She makes an average of two films a year, is one of the few French actresses to have won an Oscar and can boast of being crowned best actress at the three biggest film festivals – Cannes, Berlinale and Mostra in Venice. Juliette Binoche, who turns 60 on Saturday (March 9), is not afraid of failure.
She is not afraid of decline, she said in a long interview published a few days ago in the lifestyle magazine Vanity Fair. She quickly realized that ups and downs are an integral part of the difficult acting profession. And added: Her safe place is her inner life.
80 cinema and television films in 40 years
Binoche prefers cinema experiments to mainstream films. And so there were around 80 cinema and television films in 40 years. Her most recent roles include fashion designer Coco Chanel in the series “The New Look”, in which she stars alongside Australian star Ben Mendelsohn. In Germany she was last seen in the historical drama “Beloved Cook”, as a kitchen fairy between pans and pots.
Headstrong, demanding and complex: these are the roles she loves. Her sensuality overwhelms in “My Beautiful Inner Sun” and “Love and Determination,” both by French director Claire Denis. Her playful intensity impresses in the film adaptation of the world-famous Milan Kundera novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” of the same name. In it she plays the wife of an almost notorious cheater during the Prague Spring. Her performance in “Chocolat – a little bite” is just as convincing. In the drama with Johnny Depp, she plays a woman who is attacked because of her tolerance.
Haneke, Kiarostami, Cronenberg and many more
Juliette Binoche’s emotional sensitivity also convinced Michael Haneke, for whom she appeared in front of the camera in “Caché” and “Code: unknown”, as well as the Iranian Abbas Kiarostami and the Canadian David Cronenberg, with whom she starred in “The Love Counterfeiters” and “Cosmopolis”. ” turned.
She herself says about her acting skills in the Vanity Fair interview: She is not intense, but rather immersed in the role. “I have fiery energy. I believe we are born with it.” She described herself as passionate in the British tabloid Daily Mail in 2010: “I can’t help it. I throw myself into everything I do.”
Destined to be an actress
Binoche believes in fate. She believes in the good star, she told the women’s magazine “Marie Claire” last year. She quickly realized that she was made for acting. By doing everything she could, she made it happen.
She appeared on stage as a child, initially in the theater, which she is still loyal to today. At the beginning of the 80s she received her first small film roles, including those from Pascal Kané and Jean-Luc Godard. In the same decade she achieved her international breakthrough in 1988 with “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”.
One of the highlights of her career is “The English Patient,” for which she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1997. She owes, among other things, a Silver Bear to the war and love drama. She went home with a French César and a Volpi trophy from the Venice Film Festival for her role in “Three Colors: Blue.” In Cannes she was celebrated as best actress for “The Love Counterfeiters”. Binoche comes from a family of artists and was born in Paris. Her father was a director, actor and sculptor, her mother an actress and teacher. Her parents separated when she was four years old. Binoche was sent to a boarding school before her mother took her back three years later. She doesn’t have any good memories of those times at boarding school, as she said again and again.
Celebrated as an actress, desired as a woman
Binoche charmed numerous men with her charm – but she never married. She was offered several marriage proposals, but she rejected them all, she told the Daily Mail in 2010. She needed relationships, she explained, but sometimes when she was in one she felt claustrophobic. “It’s about the feeling that I still have my freedom, that I have choices.”
The list of her ex-partners is long, starting with the two fathers of her children. Her son Raphaël Hallé, born in 1993, comes from her liaison with the professional diver André Hallé. The father of her now 24-year-old daughter Hannah is France’s award-winning actor Benoît Magimel. Both met while filming “The Romantic Drama of Venice”. They appeared together again in “Beloved Cook” in front of the camera.
Leos Carax met her in 1986 while filming his film “The Night is Young”. She also filmed the award-winning drama “The Lovers of Pont-Neuf” with him. She was in a relationship with Olivier Martinez, alongside whom she played in Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s “The Hussar on the Roof”, for around three years. The relationship with the director Santiago Amigorena, who brought her in front of the camera for “A Few Days in September”, lasted from 2006 to 2009.
Presidents are also said to have been among her admirers. So did the late socialist former head of state François Mitterrand, who was known for his numerous women’s stories. As Georges-Marc Benamou, journalist, writer and Mitterrand confidante, wrote in his book “Le Dernier Mitterrand” published in 1997, Binoche is said to have been a woman who surpassed everyone for the former head of state.
In “Vanity Fair” she goes into more detail about the politician’s interest in her. Mitterrand offered her to accompany him to Czechoslovakia on a private plane. But she refused, she said. Former President Bill Clinton is also said to have invited her to a meeting in the White House in Washington on the occasion of a play in which she took part.
Interview on “vanityfair.fr” Article on “marieclaire.fr” Report on “gala.fr” Article on “dailymail.co.uk” Article on “gala.fr”
