{"id":952464,"date":"2026-05-11T11:05:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T11:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/952464\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T11:05:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T11:05:17","slug":"i-told-him-go-ahead-do-it-juliette-binoche-on-how-a-strangling-attack-as-a-teen-inspired-her-directorial-debut-juliette-binoche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/952464\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I told him, \u201cGo ahead, do it\u201d\u2019: Juliette Binoche on how a strangling attack as a teen inspired her directorial debut | Juliette Binoche"},"content":{"rendered":"

Starring in more than 70 movies is all well and good, but Juliette Binoche<\/a> can still get the jitters. Right now, the Oscar-winning actor is biting her lip on the third floor of a Manhattan high-rise. In 20 minutes, she will step into a sold-out movie theater to introduce her directorial debut at New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Art. Titled In-I In Motion, the v\u00e9rit\u00e9-style documentary<\/a> follows Binoche\u2019s late-2000s plunge into the world of contemporary dance for a series of daring and bewitchingly strange performances with the British dancer Akram Khan<\/a>. \u201cSo,\u201d she asks me, \u201chow do you think I should present it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is how I find myself giving advice about public speaking to arguably the most celebrated French actor working today. She did a great job last night introducing the film at the buzzy Metrograph cinema downtown, I say. But it\u2019s tough to know how to prepare an audience for the film\u2019s poetic (and sometimes confusing), nonlinear narrative: maybe you just have to let them have at it. She smiles slyly. \u201cShould I say: \u2018This film isn\u2019t going to hold your hand\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

That would be a very Juliette Binoche thing to do. The actor has rarely coddled audiences in a four-decade career that has swooped between cerebral experimental theater and virtuosic performances guided by international auteurs, as well as the occasional Hollywood popcorn flick. After her breakthrough role in Jean-Luc Godard<\/a>\u2019s Hail Mary, the actor became the toast of the European arthouse in the late 80s and broke through as an international star with roles in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The English Patient and Chocolat. As well as leading some of the most celebrated films (in any language) of the 21st century to date (Michael Haneke<\/a>\u2019s Cach\u00e9, Abbas Kiarostami<\/a>\u2019s Certified Copy), the past decade has brought some of Binoche\u2019s career-best work in the historical romance The Taste of Things<\/a>, social realism drama Between Two Worlds<\/a> and Let The Sunshine In<\/a>, where she is as raw as an exposed nerve as a fiftysomething desperately searching for love.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In-I In Motion is nothing quite like what has come before: Binoche is laid abrasively bare as she takes fledgling steps into completely unfamiliar creative territory. There is emotional vulnerability and lots of sweat as she embarks on six grueling months of dance rehearsals with Khan; at one point she is flung repeatedly against a wall. The actor is no stranger to pushing herself to extremes, but I couldn\u2019t help but be blown away by her complete lack of self-consciousness while dancing, as if every cell in her body was vibrating with the kind of intensity that she brings to her most indelible roles. As I was leaving my screening last night I overheard a conversation by a pair marveling at her commitment. \u201cThat was like Leo in The Revenant, but with dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Binoche smiles politely as I recount the anecdote; I don\u2019t think she necessarily loves the comparison to DiCaprio\u2019s bombastic performance. Sipping from an eco-friendly water bottle in a meeting room, she says that she was more interested in chipping away at the world\u2019s glamorous image of La Binoche. \u201cI wanted the audience to experience what it feels like to be in a process of creation,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s not a red carpet. It\u2019s searching, and it\u2019s finding a common place between two very different people.\u201d<\/p>\n

She relished being in what she calls the \u201cblurry place\u201d of inexperience; the way she talks about it is almost Buddhist. \u201cBeing a beginner meant to not know,\u201d she says, her eyes widening for emphasis. \u201cIt\u2019s about orienting into a truth within you. It\u2019s not about being confident, it\u2019s about allowing yourself to be nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Binoche and Khan shaped their characters\u2019 arc through numerous therapy-like conversations with acting coach Susan Batson and improvisation guided by movement director Su-Man Hsu. \u201cWhy do we need the other so much?\u201d Binoche asks reflexively at one point in the documentary. \u201cWhat does it mean to love? And when do we give up on it because it\u2019s so hard, and when do we carry on?\u201d These heady questions are brought to life in the full In-I performance that closes the documentary: Binoche\u2019s limbs fluidly glide through the air; her hands rest to caress Khan\u2019s face before being slapped away. They kiss, mouths tearing at each other like feral beaks on raw meat.<\/p>\n

\u2018I think any art form starts from the sensation.\u2019 Binoche with Akram Khan in In-I In Motion. Photograph: Courtesy of Miao Productions<\/p>\n

When it premiered in London in 2007 In-I drew mixed notices, but Binoche views the project, which ran for more than 100 international performances, as a personal landmark. Her sister, the film-maker Marion Stalens, had shot nearly 200 hours of raw footage of rehearsals, which Binoche painstakingly cut down for the finished two-hour documentary. She already had an early blessing from a Hollywood great: after one performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2008, the late Robert Redford<\/a> came into Binoche\u2019s dressing room and insisted that she make a film of the show. \u201cHe repeated it several times, and I was like, \u2018Yeah yeah, I know,\u2019\u201d says Binoche. \u201cI thought, \u2018One day I have to find a way.\u2019 And I was lucky enough that two and a half years ago, a producer and a financier came to me and said: \u2018Do you have a project you\u2019d like to do?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation mark<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re attached to status … I think you\u2019re losing possible opportunities for art<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Juliette Binoche<\/p>\n

Following her inner voice has resulted in an absorbing film, and I tell Binoche that I wish I had seen the original dance production on stage back in 2007. \u201cBut you must have been five years old then!\u201d she jokes, eyes twinkling. She is 15 years off the mark, but I\u2019m not too modest to accept the compliment. Binoche is in New York for a few days to screen the film; there was a time in her 30s when she considered moving to the city \u201cbecause you hear all about the energy here\u201d. She casts an appraising eye out at the gloomy March afternoon. \u201cBut when I see all the concrete, all the buildings, I feel like, no way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actor lives in Paris in a little stone house with a garden, and keeps a place in the country too. She grew up in the French capital and has described her childhood self as \u201ca little warrior\u201d. The opening of In-I is inspired by one of Binoche\u2019s most striking \u2013 and unusual \u2013 childhood memories. At just 12 years old, she became infatuated with an older man while watching Fellini<\/a>\u2019s Casanova in 1976 at the cinema: in the dance piece, it\u2019s the initial spark for Binoche and Khan\u2019s romance, setting off a relationship arc that moves from honeymoon period and sexually charged pas de deux to fights over pee on the toilet seat amid a messy breakup.<\/p>\n

At the visceral climax of In-I, Binoche is suspended against the backdrop of Anish Kapoor<\/a>\u2019s blood-red set and mimes being choked. The actor drew from the violent memory of being mugged as a young girl for the scene. \u201cIt became a big fight, and I was strangled,\u201d Binoche recalls. \u201cI said to him: \u2018Go ahead, do it.\u2019 And then he stopped because I said that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost impossible to imagine the self-possession that Binoche must have had to look her assailant in the eye and call his bluff. I suggest that it must have been painful to revisit such a traumatic experience, but she\u2019s having none of it. \u201cA lot of people go through it, hello?! In France, the percentage of women who go through violence like this<\/a> is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Binoche with Denis Lavant in Leos Carax\u2019s Mauvais Sang, 1986. Photograph: AJ Pics\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Binoche had previously considered directing (\u201cof course\u201d, she notes), but says that she never felt a particular urgency to make her own film because she always made sure to have a say in her projects. \u201cAs an actor, you\u2019re so involved in the directing because you\u2019re in the middle of it,\u201d she says. \u201cI never felt the desire somehow, because I felt that I was in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says that she didn\u2019t take tips from any of the past directors she has worked with, but absorbed something of their ethos in her decades spent on sets. \u201cWhat I learned from most directors is that they follow their intuition,\u201d she tells me. \u201cSo you go with your intuition but mainly your need. I think any art form starts from the sensation. Because that\u2019s what your body and gut feeling is telling you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can imagine Binoche starting from a place of spiritual truth for her intense character studies and auteur-led experimental work, but less so for her supporting parts in smooth-brained blockbusters. It\u2019s the same for Ghost in the Shell<\/a> as Mauvais Sang<\/a>? \u201cYeah, yeah, yeah,\u201d she says, before backtracking slightly. \u201cWell, with Mauvais Sang I was not that aware of it,\u201d Binoche adds of the surreal 1986 Leos Carax<\/a> thriller for which she received her second C\u00e9sar nomination. \u201cThat was more my relationship with Leos and being in love and wanting him to love me.\u201d That role saw her jumping out of an airplane. Could she do it again? \u201cIt depends for what and for who!\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, Binoche was president of the Cannes<\/a> jury that awarded<\/a> the Palme d\u2019Or to Jafar Panahi<\/a>\u2019s It Was Just An Accident, a dark comedy that was partly based on the Iranian director\u2019s experience as a political prisoner. It was a full-circle moment of sorts for Binoche, who drew attention to Panahi\u2019s imprisonment while accepting<\/a> Cannes\u2019 best actress award for Certified Copy in 2010. It wasn\u2019t Binoche\u2019s smoothest Cannes. In a press conference, she was criticized<\/a> for sidestepping a journalist\u2019s questions about why she did not sign a letter condemning film industry silence over Gaza. \u201cI cannot answer you,\u201d Binoche said at the time. \u201cYou will maybe understand it a little later.\u201d That evening at the official opening ceremony, she read a tribute to a Palestinian photojournalist named Fatima Hassouna, the subject of an in-competition documentary<\/a>. When I mention it today, she is still frustrated by the episode. \u201cBecause they didn\u2019t know what I was going to do in the evening,\u201d she says. \u201cI had a plan! The journalist kept repeating, and I kept repeating \u2013 it was ridiculous!\u201d<\/p>\n

In general, Binoche prefers to let her work do the talking. \u201cWhat I like in choosing a story, a script or a play is when there\u2019s transformation,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause I think we can transform. And we have to transform and let go of stuff from our education and where we come from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juliette Binoche at the 1997 Academy awards after winning best supporting actress for The English Patient. Photograph: Steven D Starr\/Corbis\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

She says the film that changed her the most was The Lovers on the Bridge, the utterly crazed 1991 masterpiece directed by Carax, her former boyfriend. Bincoche is majestic as Mich\u00e8le, an unhoused artist who is slowly going blind. At Carax\u2019s request, she spent time living on the streets to prepare for the role. \u201cIt was such a difficult film to make,\u201d she says. The production blew through several deadlines and ended up taking over two years to complete, and Binoche turned down numerous opportunities to dedicate herself to the role. \u201cThere was a lot of depression around me,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd also, it was: \u2018How are we going to find the money?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

At its time of filming Carax\u2019s movie was reported as the most expensive French film to date, with a chunk of its estimated $28m budget coming from grants through the CNC, a department of the French ministry of culture that supports film. \u201cIn France<\/a>, some people are still angry because there was some money from the CNC,\u201d Binoche says, shrugging. \u201cBut it\u2019s also about jealousy: because they are not part of it and it has great recognition in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine getting state funding of that scale for a project these days. Does she think it\u2019s tougher to be a film-maker today than in the 90s? \u201cWell, in France we have a system that protects artists,\u201d Binoche says. \u201cSo there\u2019s some cinema that\u2019s been helped, but recently they took away money from the CNC. [The funds are] probably for the army,\u201d she says grimly. \u201cAll the money has to go towards making weapons or in case of war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Binoche truly crossed over to English-speaking audiences in the 90s after her roles in Krzysztof Kie\u015blowski\u2019s masterpiece Three Colours: Blue<\/a>, for which she won the Volpi cup at Venice film festival, and an Oscar-winning turn in the 1996 period romance The English Patient<\/a>. With a history of sensual roles in films such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Damage, as well as her increased presence in English language films, the British press pronounced Binoche a sex symbol. Higher-brow publications were not immune: a 2000 Sight and Sound cover dubbed her \u201cThe Erotic Face\u201d, no matter that the actor was promoting a literary biopic of 19th-century author George Sand.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt never bothered me,\u201d she says of her image at the time. \u201cEach time you have to do nude scenes, it\u2019s always difficult. You have to focus on why you\u2019re doing them so you\u2019re not worried about them in a heavy way. It helps when you trust the director.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says that she learned that the hard way. In the mid-90s, director Andr\u00e9 T\u00e9chin\u00e9 assured Binoche of sensitivity when she agreed to shoot a nude scene for his drama Alice and Martin<\/a>, and the actor was crushed when she found out that he hadn\u2019t kept his promise. She\u2019s reticent to go into details when pressed, saying only: \u201cI felt betrayed. I liked Andr\u00e9. He\u2019s gay. But for me, something was then broken.\u201d Binoche managed to sidestep the director by persuading the film\u2019s producer to remove the shots, but she never worked with T\u00e9chin\u00e9 again.<\/p>\n

\u2018A love scene needs to come from the heart, the guts, the need.\u2019 Binoche in Claire Denis\u2019 Let the Sunshine In from 2017. Photograph: Curiosa Films\/Kobal\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

I wonder if things might have been different with an intimacy coordinator<\/a>: Kate Winslet<\/a> has said<\/a> that she wishes that they were the norm in her early career, while actors including Jennifer Lawrence and Gwyneth Paltrow have<\/a> spoken<\/a> about feeling more comfortable without them. \u201cI\u2019ve been approached about that,\u201d Binoche says with an eye roll. \u201cThe vocabulary is all: \u2018Are you agreeing that he touches this?\u2019 The body becomes a puzzle!\u201d While she \u201cof course\u201d recognizes that safeguards can be helpful for less seasoned female actors, she\u2019s quite pleased that In-I In Motion takes a more raw and intuitive approach to body contact. \u201cOur film goes against what is being said today,\u201d she says, before cracking a wide grin. \u201cAnd I like it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not as simple as having an intimacy coordinator on set,\u201d she goes on. \u201cWhen you\u2019re in a love scene it needs to come from the heart, the guts, the need. And so if you\u2019re thinking of the movement you\u2019re going to do and not of the feeling, you\u2019re in a bad situation. When you\u2019re embodying lovers, you overcome some fears of touching bodies. You really have to go beyond your comfort zone because otherwise you become a prude and not truthful to what\u2019s happening in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation mark<\/p>\n

Our film goes against what is being said today. And I like it!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Juliette Binoche<\/p>\n

\u201cTruth\u201d is getting to be a fuzzier concept in Hollywood in the age of AI, with the Oscars recently clamping down<\/a> on AI-generated scripts and performances, even as acclaimed directors including Steven Soderbergh and Darren Aronofsky<\/a> begin to<\/a> embrace<\/a> the technology. \u201cI\u2019m not thinking about it too much,\u201d Binoche says. \u201cThey were saying that painting was going to disappear because we had cameras, or that theater was going to die when cinema arrived. So I don\u2019t think you should be worried. It\u2019s called artificial intelligence. It\u2019s not spiritual intelligence or human intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as memorable supporting parts in recent American productions such as HBO\u2019s The Staircase<\/a> and starring along Ralph Fiennes in The Return<\/a>, Binoche says that she has recently been drawn to work that helps her stay grounded. Later this year, she will appear in the devastating drama Queen at Sea<\/a> as the daughter of a woman with dementia; the film took home<\/a> the prestigious jury prize at this year\u2019s Berlin film festival. And she\u2019ll return to France this week to finish shooting on North Loire, a rural thriller from emerging director Antoine Chevrollier. \u201cMy agent said to me, \u2018There\u2019s this French director and I think you should meet with him, but it\u2019s only his second film,\u2019\u201d she recalls. \u201cI met with him and loved him, so I jumped.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s proved to her once again the importance of listening to her gut. \u201cIt feels so freeing,\u201d she tells me, as she gathers up her things and prepares to head to the movie theater for the screening. \u201cIf you\u2019re attached to status and thinking, \u2018I\u2019m not going to descend,\u2019 I think you\u2019re losing possible opportunities for art.\u201d And that is not in Juliette Binoche\u2019s nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starring in more than 70 movies is all well and good, but Juliette Binoche can still get the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-952464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116555620826181900","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}