Juliette Binoche, daughter of an actress and a sculptor, was only 23 when she first attracted the attention of international film critics with Unbearable Lightness of Being, The (1988). Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times film critic with an international following of his books on film and TV reviews, wrote that she was "almost ethereal in her beauty and innocence". That innocence was gone by the time Binoche completed Louis Malle's Fatale (1992). In an interview after the film was released, Binoche said: "Malle was trying to change my image! He considered it too direct and wanted something more sophisticated". A year later Krzysztof Kieslowski's Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993) was added to her film credits. After a sabbatical from film-making to become a mother in 1994, Binoche was selected as the heroine of France's most expensive ($35 million) movie ever: Hussard sur le toit, Le (1995). More recently she has made English Patient, The (1996), for which she won an Oscar for 'Best supporting actress' and Chocolat (2000).
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#48). [1995]
"Movies are open doors, and at every door, I change character and life...I live for the present always. I accept this risk. I don't deny the past, but it's a page to turn."
"When I returned to France after winning the Oscar, I was treated like royalty, or like a football hero!"
"Giving birth is like a vase of beautiful flowers. Only you're just the vase, and only for a very short moment. The flowers are beautiful, but they belong to themselves, not to the vase."
"I am not a great French woman. George Sand, Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir are great French women."
"I knew I had become a star when I shook hands with Simone Signoret at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. She died four months later"
"Acting is like peeling an onion. You have to peel away each layer to reveal another."
"I want to make films that are political and social. Films with a message or an idea. Films that dare to ask."
"If a star is someone who gives light, then I can be a star. But if a star is someone who goes after money and magazine covers then it's sick and I don't want it!"
"French women bloom at 40! I can't wait!"
"My earliest memory is loneliness. That's a hard thing to live with"I have been proposed to four times. Twice at the beginning of a relationship and twice at the end of a relationship. I've never said no. I just didn't give an answer!"Going to South Africa (Country of My Skull 2003) has changed me utterly. I have seen and heard about acts of cruelty and hatred which are hard to comprehend. But I've also seen peace and tranquility like nowhere else on earth."
Where are they now (September 2003) Currently in London shooting Scheherazade (2004)(January 2004) Currently in San Francisco Bay area shooting Bee Season (2004)(August 2004) In Paris filming Michael Haneke's Cach?
Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia: Lovely, delicate-looking actress who has made an impact in many French and international films. After supporting roles in films like La Vie de famille/Family Life (1984) and Jean-Luc Godard's Hail Mary (1985), she gained attention in leading roles in the melodrama Rendez-vous (1985) and Bad Blood (1986). She made a memorable English-language debut as a sexually free-spirited woman in Philip Kaufman's dazzling adaptation of The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) and starred as a one-eyed, gun-carrying painter in Les Amants du Pont Neuf (1990). Since then, she has portrayed Cathy in Wuthering Heights (not released in the U.S.) and gave a darkly ambiguous performance as a woman who seduces Jeremy Irons in Louis Malle's Damage (both 1992). In 1993 she won a Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival for Blue.
Gender: Female
Profession: Actress
Nickname: La Binoche
Height: 5' 6" (1.68 m)