The French screen star opens up about her life mirroring the plot of new film Both Sides of the Blade and putting male cinema icons in their place
Broaching personal matters in an interview can be tricky. Laying the groundwork, not appearing prurient, choosing your words carefully so as not to spook your subject – all these elements are crucial. They are also completely unnecessary in the case of Juliette Binoche. We are fewer than five minutes into our Zoom call and already the 58-year-old actor is leaning forward in her seat in an office in Paris and trawling through intimate memories. “I fell in love with two men in my 20s,” she says, matter of factly. “It was unbearable. Quite unbearable.”
This is apropos Both Sides of the Blade, her third film with the sensual, uncompromising director Claire Denis. Binoche plays Sara, a radio talkshow host torn between two brooding men: her boyfriend, Jean (Vincent Lindon), an ex-con and former rugby player, and her erstwhile lover, François (Grégoire Colin). Sara and Jean have an apparently harmonious relationship, but the magnetism of François, and the past, proves impossible to resist. “Here we go again,” Sara tells herself. “Love, fear, sleepless nights. The phone at my bedside. Getting wet.”
