In Homer’s “Odyssey,” Penelope waits 20 years for her husband, Odysseus, to come home after winning the Trojan War.
Juliette Binoche waited even longer to reunite with Ralph Fiennes after “The English Patient,” the 1996 film in which they co-starred.
Their collaboration this time: “The Return,” Uberto Pasolini’s reimagining of Homer’s epic, and a project the filmmaker worked on for 30 years.
Binoche was excited by Pasolini’s vision for the movie — a kind of stripped-down landscape with actors wrapped in cloth instead of costumes.
“There was something bare about it. He tried to really go to the core of the dialogue,” she said in a video call from Paris. “He made those characters very human.”
Binoche was also at a point in her life where “I was in touch with the feeling of abandonment, the feeling of the patience that you need to have for this male side of anger, of going into the world and conquering,” she said.
“An archetype like this, it’s a gift actually — and to be chosen means you have to really get ready and go for it,” she added before discussing what she thinks artists need to be careful about, her relationship with books about spirituality, and the time Johnny Depp threw away a gift that she gave him. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Quiet
Silence is very important in my life because it’s where it starts. If I don’t have the space of silence, I feel that any movement, any acting is not related to a place that is intimate.
Getting to Know Yourself
It’s a lot of work to get rid of our projections, or to overcome our education or fears we put in between ourselves and what we want to achieve. I’m well-served because acting is the best way to know about yourself, especially when you work with an acting coach. If you have somebody who can see you and help you see you, it’s wonderful.
Preparation
Before a film or a play, I have to have the sense that I’ve been through the story. For “Chocolat,” I learned to make chocolate, and I prepared each chocolate specifically for each actor I was working with. I came on the set with all my boxes. And I was appalled when Johnny Depp threw it away because he didn’t like chocolate. It made me laugh, of course.
Careful Choices
Something I’m more and more aware of is that what you do is your participation in the world. So watch what your choices are, watch what you are thinking, watch what you are learning from your being. I think especially as artists, you really have to watch how you want to give yourself to the world.
Markets
Even when I shoot abroad, I always try to find the farmers’ market. If I don’t have vegetables, I feel I’m dying. Here in Paris, I’ve been going to the same organic market on Sunday morning for 35 years, and probably until the end of my life, I will go there.
Check-Ins
I need to know that my family is well in order to work well. I need to know that my kids are OK. Same with my mother. I see her every Sunday afternoon.
‘Square Root of the Verb to Be’ by Wajdi Mouawad
My parents worked in the theater, so it’s a field I really love. Wajdi Mouawad is a Lebanese director, and he writes his plays as well. I’ve seen this play three times, and it’s five and a half hours long. I’m bringing Christian Louboutin to see it. He made an exhibition of all of his shoes in Paris four or five years ago. You felt like it was like seeing a painting.
‘Talking With Angels’ by Gitta Mallasz and Hanna Dallos
Since my 20s, I’ve read a lot of spiritual books from different kinds of traditions. It’s the place where I feel connected and understand why I am here. “Talking With Angels” is a story that happened during World War II in Hungary. There are four friends having a dialogue with angels. I’m with them from beginning to end.
My Farm
Three years ago, I bought a farm in the southwest of France where my father was born and my grandmother was living. I spent all my summers there. It gives me a sort of perspective of breathing, a place where I know I can withdraw. I never in my life had a secondary place, because I was moving so much. Now it feels like it’s the right time to have this house.
My Mother
My mother was the person who made me realize that I loved the arts and needed to express myself through a medium. Every time she was proposing to go to a concert, to read a play out loud, I was there with her. I was always a “yes, yes, yes” girl because I was in need of it. We didn’t have money. Life was rough. So I felt I was saved, through her, with the arts.
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