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Juliette Binoche

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Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno at Cannes
Other namesLa Binoche

Juliette Binoche (French IPA: [ʒyli'jɛt bi'nɔʃ]) (born March 9, 1964) is a French Academy Award-winning actress.

Biography

Early life

Juliette Binoche was born in Paris on March 9 1964 to a sculptor father and an actress mother. At age 4 her parents were divorced and Binoche was dispatched to a boarding school with her sister Marion. She began acting in amateur stage productions, and at 17 she directed and starred in a student production of the Eugene Ionesco play, Le Roi se meurt. The next year, she studied acting at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts of Paris. She found an agent through a friend, and joined a theatre troupe that toured France, Belgium and Switzerland under the pseudonym Juliette Adrienne.

After graduation, she followed her mother's footsteps and became a stage actress, occasionally taking bit parts in French feature films. Her first screen role was a small part in the 1983 TV film Dorothée, danseuse de corde by Jacques Fensten followed by a small part in the provincial TV film Fort bloque by Pierrick Guinnard. Binoche secured her first big screen appearance in Pascal Kané's Algeria-themed Liberty Belle. At this point Binoche decided to pursue a career in cinema.

1984 to 1991

Small roles in Les Nanas (1984) and Adieu blaireau (1985) led to more significant exposure in Jean-Luc Godard's Je Vous Salue, Marie and Jacques Doillon's La Vie de Famille which cast her as the teenage step-daughter of Sami Frey's character. This film was to set the theme and tone of the early career.

In 1985 Juliette Binoche secured the lead role in André Téchiné's Rendez-vous. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival that year, winning Best Director. In 1986 Binoche was nominated for her first César Award for Best Actress for the film. Binoche's next film was a role in Mon beau-frère a tué ma sœur by Jacques Rouffio. The film was a critical and commercial failure.

In 1986 Binoche starred opposite Michel Piccoli in Léos Carax's Mauvais Sang. The film was a critical and commercial success leading to Binoche's second César Award nomination.

In August 1986 she won the role of Tereza in Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being based on the Milan Kundera novel. This was Binoche's first English-language role and was a worldwide success with critics and audiences alike.

After her international success Binoche decided to return to France rather than pursue an international career. In 1988 she filmed the lead in Pierre Pradinas's Un tour de manège (1989), a little-seen French film. Late in 1988 Binoche began work on Léos Carax's Les Amants du Pont-Neuf. The film was beset by problems and took three years to complete. When it was released in 1991 Les Amants du Pont-Neuf was a critical success. Binoche won a European Film Award for best actress as well as her third César Award nomination.

Juliette Binoche's early films saw her firmly established as a French star of some renown. The recurring themes of these films were of contemporary young women exploring their lives and their sexuality.

1992 to 2000

Following the long shoot of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf Binoche relocated to London for production of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1992) and Damage (1992) which considerably developed her international reputation. For Damage Binoche received her fourth César Award nomination.

In 1993 Binoche appeared in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs Bleu to much critical acclaim. The film premiered at the 1993 Venice Film Festival. The film also landed Binoche a César Award for Best Actress as well as a Golden Globe nomination.

Following this success Binoche took a short sabbatical during which she became mother of a son, Raphael.

In 1995 Binoche appeared in a big-budget adaptation of Jean Giono's Le Hussard sur le Toit directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau. The film was a box-office success around the world and Binoche was again nominated for a César Award for Best Actress. This role as a romantic heroine was to color the direction of many of her roles in the late 1990s.

In 1996 Binoche appeared in A Couch in New York by Chantal Akerman. The film was a flop, but Binoche had another film that year to pin her hopes on. The English Patient, based on the acclaimed novel and directed by Anthony Minghella, was a worldwide hit, garnering nine Academy Awards including best supporting actress for Juliette Binoche.

After this international hit Binoche returned to France where she reteamed with André Téchiné for Alice et Martin (1998) followed in 1999 by Les Enfants du Siècle in which Binoche played the role of 19th-century French writer George Sand.

Late in 1999 Binoche gave birth to a second child, Hana.

2000 saw Binoche appear in four successful but different roles. Firstly was La Veuve de Saint-Pierre (2000) by Patrice Leconte which saw Binoche nominated for a César Award for best actress.

Next she appeared in Michael Haneke's Code Inconnu, (2000), a film which was made following Binoche's approach to the Austrian director.

2000 was finished with a double success in the US. Binoche made her Broadway debut in Harold Pinter's Betrayal for which she was nominated for a Tony Award.

Back on screen Binoche was the heroine of the Lasse Hallstrom film Chocolat (2000) for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, a Bafta for Best Actress and won a European Film Award for Best Actress.

The 1990s saw Juliette Binoche rise to become a major European star around the world, specializing in intelligent and assured portrayals of women in love.

2001 to 2006

Following the success of Chocolat, Juliette Binoche returned to France for an unlikely role. Décalage Horaire (2002) opposite Jean Reno saw Binoche play a ditzy beautician. The film was a box-office hit in France and saw Binoche once again nominated for a César Award for best actress.

Décalage Horaire was not to form the shape of Binoche's subsequent roles. Following instead from Code Inconnu, which tackled racism, Binoche went to South Africa to film John Boorman's In My Country (2004) opposite Samuel L. Jackson.

Next came a reteaming with Michael Haneke for Caché in (2005). The film was an immediate success, winning best director at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Binoche was nominated for a European Film Award for best actress for her role. Binoche's next film was Bee Season with Richard Gere.

Mary (2005) saw Binoche collaborate with Abel Ferrara for an investigation of modern faith and Mary Magdalene's position in the Catholic Church. The film was an immediate success, winning the Grand Prix at the 2005 Venice Film Festival.

2006 saw Binoche take part in the portmanteau work Paris, je t'aime appearing in a section directed by Nobuhiro Suwa. September 2006 saw Binoche at the Venice Film Festival to launch Quelques jours en septembre, by Santiago Amigorena. Later in the month she travelled to the Toronto Film Festival for the premiere of Breaking and Entering, her second film with Anthony Minghella in the director's chair.

The 2000s have seen Binoche consolidate her position as that of a major French and international star while she found time to appear in works by some of cinema's great mavericks. Rather than continuing to explore the themes of women in love in romantic epics, Binoche has instead focused on political and social issues in her films.

2007 onwards

2007 will see Binoche appear in Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge by the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Dan in Real Life with Steve Carell, Paris by Cédric Klapisch. She is also due to film Désengagement by Amos Gitai, Souvenirs du Valois by Olivier Assayas and Rithy Panh's Un Barrage Contre le Pacifique.

Awards

Won

Nominations

Filmography


Template:S-awards
Preceded by Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1996
for The English Patient 		Succeeded by
Preceded by BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
1996
for The English Patient 		Succeeded by

Quotes

  • "Movies are open doors, and at every door, I change character and life...I live for the present always. I accept this risk. I don't deny the past, but it's a page to turn."
  • "When I returned to France after winning the Oscar, I was treated like royalty, or like a football hero!"
  • "Giving birth is like a vase of beautiful flowers. Only you're just the vase, and only for a very short moment. The flowers are beautiful, but they belong to themselves, not to the vase."
  • "I am not a great French woman. George Sand, Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir are great French women".
  • "I knew I had become a star when I shook hands with Simone Signoret at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. She died four months later".
  • "Acting is like peeling an onion. You have to peel away each layer to reveal another."
  • "I want to make films that are political and social. Films with a message or an idea. Films that dare to ask."
  • "If a star is someone who gives light, then I can be a star. But if a star is someone who goes after money and magazine covers then it's sick and I don't want it!"
  • "French women bloom at 40! I can't wait!"
  • "My earliest memory is loneliness. That's a hard thing to live with"
  • "I have been proposed to four times. Twice at the beginning of a relationship and twice at the end of a relationship. I've never said no. I just didn't give an answer!"
  • "My real excitement comes when a movie transforms me. When you love the movie you've played in, you can make that bridge back to your own life."

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