Jet lag
Source: Houston Chronicle, July 28, 2003
"I've never done a comedy, really," said Juliette Binoche during a recent interview in a Manhattan hotel. "When I read the script I thought, wow, what a gift. I got to be talkative, which is something new for me in films because usually I'm kind of silent, and I know what acting with silence is like. I got to put things in words, so it was a real delight."
Binoche stars with Jean Reno in Jet Lag , a slight picture about two highly dissimilar people who, stranded in a Parisian airport, manage to fall in love. Reno, known more for action roles in his native France, plays a moody cook named Felix, while Binoche, as Rose, is initially difficult to recognize, hidden behind a mask of more makeup than she's typically seen wearing on screen.
"It's a risk, because first of all she's more popular, and has a more Parisian way of speaking, and because I wasn't being this intellectual actress that I've been in France," she said. "It was like putting on my high heels and being a little stupid apparently, but that's OK with me. I can take it."
It's also a look Binoche, a 39-year-old mother of two, seldom wears in her own life. Although radiant in a coffee-colored dress today -- with not a little makeup -- as she makes the rounds promoting her film, she admits to having little in common with Rose in this respect.
"She loves being a woman, she loves being feminine, and as a woman you forget," said Binoche, suddenly bursting into hearty laughter. "It's true, because you're just a human being and have to do so many things anyway. Sometimes you think about it, especially when you're in front of journalists. In life, forget about it, you know?"
Felix and Rose's love comes out in the open when he cooks for her, another activity Binoche has little time for in real life, to her regret.
"Because we're so busy doing things all the time, and rushing, and being effective, we forget to take the time for simple things, and I think cooking is one of the simple things," she said.
"You can see how children eat the food you cook yourself, as opposed to when you pay someone to cook it for them."
As for herself, the actress has lately been denying herself certain foods, including those featured to a delectable degree in some of her recent pictures.
"I have to tell you that recently I've been allergic to chocolate," she said. "I went to a Chinese doctor who said, 'Stop chocolate, stop everything that's burnt, like coffee, because you have too much fire in you.' It's the water and fire thing in Asia. So I'm on a diet and have stopped all the fire things.
"Actually, it's calmed down, I have to say."
So too now are Binoche's characters on screen. Following her broad portrayal in Jet Lag, the actress has returned to the parts for which she's better known, and has just finished shooting John Boorman's Country of My Skull in South Africa, a role which she says "has changed me."
"It just changed my consciousness about what happened there, as a white person being responsible to the Third World and conscious of the damage we've done in the past," she said.
"I can be frustrated as an actress sometimes in terms of rhythm," said Binoche, "but otherwise I feel I'm participating with the world as an actress, and it's where I belong somehow."
It wasn't always thus. Binoche nearly gave up on acting when she was 24 -- "because it's so difficult." Also an accomplished painter -- she has drawn the posters for a number of her films -- Binoche attended a few directing workshops at the time, which she found fascinating.
"But my teacher said, 'No way, you'll go back to acting. We need you there and you have to carry on.'"
Binoche's voice begins to break. "So I said OK, I'll have some more courage, but it sometimes makes me cry."
By TODD HILL
Newhouse News Service
French actress Juliette Binoche turns gauche in Jet Lag but her talent shines through
Source: Tandem (Canada's Cosmopolitan news, arts and sports paper) July 20-27, 2003
Tandem talked to 39-year-old Juliette Binoche when she was in Toronto.
This
is an involving role because you and Jean Reno are pretty much in every frame of
the movie in a large airport. Was it fun?
"That's what I wanted. It was a lot of fun. The airport part was most
difficult for me because there was this anguish about doing something new. Also,
the monologue because it was all on cell phones, it was not much dialogue. I
wanted desperately to work with Jean and it was kind of frustrating that we
could not get into a room and work together. So I kind of had to be patient
while we were at the airport. Also to be intimate and yet be in a big crowd and
a big space was strange somehow and I felt lost. But that was perfect for the
role somehow because of the way she (the character) is trying to hold things
together. But after that, when we started working in a room, it was like a big
release. After that it was just about playing and having the pleasure of
playing."
What did you think when you saw yourself all made up like that?
"Some people said that when they saw me they thought of a very rich woman
or very bourgeoisie. She is hiding so much that you can invent a lot of stories
into one's character."
Did
you learn about makeup?
"Yes I did. I went to a beautician school and spent some time there, with a
private class on how to make myself up. The interesting thing is I had never
done it in that way before. I am usually done up by wonderful makeup artists. In
that way I can only see the result but not the actual way to do that sort of
thing. Actually having a woman telling me what to do is different than doing it
yourself. All I did know prior to that is how to apply the blue to the eyes.
That is what I wanted but I remember putting a lot on and it worked. I remember
after the second class or something I went out with that makeup on and people
were looking at me not knowing exactly who I was. Whether I was the actress or
this mad woman with all this makeup."
Do you actually not wear makeup?
"In life, no. Very rarely do I wear it. We don't need it, women don't need
it. Once in a while it's nice but we don't need it."
Your character, this woman, is there something in her that you had any
affinity with?
"Well, my parents were communists so that was a common point. That's why it
made me laugh so much when I read that in the script. My father saw the movie
and he laughed very much at that line."
Do you think this role is going to have people look at you in a different
way, that you can be funny?
"I always felt that in life I am a little like that, so it wasn't really a
concern. But it's a little sad that directors didn't ask me to do comedies. I
didn't feel connected to comedies somehow because there weren't enough layers,
but I felt a likeness. There are strong moments in this movie, it's about strong
subjects. It's connected to life and what happens in life. It is true, as an
actress, I feel responsible in talking to human beings, talking about the heart.
Some actors don't want to talk about that, or are more interested in other
things. And I think that as an actress I feel responsible somehow. And it is not
to be heavy. It's more to be conscious. But lately I wanted to find something
lighter because I wanted to show joy and share joy and I really feel I needed
that because I feel that very strongly. It is a whole part of myself that I've
been exploring somehow."
Do you
feel that since you've had a child?
"I have always been like that, actually. In Blue, for example, I had a
wonderful time, we laughed so much."
You are now considered an "A list" actress in the world. You won an
Oscar and yet you continue to do small European films. Why?
"I've been reading scripts but refusing because I'm thirsty, you know? I
want to discover layers. It has to connect to me somehow and I can't lie about
that. I can't pretend."
What are the scripts lacking?
"I like to experience different things. Like my theatre in New York, doing
Betrayal, was a whole experience for me. It was moving, going to another country
and experiencing Broadway theatre. So I've been busy and didn't want to waste
time doing things I didn't believe in. And being a mother I can't always go from
one thing to another. It's the efficiency of always being there or having
success or being famous or money. It's not enough for me. And so somehow for me,
I have to be connected with what I'm playing and can't pretend other things.
Refusing is not a big deal. It's been hard at times because I feel like working,
but at the same time I think of it as a year off. I've been doing workshops and
learning a lot about myself and I am exploring other things. So I feel it's
about discovering yourself again. And you know, being a mother is a part of life
and you have to allow this time for the child."
By Angela Baldassarre
Binoche Isn't Thrilled By the Sound of Music
Source: The Washington Post, Friday, June 27, 2003; Page WE40
JULIETTE BINOCHE forever associates the filming of "Jet Lag" (see review on Page 34) with the events of Sept. 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks in the United States caused the French production, set in and around Paris's Charles de Gaulle International Airport, to delay production for three weeks. When they did shoot the film, they were accompanied by much security and tension. This made it that much more imperative, says Binoche, to concentrate on the film, a romantic seriocomedy in which two air travelers (Binoche and Jean Reno) get a lot of unexpected time together because of an airport strike.
"A bit of tension and struggle on the outside always brings intensity into a film," says the 40-year-old French actor. "We find our strength when there's something to struggle with."
Besides, Daniele Thompson's "Jet Lag" script was something she felt very positive about.
"I loved it because of the relationship between the man and woman. They're so close and yet so different. And the big question is, why are we so different, is it the difference of the sex? What is so different? It was funny to approach that idea of being opposites and yet wanting to be so together. [The film] was witty and funny. It approached a serious subject in a light way."
Miramax Films bought the French film, and Miramax head Harvey Weinstein persuaded Thompson to make a six-minute trim, which included taking away some music. Binoche was happy about the cut; she says one of her pet peeves is a movie that uses too much music.
"I don't like it when the movie's too explained or when there's too much music. When music is added to the scene, I feel stolen from. Music is imposing on me how I should feel about something. The emotions should come from me instead of having me to follow someone's manipulations."
But it's all a question of balance. She felt there was too much music in Patrice Leconte's "The Widow of St. Pierre," in which she plays an army captain's wife who guides a convicted man to redemption. But in Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Blue," in which Binoche plays a woman dealing with a terrible loss, the music, although a big presence, was just right. "The music is so important and part of my character and so it doesn't bother me."
Binoche, who has two children, recently took a year off so she could spend time in her home near Paris. "Being successful is not a comfortable thing. As an actor you have to be on the verge to take risks, which is crazy when you have a stable family life," she says. "This is why so many women struggle to have a family life and be an actor. I couldn't live without my work and without my children. So it's complex."
At a recent film festival that featured a Binoche film retrospective, she had the opportunity to review her films. Asked which movies she ranks highest, she has little doubt. They are: "Rendezvous," "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," "Lovers on the Bridge," "Blue" and "The English Patient."
People keep asking her about "Chocolat," though.
"Maybe because it's the latest," she offers.
The year off is over. Binoche is back. She's about to shoot a modernized version of the Scheherazade story with Laurence Fishburne and director Michael Apted. And her recently completed "Country of My Skull," directed by John Boorman, is expected out later this year. One thing she remembers saying to Boorman: "Please, don't put in too much music."
By Desson Howe © 2003 The Washington Post Company
An unvarnished woman
Source: THE NEW YORK
JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: June
20, 2003)
Juliette Binoche will have flown from South Africa, where she just finished a movie; to New York, where she's been promoting her new film "Jet Lag"; to Los Angeles for more interviews before heading home to France.
"Talk about jet lag," she says with a knowing smile. "I'm completely jet-lagged."
You'd never know it. Chatting in one of those anonymously modern midtown hotels that movie companies reserve for press events — "The elevator looks like a bathroom," one bemused visitor observes — Binoche radiates ease. Perched on the edge of a bed in one of the hotel's suites, she tucks her legs under her and leans back on a pillow that she's hastily rolled up.
Her outfit strikes the right balance between casualness and formality: She's wearing sling-backs and one of those sleeveless, drape-neck dresses that women have only been able to yearn for in this Seattle spring. The dress' black and white vertical stripes set off the room's gray and red decor, just as Binoche's pink makeup and blond highlights soften her striking brunet looks.
Rose — the character Binoche plays in the piquant French romantic comedy "Jet Lag," now playing in Manhattan, and opening widely next week —could use some of Binoche's assurance. She's the kind of woman we think we know — skyscraper-high heels, a shellacked upsweep impervious to any weapon of mass destruction, makeup that could qualify as its own archaeological stratum. Rose talks too much and cries too easily. But since this is a Binoche character, there's more to her than blue eye shadow.
"She's always trying to please people," the actress says. "For generations, women have been trained to please men, to always look the same as others. But also, to be on their own...to accept oneself as one is...She is a character of femininity. But she finds another femininity in the movie."
Indeed, the desire to please is a self-defeating quality, as Rose learns when she's marooned at a fogged-in, strike-plagued Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. There, through a series of mishaps and coincidences beloved by romantic comedies, she finds herself continually crossing paths with finicky Félix (Jean Reno), an expatriate chef-turned-gourmet-foods exec who's as constricted as Rose is open. In the movie's painfully funny pivotal scene, Rose's lacquered do and frosted makeup are done in by salad dressing.
"She needs to have a splash of vinaigrette in her face," Binoche says, laughing. "When she has this humiliation, she discovers her limits: 'This is my garden, and no one's going to cross this line.'"
Forced to peel away her cosmetic layers — her armor, as Binoche puts it — Rose is never more vulnerable, or more beautiful, to Reno's Félix, who looks at her as if he's seeing her for the first time.
"Exactly," Binoche says. "And that's why he falls in love with her. He sees her as she really is. It's funny. When we allow ourselves to be ourselves..."
She picks up another thread: "But this takes courage. And sometimes, life does it to you. It's about refining, having a simple taste in life."
Like all great actresses, Binoche has the ability to distill a character in a gesture. In an earlier scene, Rose takes off her high heels but continues to walk around as if she's still wearing them, on tiptoes. This is typical of some women but particularly Rose, who finds it hard to let go of her feminine trappings. (For the scene, Binoche says she drew on the childhood memory of a family visitor.) If less is the more that enables Félix to see Rose's loveliness, it is also a reminder to moviegoers of the Binoche magic.
"...You begin to wonder if there has ever been a more beautiful woman in movies than Binoche," David Thompson writes in "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film" (Knopf). "And yet ... if only this magnificent, melancholy, and nearly stunned woman had just a touch of ... Debbie Reynolds?"
Perhaps "Jet Lag" writer-director Daniele Thompson heard him. Binoche says she is grateful to Thompson for casting her in the role, because she herself is not known for comedy — although she was utterly delightful as the elusive butterfly who brings joie de vivre to a stuffy postwar town in "Chocolat." Typically, though, the Binoche character is an independent woman who must cope with titanic loss.
She's a woman devastated by eye disease in "Les Amants du Pont-Neuf," an accident victim who discovers that the past is a dogged pursuer in "Blue," a willful Cathy heedless of the havoc she wrecks on her world in "Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights."
This underrated 1992 version of Bronte's singularly imaginative novel, in which Ralph Fiennes plays Heathcliff to Binoche's Cathy, foreshadowed the chemistry they would exhibit in 1996's "The English Patient," for which Binoche took home a best supporting actress Oscar. Her Hana, a nurse who tries to create a separate peace for herself and an enigmatic burn victim in a villa in World War II Italy, is every woman — wearing flowery summer dresses, cutting her hair short, playing hopscotch, crying alone in the kitchen. But she is also a particular woman who shores up this ravaged place as a way to salvage her own soul.
Binoche says Hana moves from being a woman who has loss thrust upon her to one who chooses loss as a kind of gain.
Hana and Binoche's other characters are like sisters. At least, that's what the actress thought until she recently saw a dozen of her films at a festival in France (La Rochelle, July 2002). Then she realized that the women are all quite different. "The common denominator is passion," Binoche says. And that face. Like any number of genuinely lovely women, Binoche seems to be without personal vanity. Yes, of course, when she's doing what she calls "the actress thing" — conducting interviews, attending awards ceremonies — she gets gussied up.
However, "when I'm in a movie everything is allowed," she says. "Beauty is allowed. Ugliness is allowed. It's all about trusting the director." She says she doesn't see the dailies — the footage shot the day before. "Otherwise, I feel conscious. Play is about forgetting."
And she doesn't see her movies more than twice. As for her private life, Binoche says she's too busy being a mother to Raphael, 9, and Anna, 3, to fuss much.
"These are two different worlds," she says of motherhood and acting. "And there are dilemmas in trying to organize everything." Not that she's complaining. "I feel lucky and I feel blessed to have found my passion at age 17," she says. "Some people never do."
Recently, that passion took her to South Africa for John Boorman's "Country of My Skull." In the film, Binoche plays an Afrikaner journalist, who, along with Samuel L. Jackson's American reporter, must confront apartheid's heart of darkness.
"The guilt of being an Afrikaner (a white South African). The responsibility of being an Afrikaner. How do you go on?" Binoche muses. Then there is that knowing smile again. "You see," she says, "(the filming) is still so fresh in my mind. It was intense, overwhelming, necessary."
By Georgette Gouveia
Extracts from the Jet lag press conference at the 50th San Sebastian international film festival (Spain), on September 28, 2002
- For many years, you've done very dramatic roles, as in Blue, and in the last 2 years, we've seen you in Chocolat, which is more a comedy, and now in this comedy with reminiscences of classic American comedies. Is it just random in your career or a personal decision of lowering your dramatic register in the roles that you play in the films ?
Juliette Binoche: Well, the decisions in actors and actresses respond to the desires of the directors themselves, with whom we are intensely linked. In any case, even though I hadn't done a comedy before, I did feel like wanting to do a comedy, Daniele had the courage of offering it to me and it's been a gift for me, from her and also from heaven.
- A few years ago, another role of beautician was played by Audrey Hepburn, did she inspire you for the role of Rose, for the look or even for the hairdo ?
Juliette Binoche: I admire her. But no, Audrey Hepburn has not been an inspiration. My hairdo may have made you think of her, but my character is neither so smart, nor so elegant. For me, Rose isn't vulgar, but she's more popular, she has a side which is much more popular, she sits on the ground, so to speak, and so on... But it's very interesting that you talk about Audrey Hepburn, I adore her by the way, I've seen all of her films.
Daniele Thompson: ... that was just an accident, Rose reminded me of Audrey Hepburn but it wasn't an inspiration, it was just a result, and I'm glad that that was the case by the way in the film.
- You've played dramatic roles, now comical roles, so I would like to know whether a person with your career must maintain an image vis-à-vis externally or vis-àvis other people
Juliette Binoche: People can say or think of me whatever they want, no problem. Now, dramatic, comedy roles well, the truth is that we're all going to die, at one time or another, sooner or later, life is dramatic, it's also tragic, we love each other, we look for many things but we don't know where we're going to. So that I think in films, we reconstitute, we reconstruct our hopes, our desires... and I believe that in comedy, we always have to be connected and linked to something which is essential, to the essence. As regards Felix and Rose, they have had very tragic situations but at the same time, what is interesting to see is how they transform, and that transformation isn't a matter of comedy... they move us from a human perspective, shall we say, they adapt themselves to what's happening to them... this is a moment of life...
- About that famous night of having won an Oscar, and about the beautiful words that you said about Lauren Bacall, how do you feel it, and how do you remember it ?
Juliette Binoche: That moment... it's a French dream... I thought it was an illusion, at that time I didn't believe it, I didn't even expect it, everyone expected Lauren Bacall to win it, so I took it as another gift from heaven. From that moment, I still just don't believe it, even though quite a long time has gone by, but if I look back, it was a moment of joy, a moment to share... But a little time before, Claude Berri, for example, didn't give me the lead role in his film (Lucie Aubrac), and only 3 months later I was given that Oscar, so for me it was quite ironical, it's irony of life I could say. Mainly, I felt very happy to obviously win it.
- 1 Cesar, 2 Best European actress awards, 1 Oscar... What is it like to be considered as one of the best actresses of the world ?
Juliette Binoche: ... success is a consequence, all the awards, all of the prices and so on... it is a result of passion, desire, a consequence of meeting people... it is a result of a need and a desire of wanting to participate in creation, in creative things, in expressive things, that's what is the most important for me... The essential moment is the moment between the spectators and the film, that's the essential moment, how the film moves the spectators, with tears, with laughter, with different reflections...
- The film doesn't give a flattering image of France, strikes, bad manners... Do you have the same vision of things ?
Juliette Binoche: We French are very critical, very cynical as well. I assume that that's a contradiction, we use cynicism as a weapon to make things change, I suppose that a person can't make the world change alone.
- What would you like to be changed ?
Juliette Binoche: There's not enough conscience on the planet. The world is a whole, in spite of the differences between the rich and the poor. By the way, the idea of a United Europe pleases me, but maybe it's not sufficient.
- What's your feeling about Hollywood ?
Juliette Binoche: I do like the American cinema. Jet lag resemble some American romantic comedies.
- In Kieslowski's film, Blue, as well as in Michael Haneke's Code inconnu, you've been put in the pool, and this time once again, I'd like to know whether it's a coincidence or not ?
Daniele Thompson: I knew she could swim... But no it was just a pure coincidence. I didn't think at all in Kieslowski and I said to Juliette "do you want to be in the pool or do you want another actress to double you" ?
Juliette Binoche: and I said "oh no, I swim very well (laughs), just like in Kieslowski's film, I want to do it", but it is a coincidence, it's something we didn't think about, and in any case, I was glad to do it.
- One of your films that moved me the most was Lovers on the bridge... there was a lot of pain in it... Was this film painful ?
Juliette Binoche: Well, I spent 2 years and a half thinking about that question... pain was not to make the film, but to stop making the film, we had to stop making it. What was very painful was... when you are already submerged by the film and you feel like making a new film, a special film, and that you've got to wait, that waiting was painful, but filming itself wasn't painful at all. We talked about pain, but there are moments which are also comical at the same time... Also there was a certain distance between my performance and my real life....
- For Jean Reno and Juliette Binoche, you are 2 of the actors who combine a European career with Hollywood films, so I would like to know whether it's very different to be directed by a director in hollywood or by a director in Europe, and whether the roles that you're offered are quite different ?
Jean Reno: Please, Juliette...
Juliette Binoche: No, no, please Jean...
Jean Reno: Well, the difference could be... whether people have an heart or not, no matter if they're American or French, when the relationships are good... In America there's much more money, more time also... Also the way, you've got a longer way to go, it's a larger country... But when they say "action", there's a camera, there's a team, there's a director, an actress, an actor, a screenplay, and they don't say "action" with money, they don't say "dollars, action" (laughs)... I was born in Europe, so therefore I prefer to be in Europe and to work here, but I feel like a tennis player who's got to play a tennis tournament... we play somewhere, and then we go to another place and we play another game... I think it's not very interesting to criticise the Americans always, what is important is to move around, if you can't move around, it's because you don't have anything inside to express, that's what I believe, now we can talk about the American system, money, the studios etc, but that's what I wanted to say, that's all I want to say...
Juliette Binoche: I've got nothing to add, perfect...