The French artist, who receives the Donostia Award from Isabel Coixet, defends the need to work “beyond the macho codes”
Juliette Binoche said no to Spielberg and preferred to film Kieslowski’s ‘Blue’ than ‘Jurassic Park’. The director called her back for “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and “Schindler’s List,” but the actress was pregnant and again declined the offer. “Like Édith Piaf, I say: I do not regret anything”, confessed in San Sebastián a star associated with the best author cinema, who will receive this Sunday the first Donostia Award of this edition from her friend Isabel Coixet. Dedication and glamour. That’s the essence of this European diva who, if she ever flirted with blockbusters like ‘Godzilla’, has recently made it clear that she prefers working with the Haneke, Kiarostami, Cronenberg, Assayas…
“I’m an actress looking for herself, I need something that wakes me up and confronts me with the script,” said Binoche, who we continue to associate with hits from the 90s, such as “Wound” and most importantly, ” The English Patient”, for which she won her only Oscar as a supporting actress. “I don’t know if the cinema was better in the 80s and 90s than it is now,” he reflected. “It happens that over time the best is distilled and we only keep those films. I can’t speak in broad terms about cinema, but now there are also real artists I admire and work with, such as Christophe Honoré, Claire Denis or Julia Ducournau, with whom I am shooting a series».
Born in Paris in 1964, Juliette Binoche rose to fame as soon as she graduated from the conservatory. It was 1985 and Jean-Luc Godard included her in the cast of the controversial ‘I greet you, Maria’. Two years later and following compatriots such as Catherine Deneuve or Isabelle Adjani, the actress made ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ commissioned by Philip Kaufman. Since then, her face has been associated with ‘quality’ productions, almost always of literary origin: ‘Wuthering Heights’, ‘The Hussar on the Roof’ and of course ‘The English Patient’. Her character as a compassionate nurse in Anthony Minghella’s film delivered an Oscar in 1997, an honor that had not fallen to a French actress since 1958, when Simone Signoret starred in ‘A Place at the Top’.
Binoche recalled in San Sebastián that working with the recently deceased Godard was not easy. The casting took months and the tests required her to comb her hair naked and recite a poem. “At the time, I was working as a cashier in a department store to pay for the phone on which I received the messages,” she said. “I had conjunctivitis from scratching my eyes after touching so many products. And that contrast between what I felt and what they asked of me as an actress stands out to me. In the end, Godard didn’t choose her for that role, but created a character for her. “Then I understood that the director is not always that person who is going to help you. I did not have an easy relationship with Jean-Luc, I was looking for something I could not find. You had to be always at his disposal I have learned that this job does not go to the schoolyard and that you should not wait for them to support you, but always be prepared».
The ‘Chocolat’ and ‘Herida’ star, who has lived in New York for years, has visited San Sebastián four times and this year the face of Zinemaldia is in a photo of Brigitte Lacombe for the poster. It comes with a film, ‘Fire’, which won French director Claire Denis the Silver Bear for best director at the last Berlin Film Festival and features Vincent Lindon in the cast. The iconoclastic director brings two of the most international French actors together on screen for the first time in this love triangle story that hits Spanish cinemas on September 30. At 58, Binoche does not suffer from a lack of roles like other actresses of her age.
“I don’t know if I’m very lucky or if it’s because I work with certain filmmakers in France and Europe,” he reflects. “Perhaps actresses in a more codified type of cinema suffer from that lack of roles. Because in this job you have to know how to say no. I was called by American cinema to be ‘the wife of’ and I said no. We must not enter a system that sees us only one way, we must dare to jump and work outside the macho codes. I was raised that way and I know how to recognize them.” Juliette Binoche never judges her characters, she just tries to love them with their humanity, their lights and their shadows. “I look for them to have an inner journey, an evolution, that is what happens to us in life: we have birthdays, we break up, there are deaths… That initiation journey is what interests me most about acting.”
Binoche’s plans are not going ahead with making the jump to directing: “I’m too lucky as an actress to think about it, I don’t have time, I do too many things. Although I’d have stories to tell.” Sometimes, when she’s working as an actress, she feels a bit like a director “in the fusion that occurs with the director, like when you shoot a sequence and do your own staging”. The challenge is “to grow old in front of the camera to communicate the truth, because in a transparent and truthful actor age doesn’t matter.” “The most important thing in this job is listening and watching. Without risk there is no artistic gesture”.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
