For three decades, she's been one of Hollywood's leading stars, her films considered amongst cinema's greatest. Oscar winner Faye Dunaway continues to roost the Hollywood nest, whether as an actress in Luc Besson's Joan of Arc epic, The Messenger, or as a would-be director. She's as tough as the gallery of characters she's portrayed. Paul Fischer met her in Los Angeles.

Faye Dunaway is not one to age gracefully, or to be reminded that she's not the glamour puss that became a star with Bonnie and Clyde some 30 years ago. The actress, now delicately greyed, is initially put off when reminded it's been thirty or so years since first gaining the spotlight. "What an indelicate remark", she exclaims while pouring the umpteenth cup of coffee for the day. "Years are not important, my dear", she adds, poutingly but with a slight smile. Yet the fact remains, that in her prime, Dunaway had some of Hollywood's choicest roles, which begs the question: Are those roles harder to come by the older she gets? "It's always difficult. When you're younger they always try to get you to do every ninny role that's going. I think you always have to look for stuff that's good and there is really good stuff especially in the independent arena." Unlike the studios "which is all about the blockbuster sometimes to the exclusion of very good roles." So for Dunaway, "the name of the game is to find your own stuff and develop it."

As a young actress, Dunaway was lucky in that the studios were prepared to take risks; the roles were there for the taking. "That was then. How many Bonnie and Clydes, Chinatowns and Networks are you seeing now?" Not that the industry is necessarily deteriorating, as some might argue. "It's just changed. Since Star Wars, that film's success led to bigger budgets, more hardware, that the great movies like the ones I did, which were studio movies, are now independent movies. They range from half a million to several million, and a lot of those have very interesting roles."

In The Messenger, The Story of Joan of Arc, Dunaway turns up in period attire as Yolande, the manipulative mother-in-law of the man-who-would-be-king, and is instrumental in having Joan of Arc be presented at court. For this lavish project, shot mainly in the Czech Republic over four months, Dunaway was "keen to work with Luc [Besson]. He's a formidable director and an auteur, who brings a whole world to the screen. I also found the character interesting. She's the one who moves the action a little bit and creates the opportunity for Joan to come to court, and I don't think she's ever been in a movie about of Joan of Arc before. In my mind, she was a very fearsome, thoughtful, political and intelligent woman."

This is a popular time for Joan of Arc in as short a time. Dunaway has no doubts as to the reason for the saint's timely resurgence. "There's the element of the miracle about her, there's this whole spirituality and the connection with voices - and it worked. She actually inspired the French soldiers to drive the English out, so that's the thing. If it hadn't worked, she just would have been another of those medieval nuts hearing voices." Interestingly, Dunaway could not only relate to her own character in the film, but conceded to an affinity with Joan. "It's that pure kind of connection to belief to what she believed, and what she thought she believed. It doesn't matter if she heard it or not - she believed that she did. It's a younger thing, something that I can imagine my son feeling or experiencing, not to mention all the kids. It belongs to that time in one's life; I don't think you ever lose it. As a woman of today, though, as a mother with so much going on, I'm more like Yolande at this moment, I think more like her and think more strategically. Whereas for a child, it's more a pure kind of desire and life force that just wants to prevail. But a lot of that's behind my strategic thinking." Which relates perfectly to the actress's Hollywood experiences. "That part that wants to create the opportunity for me to do the work that I want to do, is strategic, thoughtful and you make certain choices based on that."

While these days, Dunaway may need to fight a little bit harder for the roles, her early career is defined by the very history of American cinema that was groundbreaking at the time she came to the fore. As the co-star of the landmark Bonnie and Clyde, she helped usher in a new golden era in American filmmaking, going on to appear in several of the greatest films of the 1970s. Born January 14, 1941 in Florida, Dunaway was the daughter of an army officer. She studied theatre arts at the University of Boston and later joined the Lincoln Centre Repertory. Between 1962 and 1967 she appeared in a number of prominent stage productions, including A Man for All Seasons and Arthur Miller's After the Fall. Dunaway's breakthrough performance came in an off-Broadway production of Hogan's Goat, which resulted in a contract with director Otto Preminger. She made her film debut in his 1967 drama Hurry Sundown, but the two frequently clashed and she refused to appear in his Skidoo; after a legal battle, Dunaway was allowed to buy out the remainder of her contract, and she then starred in The Happening. Still, Dunaway was virtually unknown when she accepted the role of the notorious gangster Bonnie Parker opposite Warren Beatty in Arthur Penn's 1967 crime saga Bonnie and Clyde. The film was an unqualified success, one of the most influential films of the era, and seemingly overnight she had become a star, earning a "Best Actress" Oscar® nomination for her sexy performance.