JULIETTE BINOCHE

She almost drowned in The Lovers On The Bridge, broke hearts in Three Colours: Blue, won an Oscar for The English Patient and battled Godzilla. Juliette Binoche has done it all – almost. As she returns with hard-hitting drama Between Two Worlds, Total Film meets the French icon to discover she’s still hungry for more. | ‘FOR ME, ACTING… IT’S MY LIFE. THAT’S MY COMMITMENT TO WHY I CAME HERE, ON EARTH.’

- JAMES MOTTRAM

The French call her ‘La Binoche’. Though maybe ‘Binoche The Brave’ might be better. Since her arrival in the mid-’80s, the raven-haired Parisian has gone where angels – or at least other actors – fear to tread. Few other performers would endure, for example, the torturous three-year production of 1991’s The Lovers On The Bridge, which saw her almost drown in one scene. Fewer still would perform the legendary ‘fuckbox’ scene in Claire Denis’ wildly off-kilter sci-fiHigh Life, where she got her rocks offon a moving dildo.

Then there are all those performances for arthouse auteurs, like Hou Hsiaohsien (Flight Of The Red Balloon), Michael Haneke (Code Unknown, Caché) and Abbas Kiarostami (Shirin, Certified Copy). This isn’t coincidence, but a concerted effort from Binoche to seek out the best in world cinema, to find new experiences around the globe. “I’m lucky now that I can go to the directors I admire,” she says, “and ask them, ‘Would you consider making a film together, in France or somewhere else?’”

It’s mid-January when Total Film meets Binoche over Zoom during the annual UniFrance gathering to promote the year’s Gallic cinematic offerings. She’s sporting a white blouse and red trouser suit, looking impossibly younger than her 57 years. Relaxed, giggly and full of beans, her sentences may occasionally veer towards the florid, but the reality is, she’s been kept grounded by being a mother for most of her career (she has two children, son Raphaël, 28, and daughter Hana, 22).