Juliette Binoche Dan in Real Life Interview

BINOCHE TAKES ON HOLLYWOOD ROMANCE.

Juliette Binoche/Dan in Real Life Interview by Paul Fischer.

Beautiful Juliette Binoche segues from intense dramas such as the Israeli film Disengagement, to more mainstream Hollywood fare as the upcoming romantic comedy Dan in Real Life opposite Steve Carell in which she plays the fiancee of Carell's brother, who finds herself falling for Carell's widowed newspaper advice columnist at a large family gathering. Juliette Binoche, The actress talked to Paul Fischer.

Paul Fischer: Having seen these two very serious movies again in Toronto, was it a relief or a release for you to do something like this which is a kind of genre that we don't' see that much you in?

Juliette Binoche: It was more difficult in a way because it's like breaking the rule of my other films, where I just plunge into it with a sort of an artistic rage somehow and this one I had to somehow have the horse inside me, but just controlling it a little more because it was, part of the story and - this loving sort of a control because it's his second film and it's dangerous for him because he's a very ambitious artist. I had to adjust myself because after the Hou Hsiao-hsien film I was completely free, like not having any dialogue or anything. Suddenly I was like 'OK this is page 1 - all the words have to be there' so it was like an adjustment I had to make.


Paul Fischer: But working with Steve Carell there would have been some improvisation.

Juliette Binoche: Not that much, no. It wasn't improved at all. You know, some people ask me 'What was it like to work with two comics', you know, comedians, and it felt like 'Well how does it feel for them to work with a dramatic actress?' It was like two different worlds that have to meet. And I have to say that the commitment was serious, was really - on the set it was not like 'ha ha ha things'. It was like very real and thinking as actors, trying to lift the story into a comedy but yet you have the inside of the characters.


Paul Fischer: Do you see yourself as this ultimate dream girl you're portraying ?

Juliette Binoche: She's an angel. She's playing the angel because I think inside her there's so many needs unfulfilled. She's like an orphan in need of family, so the big house with a whole bunch of kids and good atmosphere just fulfils some kind of emptiness she feels. But I think that she needs to be perfect to hide her real person somehow, you know, the fragility. She needs to hide it.


Paul Fischer: Do you think in French or do you think everything in English.

Juliette Binoche: I think the way it comes, so I think I think in English and I think I think in French. You know, there's a moment when I talk to you I don't know whether it comes in French or in English but I know you're an English speaker so it comes in English. Some words, you know, it's amazing but some words would come only in French and when I speak French it would only come in English. And so the adjustment is very difficult sometimes.


Paul Fischer: Did you have a big family like the one in Dan in Real Life?.

Juliette Binoche: I do on my father's side. There's a big, big family with lots of cousins like 25 cousins and we would gather every summer like this, so I have this feeling very much that there's sort of a joy as a child. As an adult it's a different story because you see all the layers and all the complications of your relationships and all that and I come from divorced families so now the gathering at Christmas is like 'She's not coming'. 'He's not coming, I assure you' As we all know, it's complicated. Families are not an easy job.


Paul Fischer: It must take a lot to entice you to want to work on an American film because you do work predominantly in Europe obviously. Why do you think this movie spoke to you in a way that made you come and work here?

Juliette Binoche: It was a combination. I was not aware that it was this Disney film, but at the time when I read the script, there was something about it I liked, that I had to meet with the director to know - I hadn't seen his films. So I saw Pieces Of April and I loved it, because there's sincerity in it, it feels authentic to me and the subject touched me very much. I think Peter is very good at telling stories that belong to your heart and to the family kind of questions, which I could see that in pieces of April. as well as the comic and tragic aspects of life, because you don't cry all the time but we have to laugh about crying, otherwise it's unbearable and I think that his films represent that.


Paul Fischer: How familiar were you with Steve Carell and Dane Cook before you started?

Juliette Binoche: I didn't know them, because in France, I didn't see anything of Steve's. You know, The Forty Year Old Virgin didn't work and the Office we didn't get, so we started to notice him with Little Miss Sunshine and Dane, we don't know.


Paul Fischer: So when you signed on were they already attached?

Juliette Binoche: Steve was. Dane was like me. That's why we met in LA because he wanted to see if the chemistry was working. And so Peter made us sing together. I had to sing with Steve Carell. I met him, just sat down and said 'Hi how are you?' Good. And then I had to sing and so we sang, put the music on and I didn't know the song. It was Barbara Streisand, I remember her voice and said 'Oh my God!'. And with Dane we had to dance together. See if the sexual chemistry was working?


Paul Fischer: And was it?

Juliette Binoche: It was. It was a little frightening actually. It's like 'Oh oh. No, no, no'.


Paul Fischer: Didn't you have to do yoga for them too?

Juliette Binoche: Sort of a yoga. I think it's more aerobic than yoga.


Paul Fischer: What are the differences for you in your approach to acting between the two films you did that were in Toronto that are obviously very serious. The Disengagement movie was a terribly intense, sad drama and then this movie. Are your acting muscles very different when you approach these three different films?

Juliette Binoche: No because I think everybody has his own tragedy and defeat and when you play a character you've got to find it and it has to be there somehow. Sometimes it emerges, sometimes you don't see it, it's covered. But it has to be there, in order for me to feel what's real in the character.


Paul Fischer: Flipping the cards a little bit, I don't know if you have a sister but have you ever been in the awkward situation of either falling for or being attracted to a best friends' guy?

Juliette Binoche: Yeah with my sister, when I was like nine years old we were in love with the same guy at school. It was awful.


Paul Fischer: Is she older, the sister?

Juliette Binoche: She's older. And there was a moment we were remembering the time were, you know, of this boy and she said to me 'No you were never in love with him' and I said 'Yes I was in love with him', you know. It still wasn't over, you know. But she was denying my being in love with him. And I just was so curious.


Paul Fischer: Who did he pick? Or didn't he pick either one of you?

Juliette Binoche: No. No. I mean we were so little, it was just the heart beating at that point.

Paul Fischer: Who was he?

Juliette Binoche: His name was Glaviat and he was very blonde and this wonderful boy but I never really talked to him. I was just in love with him. That was enough.


Paul Fischer: Where did the actress in you come from? What fuelled that particular passion for you to become an actress?

Juliette Binoche: I think it comes from being at school and not belonging in the school system. I felt very, very unhappy in having to do the right thing. I felt that I didn't belong to this kind of system so very early on and also I was in a boarding school very, very early, when I was four years old, so I had to invent a sort of surviving system, which was fine. I played and played and played, and the space that I gave myself in order I think to prepare myself for life and I think the imagination is really what made me survive.


Paul Fischer: Do you still feel like that in a way? Do you still feel a bit like the survivor or like the outsider?

Juliette Binoche: I always felt an outsider and it feels quite all right I have to say because for me you have to be independent in order to be with the others. I don't like being dependent.


Paul Fischer: Are you surprised at the international success that you've attained?

Juliette Binoche: Yes I am. But at the same time when I was eighteen I felt like '(gasps) I've got to go away from my country. (gasps) I can't breathe here. (gasps) let's get out the country and learn a new language where I can travel and to go somewhere else. That's really what was in my guts, I felt I've got to expand and express myself around the world. And it wasn't especially American and it wasn't a specific country. I just wanted to meet great minds, people with visions and integrity and authenticity and go in the world. But expressing possibly acting, or it could be directing, or designing. I'm going to do a dance show next year and for me that's part of it. It's the same movement. I think we're all about movement and so acting is one of them because you've got to do that, you know, you have expose something of yourself but it's so deep inside and so hidden and intimate and in dance it's another way of reaching something of yours that is, you haven't - I don't know. I think life gives us so much and we're just exploring a tiny little bit of ourselves instead of trying new things and painting and writing, but it wasn't an artistic layer I had to go because I can - it's like my choices have now related to business, you know, and I see here that business comes first sometimes and when I got all the questions that I've been doing for two days now, I feel sick. I feel like 'Oh it's terrible to be a woman here'.


Paul Fischer: Why?

Juliette Binoche: Well because they tell you 'Do you still get parts?, you know. And I feel 'Well in ten months I did five films so yeah I still do get parts.


Paul Fischer: Really?

Juliette Binoche: No I tell you, 'And so what's your role about?' 'The role? You haven't seen the movie?'


Paul Fischer: Would that be the TV journalists?

Juliette Binoche: Yeah. Oh my God.


Paul Fischer: Everyone complains about them.

Juliette Binoche: But I've never felt that before and I think because I'm doing this film with Steve Carell so I have to promote Steve Carell's career the whole day, because it's very male oriented.


Paul Fischer: But in Europe you don't get treated that way?

Juliette Binoche: I don't feel that.


Paul Fischer: No. it's true. It's shocking. You just mentioned you did five movies in ten months. Can you talk about the other films that you've done?

Juliette Binoche: We were just talking about one which is the Hou Hsiao-hsien film called The Flight of the Red Balloon. He's a Taiwanese director. He's one of the most talented and interesting directors. I did a film with Cedric Klapich, a French director. We did a film called Paris. I did a film with Amos Gitai, an Israeli director, called Disengagement. It's about the Gaza pull out and the relationship between brother and sister. And I did a film with Olivier Assayas, called Heure d'ete, L' (Summer Time).


Paul Fischer: And the dance film that you're going to be doing?

Juliette Binoche: It's not a film. It's a show. Yeah. We're going to tour.


Paul Fischer: Will it be in Paris?

Juliette Binoche: No we're going to start at the National Theatre in London. And then we're going to go to different places?


Paul Fischer: Will you go here?

Juliette Binoche: We will come to LA at the UCLA theatre.


Paul Fischer: When do you think that will be?

Juliette Binoche: January 2009.


Paul Fischer: What is the nature of the dance show.

Juliette Binoche: We don't know yet because we haven't started the rehearsal and the idea is to improve and start from the unknown which is very scary but it's where you have to find your true belonging things.


Paul Fischer: Does it have a title.

Juliette Binoche: Inside Eye.


Paul Fischer: Inside Eye, E-Y-E- or in side I?

Juliette Binoche: Both.


Paul Fischer: And you're going to perform in it?

Juliette Binoche: Yeah.


Paul Fischer: A whole run?

Juliette Binoche: I hope so.


Paul Fischer: When's the last time you were on stage?

Juliette Binoche: That was in New York in Betrayal, I did on Broadway. About six years ago.


Paul Fischer: Are you looking forward to getting back?

Juliette Binoche: Yeah, I do, yeah.


Paul Fischer: And this dance show is at the Royal National Theatre?

Paul Fischer: What's the Richard Eyre movie you're doing?

Juliette Binoche: Oh The Other Man? I'm not sure I'll be able because I'll be rehearsing for the show so I don't know yet whether I will be able to do his film because we were supposed to do it next month and it was postponed because of money problems.


Starring: Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook, John Mahoney, Emily Blunt, Dianne Wiest, Alison Pill
Director: Peter Hedges
Genre: Comedies

Dan Ashburn (Steve Carell) is a devoted single father and renowned advice columnist. When his entire extended family gets together for a reunion in a beachfront house, he unexpectedly meets Beth (Juliette Binoche), the woman of his dreams. She is smart, funny, beautiful and she just happens to be his brother?s girlfriend! In this heartfelt new comedy, the man with all the answers finds that the hardest advice to take is your own.