Juliette Binoche on filming The Lovers On The Bridge: ‘That was a moment I almost died. And I chose life’
For more than four decades, Juliette Binoche has been thrilling international arthouse audiences as well as enjoying mainstream success with The English Patient and Chocolat. She talks to James Mottram about bonding with her co-stars, sex scene taboos and the film that almost killed her
What was your initial reaction to the script for Lance Hammer’s Queen At Sea? I read it and loved it, even though I thought it could evolve. But I met with Lance on Zoom, and I loved the man. He was very quiet, almost like a monk, and his need of cinema is so strong… I could feel that. So it really was pulling my interest, [especially] the way he was open to change things and wanted me to be part of the evolution of the script.
That included an extensive rehearsal period, quite rare in movies, with you as the daughter to the dementia-suffering character, played by Anna Calder-Marshall and stepdaughter to Sir Tom Courtney’s Martin. Did that help you all bond? Yes. We were knitting relationships, with Annie and Tom’s sense of humour and Annie’s giggles and my giggles. It all came into a feeling of family. So there was two weeks of rehearsing, and then Lance postponed the shoot for one week [for more prep], and I thought it was so brave of him because he was the producer, putting his own money into the film. That really touched me so much.
The story deals with the complex topic of sexual consent between a husband and his dementia-afflicted wife. What was your take on it? You don’t have a right answer. I mean, my character is right and she’s wrong, same as Tom’s character. The character of Annie, she wants to have sex. So you wonder, why not have it? It’s very complex because our mind wants to say no. She’s not conscious because she has dementia. But what do we know about dementia? There’s no answer.
How do you feel about showing older people making love in movies? In Hollywood it seems taboo… It could be beautiful, two old people making love. I mean, I don’t see it as being something horrible. Not at all. On the contrary, it’s quite moving. There’s a care, there’s a tenderness… it’s not about physical attraction, it’s about something else and it becomes deeper.
Tom Courtney told me that he was very taken with you in The English Patient. Which films of his were you particularly taken with? I wanted to know everything about Doctor Zhivago, of course. So he told me many, many stories. He’s very theatrical and I love it. Annie too… they had lots of stories.
Aside from The English Patient, which won you an Oscar, what do you see as the key turning points in your career? The Lovers On The Bridge [Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf]... that was a moment I almost died. And I chose life. No matter what, I chose life. And I thought, ‘I will never kill myself for a film.’ So that was a turning point. In [Three Colours] Blue, for example, even though the subject matter was quite heavy, we did it with such lightness and joy. It felt contradictory. How come with a subject matter [like that] you can be that happy? But it just was so easy to make. There was no struggle. And some other films, you feel it’s gonna be so easy and it is not.
You became president of the European Film Academy in 2024. Do you feel European cinema is as strong as ever? Yes. European films are very strong in the world. And very unique. I love the fact that we’re so different, all of us, and still we find a unity. But it needs to be, I think, enhanced even more with the EFA, with the academy, and that’s really what I felt during the ceremony [of the European Film Awards in January 2026]. I was so thrilled that Mark Cousins curated it… concentrating more on cinema and using presenters that are related to the job that they’re presenting. An editor for the editor award, for example. I think it’s so important. You understand that cinema is made with a lot of different artforms… many people together. When I said I’ve never felt as European as that night, I really felt it and it felt wonderful.
You never stop working. What is next for you? I’m starting a film [North Loire] on Monday. It’s a second film of a French director, Antoine Chevrollier. It’s a secondary role I’m playing. I wanted to be part of that family and so I’m shooting two weeks there. And I’m doing a film [Merci, Charlotte] at the end of August with Berkun Oya. He’s a Turkish director. I like the script he wrote.
It’s one of the key traits of your career, working with artists all over the world. What does it bring you? I always love working with people you think you’re not going to be that close to, because of different traditions and different educations, but it feels very close. It’s not the language or the country that make a big gap. As human beings, you can travel around the world and you see that. The big themes are common.
Queen At Sea is in cinemas from Friday 18 September.