Naked ambition from Perez

The film is set in the elegant late 18th century in France when the State, in alliance with the Church, had banned the Encyclopedia published under the direction of the great French philosopher Denis Diderot. They chose the wrong man because Diderot was not only an intellectual libertine but an innovator who knew no limits. His mind was astonishing. It was as fertile as his ability to seduce.

I play Diderot who, with his wife and daughter is visiting the chateau of the Baroness d'Holbach (Josiane Balasko), where the encyclopedia is being illicitly printed. Then the adventurous Madame Therbouche, an artist played by Fanny Ardant arrives. She becomes the leading lady of Diderot's already substantial cast of women with whom he discusses, shall we say, "philosophical and physiological matters".

This throws the cardinal, played by Michel Serrault, into hell because he, too, is a man with desires - but his dream is to end the emerging rationalism, epitomised by Diderot.

I spend much of the film, directed by Gabriel Aghion (Belle Maman), in the nude. I am not an exhibitionist - although I think all actors are a little bit like that - but I felt these scenes were logical "reflections on nature". We see nude women on screen all the time, why not men?

I am drawn to free thought and free spirit more than I am to free sex. I think my Catholic education probably saw to that. Even now the questions Diderot brought up about life are valid.