Marion Cotillard: Leo still stuns me

Marion Cotillard can't believe she "really" worked with Leonardo DiCaprio.

The French actress has enjoyed an amazing career, starring alongside the Titanic hunk in Inception and appearing in other huge flicks such as Midnight in Paris and Public Enemies.

When she takes a moment to think about what she's achieved, it leaves the 38-year-old stumped.

"I never imagined that one day I would work with Woody Allen, or Michael Mann, or Daniel Day-Lewis, or Leonardo DiCaprio..." she marvelled to Empire magazine.

"It still surprises me when I tell you the list. I'm like, 'Did I really work with them?'

"But then my idea of unreachable started to change. I had a meeting, for example, with a director who made me cry when I was a little kid because of some extra-terrestrial... So yeah, the unreachable changed."

Marion has been with partner Guillaume Canet since 2007 and they have a son, Marcel, together. Juggling her challenging career with family life can be hard, particularly when she takes on a gritty role.

"Yes. I have to confess: my characters affect my life," she admitted.

"But I'm aware of it, so I deal with it pretty well. And when I cannot deal with it, I call my man and I ask him to take my son away! Because sometimes it's hard.

"I talked to some friends about this and they said, 'You have to protect yourself more.' Because when I'm shooting, I'm a different person. I'm still myself but with other ingredients - some liveable-with, some not so liveable-with."