It's not a struggle to be on a diet. You feel lighter, and your spirit is lighter, too. But I love chocolate, and I allow myself to have chocolate. That doesn't go against a diet for me.
— Juliette Binoche
Sometimes I call directors. Sometimes I just meet with them. It just happens. It's not that I'm pushy. It comes naturally. But I go ahead. I don't stay in my armchair, waiting for the phone to ring.
As actors, we are so privileged to do what we do and to give to the world and to choose the subject we want to say to the world.
When you make a film, it's a bet. You don't know how the film is going to be, anyway.
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.
The best mother is the mother who adapts, and the best children are the children who adapt as well.
I like being a mother, and I want to be involved in my work, so I have to make choices. If you're a film actress, your career is from 20 to 45, but you can still dream.
My aim was never to be an American star; otherwise, I would have moved to Los Angeles.
My private life is very private, and I have chosen not to live in America or England, where you are so exposed and can't fight against it.
You make your own path as an actor. Nobody does it for you, so you have to invent yourself.
I want to know why I'm alive. I want to understand. It's like exploration; it's like someone being interested in a place and its history, digging into the earth and looking for it, searching - it's a passion.
I've played journalists before, and I have good friends who are journalists. I think being an actor is not very far from being a journalist. Because you investigate, you try to understand, you're asking questions, you're interested in the other.
When you really put your heart in the work, you don't think of how you look. And I think that's the beauty of it.
Acting is like peeling an onion. You have to peel away each layer to reveal another.
You must understand, I don't have to be happy to be happy.
There was probably something as a child I wanted to express, something unsaid that I needed to share.
My only ambition is to be true every moment I am living.
I'm not even aware of my success. Success is such an illusion.
I don't like films giving me answers. I like films that are provoking me, that are making me feel not only being in an easy place.
I've been changed watching films or reading books or hearing music, and that helps you to live your life.
I'm very down-to-earth and accessible, I think.
I wanted to work with people from the world, with different minds and different visions.
I'm a fighter as a mother. I'm fighting to be a mother, but I cannot say no to my passion because it's me, as well.
I really don't think that the Oscar changed my career much because I didn't want it to.
The thing is that I never felt beautiful. I really never did. I think I can change my looks and be different things, but I've never thought of myself as this face.
As an actress, I think there is always a political consciousness there.
I was used to theatre classes. I studied with my mother; she was a theatre teacher and directed, too, so it was very family-like. Then I studied with a great teacher in Paris, and she was wonderful; she pushed me, but she was a warm soul.
What I need is to express my passion for life... It's movement I'm interested in, the life in me, the life in humanity.
I have stories that I'd like to maybe one day consider directing, but you need a lot of time to write and put it together.
I move on stage differently. The more you act, anyway, the more you live, your perception of life becomes more and more accurate.
I am not a great French woman. George Sand, Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir are great French women.
What makes a person sexy is when he's not trying to be sexy.
People think actors have such glamorous lives, but the truth is actors go where nobody wants to go.
Maybe it's because my mother divorced and my grandmother divorced, so maybe I'm frightened deep down. But then I also feel there is no real need. Why do I need to get married? To reassure me? No I don't need reassurance.
I like intensity. If it's too mellow, I feel like, bleah. I like intensity, because it's way of reaching spaces inside of you, and it's my need of knowledge, of knowing about myself regardless.
If you told me tomorrow that I couldn't act anymore, it wouldn't bother me. I have only one wish: to meet the man of my life.
I am not a woman staying at home.
In a building with apartments, of course, you want to make connections. Life is easier that way. There's salt if you don't have salt; you can knock at someone's door, like in any city. But you know, you can hear the others, and you want to sleep, you get annoyed.
I never really worked in Hollywood. Some American producers came to Europe to shoot films with me, so it's a different situation... It was not my aim.
As an actor, I have to be fulfilled in the roles that I play; it has to be a journey for me to learn something or involve myself.
When I won the Oscar, there was something telling me 'this isn't the truth'. I had to get back to real work.
Fighting the ageing process just doesn't work. I think that actresses, ultimately, are responsible for the faces we give to women.
For me, acting goes to a special place; it's almost mystical. You have to let go of what you think is good; it's a jump into trust, and trying to reach without wanting too much.
I love the unknown. I think because it brings fear, and to embrace fear is the best feeling.
When I'm in the movie, I'm entirely in the movie. When I'm on the set, I'm 200 per cent there; when I'm at home, I'm 200 per cent at home.
Usually I love preparing. It's really the time I prefer, because it's a time of reflection and of possibility of growth - to let it cook inside.
I want to make films that are political and social. Films with a message or an idea. Films that dare to ask.
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.
What I love most about this crazy life is the adventure of it.
Oh, I'll be forgotten too, don't worry.
