Juliette Binoche
Biography
Juliette Binoche was born in Paris, France, to Monique Yvette Stalens, a director, teacher, and actress, and Jean-Marie Binoche, a sculptor, director, and actor. Her mother was born in Czestochowa, Poland, of French, Walloon Belgian, and Polish descent, while her father is French.
Juliette was only 23 when she first attracted the attention of international film critics with The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). Roger Ebert, a Chicago Sun-Times film critic with an international following for his books on film and TV reviews, wrote that she was "almost ethereal in her beauty and innocence".
That innocence was gone by the time Binoche completed Louis Malle's Damage (1992) (aka "Fatale"). In an interview after the film was released, Binoche said: "Malle was trying direct and wanted something more sophisticated".
A year later, Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors: Blue (1993) was added to her film credits. After a sabbatical from film-making to become a mother in 1994, Binoche was selected as the heroine of France's most expensive ($35 million) movie ever: The Horseman on the Roof (1995). More recently, she made The English Patient (1996), for which she won an Oscar for 'Best supporting actress' and Chocolat (2000).
In 1996, she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in The English Patient (1996). Legendary actress Lauren Bacall was roundly expected to win in that category for her performance in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), but Binoche won the Oscar instead, in one of the biggest surprise wins in Oscar history.
In her acceptance speech, she said, "I don't have a speech prepared. I thought Lauren would get it." Bacall was given an honorary Oscar in 2010.
She has turned down Hollywood many times.
Is one of 5 French actors to have won an Academy Award. The others in chronological order are: Claudette Colbert for It Happened One Night (1934), Simone Signoret for Room at the Top (1958), Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose (2007), and Jean Dujardin for The Artist (2011).
Says Quentin Tarantino told her that her last scene in Godzilla (2014) made him cry. "Well, [Quentin] Tarantino said to me, 'That was the first time I've ever cried during a 3D blockbuster. I had to take off my glasses to wipe away my tears'.".
Has a daughter, Hana, with French actor Benoît Magimel, born December 16th, 1999.
