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Though Belmondo is so natural on the screen that he appears to be the sort of actor who was discovered rather than trained, he had ten years of experience behind him by the time he made Breathless. Most of it he acquired at the Conservatoire, the French equivalent of Britain's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Bebel got experience of all kinds there. "In spite of my mug, it would be stupid to deny that I've always had a certain success with girls," he says.
Eventually he married a dancer named Renee, whose attractions were marred only by her name, which he couldn't stand. So he renamed her Elodie. Belmondo is devoted to her and to his three children. "I love my Elodie," he rhapsodizes, "because after I come home from a hard day between the sheets with Jeanne Moreau, Sophia Loren or Claudia Cardinale, she's bound to ask an insidious question like 'Well now, how was it in bed with Claudia today, dear?' Jealousy—that's what saves the household from conjugal routine. Is there anything in the world more icy, more disagreeable than a woman who never suspects that you're betraying her?"