Juliette Binoche Quotations

What I love most about this crazy life is the adventure of it.

There was probably something as a child I wanted to express, something unsaid that I needed to share.

I think acting is about forgetting yourself in order to give the best of yourself. It's passing through you more than you're creating it. You're not the flower, but the vase which holds the flower.

For me, habit is just a synonym for death.

Acting is like peeling an onion. You have to peel away each layer to reveal another.

I believe that being an actress or being involved in a movie has to be a life experience, otherwise why go for it? I have to change me, and I have to learn things, and I have to push me and my limits. By acting, I find a freedom inside of a prison in a way.

Attraction is beyond our will or ideas sometimes.

You must understand, I don't have to be happy to be happy.

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.

Choosing to be in the theatre was a way to put my roots down somewhere with other people. It was a way to choose a new family.

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.

Being a famous actress may give you a sense of being important, but believe me, it's just an illusion.

I am not a great French woman. George Sand, Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir are great French women.

I think it's the same simple thing for everyone - to be happy, and have love in your life.

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.

You make your own path as an actor. Nobody does it for you, so you have to invent yourself.

I try to see my films just once. it's like a dream you've been through when it's been intense, and you just have to go through it once more just to make sure you've had it.

I've never thought of my characters as being sad. On the contrary, they are full of life. They didn't choose tragedy. Tragedy chose them.

My only ambition is to be true every moment I am living.

I'm not obsessed by looks. I think you can become a prisoner of your own image.

What makes a person sexy is when he's not trying to be sexy.

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.

Movies are open doors, and at every door, I change character and life.

People think actors have such glamorous lives, but the truth is actors go where nobody wants to go.

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.

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.

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.

Before I thought there was a common denominator between my films - as if all my characters were sisters - but I'm not so sure now.

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.

But I think it's a little different in Europe, because 40 is really the best age for a woman. That's when we hit our peak and become this ripe fruit.

Fighting the ageing process just doesn't work. I think that actresses, ultimately, are responsible for the faces we give to women.

If you have everything, then you don't want to go on. It's the lacking that makes you search for something better.

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.

When you make a film, it's a bet. You don't know how the film is going to be, anyway.

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.

But, you know, when I choose a film I need to believe in it and believe I can do something special with it, and after a while that means not trying to judge or analyze why I should do it. You have to follow this intuition thing, which is a mystery to me.

Each new film is like a trial. Before I step in front of the camera, I do not know whether I am going to fall or whether I am going to fly - and that is exactly the way I want it to stay.

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.

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.

I live for the present always. I accept this risk. I don't deny the past, but it's a page to turn.

My ambition is to have beautiful encounters, not to make money.

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.

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 am not a woman staying at home.

I never felt being an actor or making a movie was an easy thing to do.

My aim was never to be an American star; otherwise, I would have moved to Los Angeles.

The best mother is the mother who adapts, and the best children are the children who adapt as well.

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.

Acting is a tough business, and you need to be in good shape mentally and physically.

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.

As an actress we don't beat one another. It's whoever's right for the part.

As an actress, I think there is always a political consciousness there.

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.

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.

I love the unknown. I think because it brings fear, and to embrace fear is the best feeling.

I move on stage differently. The more you act, anyway, the more you live, your perception of life becomes more and more accurate.

I really don't think that the Oscar changed my career much because I didn't want it to.

I sometimes feel like I could do another job. Anything. Maybe because as an actress you're playing different characters, everything feels possible.

I want to make films that are political and social. Films with a message or an idea. Films that dare to ask.

I wanted to work with people from the world, with different minds and different visions.

I was so happy when they cast me in Chocolat, because it's one of my vices.

I won't do something just for the sake of working.

I would have loved to have met Marilyn Monroe and have dinner with her.

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'm not even aware of my success. Success is such an illusion.

I've been changed watching films or reading books or hearing music, and that helps you to live your life.

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.

It's never been my purpose to become an American icon, or more famous or richer.

When I won the Oscar, there was something telling me 'this isn't the truth'. I had to get back to real work.

But I've never felt that being an actress is being in a comfortable place. It's seen from the outside that we're being driven in big cars and having these gorgeous suites and all of that. But come on, it's not about that.

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.

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.

I like travelling and if I have to come to Hollywood to make a movie I will, but otherwise I'd never move there. It's very much an industry town and that doesn't really interest me.

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.

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 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.

We're here to be with her, and to help her in a spiritual way. I think our presence here is a way to sustain the possibility of freedom.

The themes have to do with immigration, our past, and are we guilty when we're 6 years old, ... For me, the big subject is not what my husband in the film (Daniel Auteuil) has done as a child, but in not recognizing his fault, he's damaged someone's life. The theme is universal; it doesn't just belong to the French-Algerian past, but triggers something we all can share.

I wanted to have an international career, which I have, and be free to work with whoever I wanted to work with. My instinct was to go back to France afterwards. I went to do a small film, then I went back and forth.

Something triggers inside her when her husband focuses on the little girl, ... She feels abandoned. Finding this man who represents unity, being Jewish, solid, family-oriented, it triggers something deep in her that reassures her. And when he changes his focus, she feels completely abandoned.

I learned a lot last year about the current difficulties in independent film making. Money is promised one minute and gone the next. I was bitterly disappointed about Scheherazade. It was one of the best scripts I have ever read.

You have to have the courage to wait, to say no, ... And that's difficult. This job is very uncertain, and it's frightening.

The strong is not the one who can put on the blades at a glance, and the one who is able to raise a smile from his knees!

I believe such illumination comes if you're open to the surprises the universe throws at you. You must be able to let go of the past, whatever success you may have seen, whatever your comfort, whatever your habits. To me, that's the key to loving life: Enabling yourself to step bravely into the unknown. Only there will you find yourself again.

I need relationships, but sometimes when I am in one I feel claustrophobic. It is about feeling that I still have my freedom, that I have choices. I don't look back on the past because I like to live in the present. I know this makes some people think I probably never cared, but I need my freedom and I like to keep moving.

I think the world would be much better if you always started the morning by calling the person you dreamt of during the night.

You have to have the courage to wait, to say no, ... And thats difficult. This job is very uncertain, and its frightening.

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!

I'm very down-to-earth and accessible, I think.

Oh, I'll be forgotten too, don't worry.

I think I am pretty much melancholic.

I don't believe in coincidence.

I would say I'm humanly engaged.

There is a secret, I think. When you are front of a camera there is something that happens. Some relationship, some movement, some strange kind of suspension. That's where you find the layer in yourself that is duplicated in everyone. And when you get it right, if you can imagine all the hearts beating in one beat, it's like that. It's beautiful.

Changing someone's life is not the best, is not wanting to change the other life. It is being who you are that changes another's life. Do you understand?

Ive never thought of my characters as being sad. On the contrary, they are full of life. They didnt choose tragedy. Tragedy chose them.

I like independence, I like creating my own world, not being in a system. There are more possibilities, I think.

For me, real, truthful moments come from a place that I don't know. If somebody was telling me, "You're going to lift your face like this, you're going to do this..." No! I don't want to know. Just let me live it.

I'm very patient and always willing to try things but I have some resistance as well because I have my own vision. I have resistance sometimes because I see a director who's freaking out and wants to have control and they sometimes anticipate about what I'm going to be doing or not.

George Clooney is trying his own way but he's struggling too because he has to deal with America. Yet, if he has a foot in Europe, it's not for nothing.