Always, he shoots movie after movie. With often the most difficult characters to live as, the most difficult to be. In "Sept morts sur ordonnance" in 75, he kills his wife and children. In "Barocco", in 76, he is a resuscitated assassin. In "Dites-lui que je l'aime" [This Sweet Sickness], in 77, he's a crazed lover driven to crime. In "Bye Bye Monkey", in 78, Ferreri reduces him to an animal state in a troubling New York.  During those years, in spite of some happy interludes of success ("René Le Canne" in 77 or "Get Out your Handkerchiefs" in 78), he knew, he says, "the anguishes of a terrifying existence", but never got the hoped-for respect. The movies in which he plays often harvest prestigious rewards (Oscar for Best Foreign Movie for "Get Out your Handkerchiefs" by Bertrand Biler, "Mon oncle d'Amérique" and "Le dernier métro".) "Inspector La Bavure" is not without importance either: it is his first comic movie that works. A supplementary role [as a comedian] offers itself to him, he has only to find the ideal partners for the journey. He will find them one year later, thanks to "La Chèvre"…  These successes don't change anything in his strategy, that is to film a lot of movies, with people who interest him, while being more and more attentive to the scripts. 

He takes on a new, very violent role in "Choice of Arms" by Alain Corneau (who he will work with again two years later for "Fort Saganne"). A beautiful success. Then, it is "The Woman Next Door", again by Truffaut, that also raises the bar.  Finally, it is the filming of "La Chèvre".  Francis Veber and Pierre Richard come to be added to the short list of his friends, those with whom he feels ready to film wherever, whenever. "La Chèvre" is completed in December 81.  Some months later, Veber, Richard and Depardieu celebrate the million and a half entries [ticket sales] in Paris. Historic triumph.   

"People discovered me gradually.  Since I began this profession, I have been very childlike, my nature hasn't changed... I merely sharpened myself.  I sharpened everything that interested me about myself, that means the openness, the availability, the seduction... During all this time, all these movies, all these disappointments, all these successes, I remained clear because I don't like people who act idiotic -- I see them and I avoid that...  Such an attitude stinks to me... It is necessary to say that I am privileged: I went on the road, at twelve and a half years of age, and there, it was necessary to advance well, and to try to escape those who wanted to lock me in. I entered this profession with my eyes that looked at everything, my fantasy, my strength and, especially, an irrepressible thirst to learn, to be cultivated, to learn good taste. It is not by chance that today I like the beautiful books, the beautiful texts... It is a law: if you don't want to appear ridiculous, it is necessary to try to learn, to cultivate oneself..." 

Three movies that have sold over a million tickets in seven years, a dozen of beautiful successes, it is far more than is necessary, in France today, to be dubbed a "star".  He is certainly that. And it's as much because all his movies filmed in 76 - 78 that no one, or nearly no one, had gone to see, started appearing on TV.  The mass public started discovering the enormity of his range and to fully appreciate his excessive genius. Nothing he had done in the past will have been therefore useless.
 
His image in the public mind is not as precise as a Belmondo or a Delon, but it exists. Women are not afraid of him anymore, the children who saw "La Chèvre" stop him on the street, and the hoodlums who liked him in "Choice of Arms " invite him to have a drink. His legend begins to write itself in the collective unconscious.  He is discerned today by all to be a "big actor", and doesn't have need of a stationary image therefore to exist.  He goes for a walk from one movie to the other, from one a facet of himself to the other, he doesn't have a particular and invisible contract with "his" public, he changes direction, and it is now accepted.  His image, to him, is multiplicity. 

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