Juliette Binoche On Her Path, Passion And Parenting

The French cinema icon opens up about her early days as a student, career breakthrough, and why, with more than 60 films under her belt, “she’s not a workaholic”

- James Mottram

THE DAY BEFORE we meet, Juliette Binoche was in the French Alps. Today, she’s reclining in a suite in Berlin’s Hotel Marriott, dressed in scarlet trousers, a white blouse and eye-catching silver platforms. “We arrived last night at 12,” she says, casually brushing off her hectic schedule. It’s been this way for four decades now, ever since she blew up at the Cannes Film Festival as a 21-year-old, starring in 1985’s Rendez-vous as—guess what?—a would-be actress. The film was a sensation and “La Binoche”, as the French call her, was born.

“Before that, people didn’t know me,” she reflects now. “I had roles here and there—with great directors, of course—but they didn’t really take off. You have to have the role in order to take off.” And take off she did. Almost immediately, people were fascinated with this enigmatic raven-haired ingénue. “After Rendez-vouz, when I started, somebody asked me about doing an autobiography of my life… when I was 21!” she reveals, incredulous at this preposterous notion. “Some people actually thought about it.”

Instead, Binoche concentrated on an unassailable rise through the ranks of world cinema, working alongside Daniel Day-Lewis (The Unbearable Lightness of Being), Jeremy Irons (Damage) and Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient)—the film that would win her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1997. Rather than succumb to Hollywood’s lure, bar the odd blockbuster, Binoche simply continued working with celebrated filmmakers from around the globe, cultivating a reputation as a risk-taker.