."
Montmartre, he pointed out, is now far from being the romantic 19th-century warren of artists' studios and cosy cafΘs it once was. It is a down-at-heel quartier, home to north Africans, Turks, Chinese and Pakistanis. "Jeunet's Paris has been cleansed of all its ethnic, social, sexual and cultural differences," Kaganski wrote. I ask Tautou if she has any sympathy with this view. The huge brown eyes grow even bigger and she looks at me aghast.
"Working in any creative area, there's always the risk that your work isn't going to be accepted everywhere and by everyone," she says. "And that's just as it should be. We are all different and everyone has the right not only to think that way but to write about it as well. But to make a moral indictment against a film based on your own personal interpretation? No.
"I consider that, by writing that sort of article, Kaganski was just exhibiting his own intellectual prejudice, his own mental imbalance if you like. The guy clearly has a problem. To attack a film like this - a film that is in every way a fantasy - is monstrous, and to imply that the director is in effect a fascist goes against the whole idea of making films, the whole spirit of the film industry.
"This film is a fable, it's a fantasy. It's like a painting. Do you have to put everything in that your eye can see? Of course not. To consider that a painting or a film should have its quota of black people, yellow people, red people itself denotes racism."
Had she thought about going public with her views? She gives a Gallic shrug.
"There's no point. I think that, in the end, you have to just accept that this is a sad guy. With such a skewed view on life you just have to feel sorry for him. He must have a problem to be so bitter. Out of the six million French people who have seen the movie, he seems to be the only person to have given it this spin. It's a film about feelings, it's not a film that lends itself to analysis. For me the prime purpose of the film is to create emotions, it's not about delivering messages. Not all films have to have a message. What Jean-Pierre's films do, from Delicatessen to Alien is deconstruct reality, to go beyond. That's what he does, he goes beyond reality."
As for the future, she's in no hurry. She has already done two more films since finishing AmΘlie - just small parts, she explains. She sees no virtue in only accepting leads. It's specific projects that interest her, not how much time her face is on the screen. As for being in the premier league, she smiles enigmatically. She has no false expectations.
"I don't want to have some long-term career plan set in stone," she says. "Whatever else you can be sure of, nothing is sure except that things won't go to plan and, thanks to my family, I am grounded enough not to be traduced by the flattery that is coming my way. And it's always been like this for me. My parents are not at all starry.
"They are very proud of me, but they are equally proud of my brother and sister. They are very happy that from a financial point of view I'm going to be OK for a while and when they feel I deserve it, they compliment me. But if I turn in a bad piece of work - and it has happened - they don't automatically say 'brilliant' etcetera. They're more likely to say: 'God, that was dreadful.'"
As for the directors she would like to work with in the future, Audrey Tautou refuses to be drawn. She has no intention, she says, of tempting fate; nor, she adds with a flash of AmΘlie's daffy grin, of alienating the ones she might leave out.
Le Fabuleux Destin d'AmΘlie Poulain opens in Ireland on Friday