‘He’s totally crazy’: Juliette Binoche tells how famous director fired her

Currently starring in the historical and culinary drama La Passion de Dodin Bouffant, which was recently selected to represent France at the Oscars, French actress Juliette Binoche spoke of a more difficult experience, but she still chose not to mention it when asked. “The Most Saving Failure”.

In the mid-90s, she was initially chosen by film director Claude Berry to play Lucie Obrak in a drama about a famous resistance fighter (wife of Raymond Obrak, who was arrested with Jean Moulin). However, he was kicked out of the project in favor of Carol Buchette, without understanding why:

“I went to see Lucy Obrak almost every day for two, three months. I prepared myself very well because it was a subject that was a fascinating and charming woman”he confided In the show The Original band, on France Inter.

“He approached us, and I think he must, I don’t know… Claude fired 20 people during the filming, with whom he didn’t do well. After a few months we met again, I jumped. He hugged me and said: “I have a project, I have a big project for you with Redford.” I said to myself, “He’s completely crazy.”

But how did this experience constitute a “failure to survive” for the actor? Juliette Binoche, who three months later won the Oscar for Best Actress for The English Patient, explained that the ordeal allowed her to take a step back:

“When I won the Oscar, three months later, I was inoculated against both winning and losing. Which meant that when I had to go on stage to accept the Oscar, I was happy, but not beside myself.”

In 1998, Juliette Binoche already spoke about this experience on the microphone ExpressOn the grounds of an artistic dispute with the director:

“I knew Lucy Obrak, and it was necessary for me to return the truth to her. But I did not feel in the phase of the subjective character seen by Claude Berry. Didn’t that bother her? Today I thank these trials, they. They humbled me. True humility grows, not shrinks.”

(Re)discover the trailer for The Passion of Dodin Buffan, currently in theaters…