Why Juliette Binoche won’t be silenced

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":4.96,"text":"“The world is turning insane,” Juliette Binoche says. She shakes her head after a summer bookended by crises. In May, the actor signed an open letter opposing the ever more dominant role in French cinema of conservative industrialist Vincent Bolloré. Amid the fallout, she was threatened with what was widely called a “blacklist” by Bolloré’s powerful media business, Canal+. Yet by August, she was shooting a new movie in Paris, during the city’s hottest ever summer. Suffocating, she says."}],[{"start":34.76,"text":"“And now everyone here is investing in air conditioning.” She gives a rueful smile. “It is the end of us!”"}],[{"start":41.32,"text":"Today at least, it is cool enough for Binoche to drink hot chocolate in a Montparnasse café. Friendly in a baggy grey sweatshirt, she has played the dual role of virtuoso and movie star long enough to become a giant, the celebrated face of Three Colours: Blue, The English Patient and around 70 other features to date. We are here to discuss two more. One is In-I In Motion — her debut as a director, an absorbing documentary about her 2008 stage collaboration with British dancer Akram Khan."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":71.6,"text":"The other, Queen at Sea, is an extraordinary drama. Set in London, it features Binoche as Amanda — parent to a teenager, though also, crucially, a daughter herself. Early on, Amanda finds her stepfather having sex with her mother, whose Alzheimer’s makes consent impossible. (The elderly couple are played by Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall.) Outraged, Amanda calls the police. Yet ethical nuance is soon everywhere as the authorities grind into action. What follows is wrenching, and brilliant."}],[{"start":101.96,"text":"Binoche said yes to the film immediately. Some of that reflected a personal connection to a character caught in the “sandwich generation”. Her own father, the actor and sculptor Jean-Marie Binoche, died in 2019, after a long period of ill health. At the same time, her daughter was in her teens, and her son his early twenties. “My father was falling apart, a step from the tomb, and I’m also a parent, surrounded by the fury of life. There is no school for this.” She says back then she often woke in the night, sweating."}],[{"start":134.28,"text":"At 62, she is glad to have now entered a less pressurised moment. “Here at a point where I might die soon myself!” She bursts out laughing. Binoche has an excellent laugh — a sudden, life-affirming gale, like someone actually being tickled. In the past, she has said male directors hate it."}],[{"start":152.08,"text":"Her director on Queen at Sea was American filmmaker Lance Hammer. “Juliette is the best actress on the planet,” he tells me in London. Her commitment was also such that when the film’s funding collapsed, she became a de facto producer, working the phone to raise a budget. “She was tenacious. For a long time, the film was really just me and her, and there were definitely points when I lost hope. But she never did.”"}],[{"start":177.1,"text":"She is touched that Hammer mentioned this. “I’ve done that on a lot of films, but never got the reward of my name being included in the conversation afterwards.” She wouldn’t insist? “Well. It’s nice if the director mentions it. But I’m not going to beg.”"}],[{"start":189.8,"text":"Today, she talks about directors with knowing wryness. All have been a useful experience, even if her language about a couple is unprintable. On set she now always makes the same request — that she is allowed to do the first three takes of a scene her way. In other words, her life as a director began before In-I In Motion? “Yes, because when I’m acting, I direct myself.” She slips into a stern interior monologue. “‘Juliette, what are you doing? Move your ass!’ So I’m always part of the direction. It’s like asking the egg not to be part of the mayonnaise — it would be difficult!”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":224.84,"text":"Hammer says he invariably ended up using one of Binoche’s own takes. “They were always the most truthful. Because she really cares about reaching the best artistic decision. She’s addicted to it. And that passion can feel overwhelming — but it’s what got this film made.”"}],[{"start":240.5,"text":"The same passion saw her put her name to the petition against the growing cultural influence of Bolloré. Though she was just one among 600 signatories — including actors Adèle Haenel and Swann Arlaud — she was also the highest profile. It lent a certain flourish to the vow of Canal+ chief executive Maxime Saada that the company would “no longer work” with anyone involved. With its outsize economic power in France, an unthinkable idea arose — French film without Binoche."}],[{"start":268.96,"text":"She stands by the protest against the man she calls Mr Bolloré. “I think we are right to be worried, and we have the right to express that worry. Look at CNews!” The magnate’s TV opinion channel has aired racist views, she says. Binoche is waiting to see what happens next. “It would be terrible if we were not as free as other artists because we expressed our anxiety. And we are a free country. So if this happens to us” — she holds up a finger, at once joking and not — “Watch out!”"}],[{"start":297.28,"text":"For a moment, her humour fades. Binoche is alarmed at the rise of the far-right party Rassemblement National, not least for what she says is its censorious approach to art. But she wonders aloud how best to respond. Conversation turns back to the recent heatwaves. She recalls another open letter she organised herself in 2018, with 200 artists and scientists writing to pressure the Macron government into urgent action on climate change. “People didn’t want to hear. Maybe now the burning forests might make us more humble.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":329.24,"text":"She also knows there are those who reflexively mock actors talking politics. “Oh, I’ve had a lot of reproaches. I’m the woman who signs the petitions! And lately, I think it doesn’t help.”"}],[{"start":340.06,"text":"She brightens discussing In-I In Motion, a fusion of drama and dance of which she was the original driving force. Her idea was that she and Khan would come together with no prior experience of the other’s art form. The result is a kinetic meditation on the vexed theme of relationships. The show is captured in the second half of the film."}],[{"start":359.44,"text":"But the first might be even more fascinating — a frank glimpse of sometimes chaotic rehearsals, drawn from 200 hours of footage. Binoche spent a decade and a half trying to find the time to shape those into a film, then two more years doing it. (She recalls ruthlessly cutting everything bar the most essential scenes. “Voilà — nine hours.”)"}],[{"start":379.76,"text":"Her aim was to present the truth of the creative process. “Which is both bliss and nightmare. But I want people to be inspired. To say, ‘Wait, she isn’t a dancer. He isn’t an actor. And they can do this? So what can I do?’” She believes the secret is being unafraid of things going wrong. “It was why I chose moments where I look ridiculous.” (Indeed, at least one sequence is pure slapstick.)"}],[{"start":401.88,"text":"Onstage, the narrative drew on her own life. But then, she says, every role does. “Your actual cells have to be involved. If you’re only making intellectual choices, it won’t move the audience. You can’t just learn your lines and be correct.” (She makes the word sound silly.)"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":414.36,"text":"Throughout rehearsals, Binoche and Khan are counselled by veteran American acting coach Susan Batson, whose alumni also include Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Many actors would never let themselves be filmed with a coach, much less one as often spectacularly blunt as Batson. “Yeah, I put that in the front. But Susan is so intelligent. She’s an angel. I mean — she can also be a bit humiliating.” Once more, Binoche breaks into her grand cackle. “I don’t give a shit. She’s always right.”"}],[{"start":444.6,"text":"A good coach, she says, actually improves actors. Directors generally don’t. “Because on set, you have no time to discuss. You’ve got to give it, this second . . .” She clicks her fingers. “Especially now, with money always a headache, and even less time for shooting.”"}],[{"start":462.04,"text":"Binoche frequently speaks of time. She doesn’t want to waste the audience’s, or her own. And while it is still on her side, she wants to direct again — and direct other actors, in a drama. When I ask if she is ready for the endless decisions that will require, she smiles with more grace than my journalist-splaining deserves. “Well — I have been on sets once or twice.”"}],[{"start":483.76,"text":"Recently, she did spend a day directing her friend Ralph Fiennes on camera, in what she hopes will become a short movie. “And it was . . . fun. Though I think he hated me afterwards.” She laughs loudly, one final time. “But you know the important thing? He was very good in the film.”"}],[{"start":500.52,"text":"‘Queen at Sea’ and ‘In-I in Motion’ both open in UK cinemas from September 18"}],[{"start":506.36,"text":"Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning"}],[{"start":516.1,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1789218017_2009.mp3"}