Ousted from the filming of “Lucie Aubrac” by Claude Berri in 1997 in favor of Carole Bouquet, Juliette Binoche recently returned to this confusing experience.
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 complicated experience but which she nevertheless chose to mention when he was asked to tell his “the most saving failure”.
In the mid-90s, she was initially chosen by filmmaker Claude Berri to play Lucie Aubrac in a drama about the famous resistance fighter (wife of Raymond Aubrac who had been arrested alongside Jean Moulin). However, she was ousted from the project in favor of Carole Bouquet, without really understanding why:
“I went to see Lucie Aubrac almost every day for two, three months. I prepared really, really well because it was a subject that I found fascinating, and a fascinating woman”she confided in the show The original band, on France Inter.
“We became close, and I think I must have, I don’t know… Claude fired 20 people during filming, with whom he wasn’t doing well. A few months later, we met again. He jumped on me, hugged me, said: ‘I have a project, I have a great project for you with Redford’. I said to myself: ‘He’s completely crazy.'”
Gourmet reunion for Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel: after Cannes and before the Oscars, Dodin Bouffant will delight you at the cinema
But how did this experience represent a “saving failure” for the actress? Juliette Binoche, who received the Oscar for best actress three months later for her performance in The English Patient, explained that this mishap allowed her to take a step back:
“When I won the Oscar, three months later, I had been vaccinated against both [le fait] to win than to lose. So when I had to go on stage to take the Oscar, I was happy, but I wasn’t beside myself.”
In 1998, Juliette Binoche already spoke about this experience at the microphone of The Expressciting an artistic dispute with the filmmaker:
“I knew Lucie Aubrac and for me it was imperative that the truth be returned to her. However, I did not feel in phase with the subjective character seen by Claude Berri. Didn’t that bother him? Today, I thank these trials, they made me humble. True humility grows, it does not diminish.”
(Re)discover the trailer for “The Passion of Dodin Bouffant”, currently in cinemas…