The director was initially accused of raping a 13-year-old girl after plying her with champagne and a Quaalude pill during a 1977 modeling shoot. He pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse, then fled to France on the eve of sentencing in 1978.

Polanski, 76, is under house arrest in his Swiss chalet in Gstaad as he fights extradition to the United States.

“I am no longer such a carefree person, I am no longer the same Emmanuelle,” Seigner said.

Seigner said that she and the children do not live with Polanski in Gstaad but visit as often as they can.

Despite the mixed reviews and word of mouth, the Scorsese thriller is still the only real event movie out there for people who don’t need a return trip to Pandora. While I didn’t care for “Shutter Island” one bit, I am heartened that a moody, complicated, two-hour-plus, non-sequel, R-rated thriller from Martin Scorsese is a genuine smash hit. In this day and age, it’s always refreshing to see an adult-driven genre picture to reach heights only usually accorded to franchises and animated films. The picture is Scorsese’s fifth-biggest domestic grosser, and will reach no. 3 on that list by next weekend. Whether or not it can surpass the $132 million earned by “The Departed” is an open question, but it won’t have any demo competition until “The Green Zone.” That Bourne-goes-to-Baghdad thriller opens March 12. (I have no idea if that’s an accurate summary, by the way, but it’s sure how the Paul Greengrass/Matt Damon film is being sold by Universal).

Nos. 2 and 3 went to new releases. Both performed a bit above expectations. Kevin Smith’s “Cop Out” nearly doubled his previous personal-best opening weekend with $18.5 million (his previous high, “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” opened with $11 million back in August 2001). This also marks one of Bruce Willis’ best debuts over the last decade, as his star power has decreased since he stopped working with M. Night Shyamalan. It’s his 11th-best opening weekend, and most of the bigger openings were from the 1990s. This isn’t just a case of waning star power as much as Willis choosing non-commercial ventures. No one expected “Alpha Dog” or “Lucky Number Slevin” to play like “Armageddon,” so this solid opening with a purely commercial picture is a good sign.

As for Smith, this will easily become his biggest-grossing picture, as he’s never had a film gross over $31 million (Warner spent $30 million making this one). I’d argue that while the whole “Kevin Smith tossed off airplane” controversy helped push the film into the public consciousness, it still doesn’t excuse how the media covered said event (essentially: “Ha ha, Kevin Smith is fat!” rather than “Hey, Southwest Airlines ejected a passenger who clearly was not too obese to fly!”). As it is, Smith’s movies are often greeted by one controversy or another (Kevin Smith vs. the Roman Catholic church, Kevin Smith vs. GLAAD, Kevin Smith vs. the overexposure of “Bennifer”). It will be interesting to see how the film plays long-term. Despite terrible reviews, it still pulled in a solid 3.13x multiplier, implying theoretically positive word of mouth. It will also be interesting to see if Tracy Morgan gets more film work as a result of this opening, as the film was clearly sold on his antics as much as Willis’ star-power.

Number three went to the remake of “The Crazies,” which Overture opened to $16.5 million. The surprisingly well-reviewed remake of a 1973 George Romero picture pulled in a 2.75x multiplier, which is about normal for a horror film. With this opening and “Law-Abiding Citizen,” “Capitalism: A Love Story” and “Righteous Kill,” Overture is establishing itself as a major player. For what it’s worth, my wife and I watched the original version of “The Crazies” last night, and it’s a shockingly good and genuinely disturbing little picture. If the remake is any good, might I suggest you check out director Breck Eisner’s previous film, the vastly underrated “Sahara”? Anyway, fourth place went to the film that cannot be killed (until next weekend, when it will likely be killed), “Avatar.” Dropping just 13 percent, the James Cameron epic crossed $700 million in its 11th weekend. Alas, this will likely be the last weekend of tiny drops, as Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” opens on Friday and will steal all of the IMAX screens and most of the 3D auditoriums.

The only limited releases were the foreign-language Oscar nominee “A Prophet” ($170,000 on nine screens), “Formosa Betrayed” ($69,000 on 15 screens), the documentary “Art of the Steal” ($40,300 on three screens) and “The Yellow Handkerchief” ($39,600 on seven screens). Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer” expanded to 43 screens and made another $870,000. It’s new total is $1.1 million. While the film was not cheap ($45 million), Summit Entertainment is only on the hook for whatever they paid for North American distribution rights, so this should be a nice non-”Twilight” feather in their cap to go along with their likely Oscar glory for “The Hurt Locker.” Other than that, it was just a matter of various films crossing arbitrary marks. “Valentine’s Day” crossed $100 million, “Percy Jackson and the … too tired to type out the full title for this terrible movie” and “Dear John” crossed $70 million, while “The Wolfman” sits at just $57 million (on a reported budget of $150 million). “Crazy Heart” crossed $25 million and “When in Rome” crossed $30 million. At $248 million, “The Blind Side” is less than $10 million from passing “Star Trek,” after dropping just 10 percent in its 15th weekend.

Join us next weekend for the likely-to-be-huge debut of Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland.” While I likely won’t see it until opening night (it was a choice of seeing it early by myself or waiting until Friday and letting my wife come along), I do hope it’s closer to this than to this. Alas, if you’ve read this, you know where my instincts lie. Also opening is the Antoine Fuqua police drama, “Brooklyn’s Finest” (also from Overture) and the IFC Jon Hamm thriller, “Stolen.” Oh AT&T U-Verse, why don’t you carry IFC On Demand?

Speaking of dreadful weather, Brosnan and co-star Ewan McGregor — who was entertaining another reporter in an adjoining room, perhaps 20 yards away — had been enlisted to try to normalize the climate surrounding Roman Polanski’s new film “The Ghost Writer.” With Polanski under house arrest in Switzerland awaiting possible extradition to the United States for sentencing in his late-’70s sex-crime conviction, Brosnan and McGregor had clearly been tasked with refocusing the discussion on the film as a canny, enjoyable political thriller, and on its director’s impeccable craftsmanship rather than the ugly and tragic details of his private life. One could argue, in fact, that all the controversy and conversation has only helped “The Ghost Writer,” which has opened strongly in New York and Los Angeles, and won Polanski the best-director award at the recent Berlin Film Festival. (According to producer Alain Sarde, Polanski remarked that even if he could have gone to Berlin, he wouldn’t have: “The last time I went to a festival to get a prize I ended up in jail.”)

I had been instructed that Brosnan would have no comment on Polanski’s current legal predicament or on the disturbing act of sexual predation to which he pleaded guilty in 1977. Indeed he politely declined to discuss all such matters and has gone only a little further with other reporters. (“The life of Mr. Polanski has been a very turbulent one and one fraught with tragedy,” he told David Chen of SlashFilm.)

Rather than beat my head against that wall, I invited Brosnan to expound on his on-set collaboration with Polanski. Perhaps that’s illuminating in a different way (and perhaps not). Brosnan’s character in “The Ghost Writer,” disgraced former British Prime Minister Adam Lang, bears an obvious resemblance to Tony Blair. As Brosnan observes, he ended up “being an actor playing an actor playing the role of the British prime minister.” But Lang also bears a bizarre and accidental resemblance to Polanski himself — he’s a charismatic ladies’ man, well known around the world, who has fled into exile in a foreign country to avoid facing the consequences of his past misdeeds. (Pedantic footnote: Since Polanski is a native-born French citizen, he hasn’t literally been an exile or an expatriate since leaving the U.S.)

It must be a little strange to come back to this film, which I know you completed more than a year ago, and have it become a major news event because of these, let’s say, extraneous factors.

It’s always like that with films, in a certain sense. You revisit them with members of the press, sometime later, and you can’t even remember them. As soon as they’re done, they’re done. Nevertheless, with something like “The Ghost Writer,” and a director like Roman Polanski, who is the finest expression of artistic intention — he’s quite unique, and it’s somewhat indelible, the experience of working with him.

So it was the idea of working with Polanski that drew you to this film?

Absolutely. That’s the reason I said yes to this project. I was quite taken with the challenge and the offer from him to play this ex-British prime minister. That’s the last thing I ever expected to get, being a good Irishman by birth and heart. I saw the humor in that too. I thought it was quite ironic. I never asked Mr. Polanski, “Why me?” Maybe next time I speak to him, I will: “By the way, why did you cast me?” Ultimately, because he thought I was a good enough actor to pull this off, but with Roman, he’s always dealing with metaphor and humor.

Right. Well, having the man who played the most famous fictional British secret agent play the disgraced former prime minister…

An ex-James Bond playing the ex-British prime minister! It all seems to sort of be making sense now!

We don’t want to give anything away, because this is a film that takes quite a few twists and turns. But maybe that’s a subterranean clue to the nature of the character.

Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure it’ll be spoken of or mentioned, as we have now. But I thought it was a great book by Robert Harris. I thought it was a wonderful page-turner. These are not the kinds of books I read, but nevertheless they seem to find me. “The Tailor of Panama,” “The Fourth Protocol” — there’s a ribbon of them in my career, and I find them very enjoyable to be part of. When they’re constructed well, they’re great pieces to play and great worlds to exist in as an actor. And then, of course, Polanski. It all goes together so well. He was very sincere and genuine to the book, because the book was so well constructed by Harris.

What is Polanski like on the set?

You want to be your best for the fellow, as you want to be your best for every director. But none more so than Polanski, because he’s so intense, and so into every aspect of the filmmaking. He gives you line readings, which can be quite abhorrent to an actor. To me, I found it quite humorous, because his accent is so Polish and so thick, it doesn’t quite fit into the context of playing the British prime minister.

[Unreproducible "Polanski accent":] “Don’t play it like that! It goes like this: ‘Give my friend a Calvados!’” I had to say, “Roman, this is doing my head in.” You have to match wits with him.

Well, I know he started out as an actor in Poland in the ’50s, in films by Andrzej Wajda and others. He’s acted a lot, actually.

Oh, he’s still an actor. He still loves to play out all the roles. When you enter onto the stage, you’re in the domain of Polanski. It’s his world. He rules. He ordains every movement and gesture and color, the look of the piece. We shot in Berlin, we shot at Babelsberg [the oldest studio in the world, where many classic German films were made]. That’s a potent place of cinema and structure and time.

Right. So that big beach house we see in the film, which is supposed to be in Massachusetts, that was all built in a studio.

All built in a studio, with the classic green screen for the Cape Cod landscape outside. So you’re just looking at green when you’re sequestered on set.

Is that peculiar, working that way? You’re used to doing location work, aren’t you?

Not at all, not at all. You know, you’re trained as an actor from a very early age to use your imagination, stand on an empty stage and see Birnam Wood come toward you, see the tree of Godot, or see whatever. Well, you’ve got to have the tree of Godot, sorry! But you know what I’m saying.

So it was more like doing theater, maybe, than most of the films you’ve made.

Yeah, it’s a very theatrical experience. Not that I’ve done that much green-screen. I did a bit in the world of Bond. Babelsberg, I think, gave us all a feeling of the past, and the presence of Polanski gave us a feeling of the past. You’re working with a man who’s 76 years of age, and who’s acquitting himself on the set like a first-time film director who’s passionate for his first movie, and who’s deeply knowledgeable about the camera and the presence of actors before the camera, and how to position them for the most effective storytelling.

That set alone, that bunkerlike set, that gave us a lot of ambience. Then, when we were outside — I mean we weren’t outside that much; Ewan was outside a bit, when he rides his bike around the island — the desolation of the landscape informs the film. Certainly the film ends on a note of desolation and foreboding.

Your character bears at least some resemblance to a living ex-prime minister, and certainly Robert Harris’ novel has been interpreted as an attack on the Blair legacy. How much or how little did you think about that?

Well, that was my first question to Roman Polanski when we met in Paris over lunch: “Am I playing Mr. Tony Blair?” He said, “No, you’re not playing Tony Blair.” However, all emblems and indications and roads seem to point toward that particular man. I had to hang my hat on someone, so I looked at footage of the performance of Mr. Tony Blair playing the British prime minister, and then I looked to the pages of the novel and the script, the character of Adam Lang, who leaves university, who is a fantastic actor, who is a star prime minister, a populist. Then you come to the role of you being an actor playing an actor playing the role of the British prime minister. So it becomes this kind of play within the play. This kind of Max Escher-like transformation.

The character of Ruth [Lang's wife, played by Olivia Williams] really gave me a lot. When I looked at her malevolence within the piece, you know, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth came to mind. None of which was spoken about with Olivia or with Roman. But just the sensation of drama, of Jacobean drama, was very present.

Yes, the portrait of a political marriage the two of you create is very complicated, very tricky, full of nuance. You mean to say you never really discussed it?

She and I had one dinner when she got into town. I remember that my day’s work was over, and I called her. She’s a true character. She said, “Hello, darling, let’s have dinner!” She’s a very passionate actor, Olivia. We spoke a little about the life and history of the characters, but beyond that — you look at the text and you play a role.

Well, actors on your side of the Atlantic are mostly free of that American method-acting disease, where you have to write an 800-page biography of the character…

God, no! No! I was taught in the Method by some of the finest teachers of the Method. I’ve worked the Method and lived the Method, but at the end of the day, if you understand the role, you know how to act the role — pretend the role — then so be it. There are times when, of course, you do use yourself. The age-old adage: What if I were prime minister? What if I were in this situation? The wolves are at the door, the long knives are out, you’re running for your life, and you realize you’re adrift politically, spiritually, emotionally. You need your wife. And she’s not there. How does that feel?

I need to wrap this up by asking you at least one Bond-related question. You’re a member of a pretty exclusive club, the former 007s. How do you think Daniel Craig has done with the role?

Well, I know Daniel is a fine actor, and you have to be a good actor to play the role, that’s for sure. It’s not something easy. I mean, you know, Sean [Connery] is the man I look to all the time — he was the Bond for me. I haven’t seen Daniel’s performances as Bond. I never really watched the Bond films, to tell you the truth. When I was playing the role, I didn’t watch myself. My sons are always saying, “Dad, why don’t you watch James Bond with me?” But I have better things to do.

Most promisingly, the $80 million potboiler improved over the weekend, going from a $14.1 million Friday to a to $16.3 million Saturday. Paramount predicted a 40 percent Sunday drop to $9.7 million, so I think we’re being buttered up for a “Wow, the movie did even better than we thought” Monday press release when the finals are released. Regardless, in this day and age, a 2.85x weekend multiplier is pretty solid for any opening weekend this big, even for an R-rated adult-driven thriller.

Much will be written about how Paramount’s choice to move the picture from October 2009 to this weekend was a brilliant move. In hindsight it was, but it purely a hard financial call, as the studio was trying to save money during the last quarter of the year, until the DVD cash from “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” came rolling in. As you recall, Paramount also delayed the wide-release of “The Lovely Bones” by a full month and delayed the wide release of “Up in the Air” from Thanksgiving weekend until Christmas Day. Point being, Paramount was trying to save money. Ironically, this brought about a situation where Paramount had nothing to spend money on except some little cult film that was shot on a home camcorder. As I’ve said any number of times, the huge success of “Paranormal Activity” had a lot to do with the fact that Paramount didn’t have anything else to market at the time, so they were able to devote themselves to propping up a would-be cult hit and turn it into a mainstream sensation. While Paramount looks like geniuses in hindsight (they now have a very strong and continuous slate all the way into 2011), it was strictly a decision made out of economic necessity.

Believe it or not, “Shutter Island” was the only wide release this weekend (which certainly helped boost the picture past the $25-30 million that it likely would have opened to in crowded October). The biggest limited release debut was Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer,” which debuted to $179,000 on four screens (about $44,000 per screen). The well-reviewed Summit release expands next weekend to 10 new markets. Of course, this seemingly low-key political thriller somehow cost $45 million to make, so it’s going to be a long while before this one sees any real profit, barring huge business overseas. Every other limited release (“The Good Guy,” “Defendor,” “Happy Tears,” “Blood Done Sign My Name”) pretty much tanked. The rest of the news concerns holdovers, and the news was decidedly grim. When even Avatar drops 31 percent (great for any other movie, but a record weekend drop in its 10th weekend), you know it’s a bad weekend. Still, Avatar made another $16 million and has now grossed $687 million domestically. It will likely cross $700 million next weekend, the last weekend before it loses most of its 3D and all of its IMAX screens to the apparently much-anticipated “Alice in Wonderland.” It’s all downhill from there.

Last weekend’s champ, “Valentine’s Day,” proved to be a one-weekend wonder, as it plummeted 69 percent for a $17 million second weekend and an $87 million 10-day total. It will cross $100 million next weekend, but the once-assured $150 million mark will now be an uphill battle. “The Wolfman” was equally hammered, dropping 68 percent for a $9.8 million second-weekend and a 10-day total of just $50 million. Needless to say, the stupidly-expensive $150 million horror picture is in deep trouble. “Valentine’s Day” fell due to the nature of its release. It was designed to cash in on a holiday that is now over. Plus, quality-wise, it was no “He’s Just Not That Into You,” which at least tried to deal with romantic entanglements in a semi-realistic fashion. “The Wolfman” fell due to the insurmountable combination of terrible word of mouth and direct competition in the form of “Shutter Island.” Dropping 50 percent was “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” (gosh, I’m tired of typing that gigantic title). The terrible young-adult fantasy picture grossed $15 million in its second weekend and now has amassed $58 million. At this point, $100 million is no longer in the cards.

In other news, “The Book of Eli” crossed the $90 million mark. Dear John fell another 54 percent, proving that the film was in fact heavily front-loaded. At $65 million in three weekends, it will barely surpass the $81 million domestic gross of “The Notebook.” “Crazy Heart” crossed the $20 million mark and will likely reach $30 million if Jeff Bridges wins the best-actor Oscar as expected. “Edge of Darkness” crossed the $40 million mark, which still makes this Mel Gibson’s lowest-grossing starring vehicle in 17 years (“The Man Without a Face” grossed $24 million back in 1993). “Up in the Air” is at $80.9 million, which means it’s the second-highest grossing film of all time never to make the top five in any given weekend. “IMAX: Everest” grossed $87 million, which makes it the top-grossing film to never reach No. 5 or even 10th place in a weekend. Finally, the main casualty of Paramount’s date-switching, “The Lovely Bones,” sits with just $43 million. Had the film opened fresh on Dec. 12, 2009, it likely would have opened better and lasted longer, but it instead spent a month in three-screen limited release, where it weathered bad reviews, poor word of mouth and the domination of “Avatar.”

That’s it for this weekend. Join us next weekend when Kevin Smith’s ode to ’80s cop flicks, “Cop Out,” tries to avoid playing like every other Kevin Smith movie ($8-11 million opening, $25-30 million finish). Overture releases “The Crazies,” yet another remake of a mostly forgotten horror flick. In limited release, the big player is “The Yellow Handkerchief,” which stars William Hurt, Kristen Stewart and Maria Bello. God help any junketeer who dares to ask William Hurt a question about “Twilight” …

Polanski was arrested when he arrived in Zurich on Sept. 26 to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival. The Swiss must decide whether to extradite him to the U.S. to face possible further sentencing in a 32-year-old sex case.

A joint Silver Bear for best actor was awarded to the stars of the Russian film, “How I Ended the Summer.” Grigory Dobrygin and Sergy Puskpalis played opposite one another as an older and younger researcher who clash at a polar station on an island in the Arctic Circle.

Shinobu Terajima won the best actress for starring as a wife forced to tolerate the tyranny of her husband who returns disabled from the second Chinese-Japanese war in the Japanese film “Caterpillar.”

A Romanian film, “If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle” by Florin Serban of Romania was awarded the Silver Bear runner-up prize. It depicts the tough story of a youth who panics that his mother will flee the country with his younger brother while he is in a juvenile reform center.

The winning film, “Honey,” tells the story of a 6-year-old boy who stops speaking when his father disappears. It was filmed in the lush mountains of the Turkish countryside where the boy goes in search of his father, a beekeeper.

Director Semih Kaplanoglu said the award was “like a rebirth” and he hoped that it would be an inspiration to young filmmakers in Turkey.

“The Ghost Writer,” based on a novel by Robert Harris, stars Pierce Brosnan as a former British prime minister, Olivia Williams as his wife and Ewan McGregor as a ghost writer hired to complete his memoirs on a rain-swept island off the U.S. east coast.

The movie, Polanski’s first since “Oliver Twist” in 2005, was nearly complete at the time of his arrest.