Juliette Binoche has been friends with Ralph Fiennes for years and she knows his “dark sides”, his “desires” and his “beauty”.
Juliette Binoche knows Ralph Fiennes’ “dark sides” and his “beauty”.
The pair has been friends for more than 30 years after first appearing onscreen together in 1992 film ‘Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights’ and then again in 1996 drama ‘The English Patient’. They are now starring in new movie ‘The Return’ together and Juliette admits they have been close for a very long time and brought “luggage” to their latest film project.
She told The Independent newspaper: “We’ve remained friends over the years. So we came to this story [‘The Return’] with luggage.
“I moved myself, honestly. Because we were playing these archetypes but also playing human beings, and it was the two of us bringing that humanity to them. We were Odysseus and Penelope [in ‘The Return’, yes, but we were also Ralph and Juliette.”
She went on to insist their working relationship is better than every because Ralph has let her get “closer to him” and he now feels like “family”.
She added: “I see evolution more with Ralph than I see with myself. I know him better now. He’s let me in closer to him.
“I know his desires, I know his dark sides and his beauty … He knows his limits, and he’s not afraid to talk about them with me. It feels like we are from the same family in a way.”
‘The Return’ is Uberto Pasolini’s retelling of Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ and Juliette previously admitted she jumped at the chance to work with her former co-star again.
She told The Hollywood Reporter: “We remained friends, throughout all those years, since ‘The English Patient’. So it was just joyful to be able to reconnect onscreen. Ralph is not lying down this time, but I think Penelope is a kind of nurse, for being so patient of this ‘new patient’ who comes back to Ithaca.” Ralph plays Odysseus, who arrives home to his kingdom Ithaca after 20 years away at war, to find his wife, Penelope (Binoche) a prisoner in her own home, fighting off suitors who want to marry her and rule Ithaca.
Ralph told the publication: “Friendship isn’t always about working together. It’s about talking together, sharing a meal together but [the opportunity to reunite on screen] well it was a no-brainer.
“Juliette is like a compass for me, she has such an extraordinary, intuitive depth and understanding about what it is to act on film.
“This isn’t a Hollywood sword-and-sandals film, there is an austerity to it, and there are no gods, no monsters. Our Odysseus is a lost soul, a man bruised and scarred, psychologically scarred, by war, who returns home indecisive and unsure of whether he should reclaim his kingdom and take his revenge [on his wife’s suitors].”
Juliette Binoche knows Ralph Fiennes’ ‘dark sides’
