What I love most about this crazy life is the adventure of it.
Juliette Binoche
Attraction is beyond our will or ideas sometimes.
I don't believe in coincidence.
It's not a struggle to be on a diet. You feel lighter, and your spirit is lighter, too. But I love chocolate, and I allow myself to have chocolate. That doesn't go against a diet for me.
I live for the present always. I accept this risk. I don't deny the past, but it's a page to turn.
Acting is like peeling an onion. You have to peel away each layer to reveal another.
I never felt being an actor or making a movie was an easy thing to do.
I like intensity. If it's too mellow, I feel like, bleah. I like intensity, because it's way of reaching spaces inside of you, and it's my need of knowledge, of knowing about myself regardless.
My only ambition is to be true every moment I am living.
I love the unknown. I think because it brings fear, and to embrace fear is the best feeling.
As an actor, I have to be fulfilled in the roles that I play; it has to be a journey for me to learn something or involve myself.
If you have everything, then you don't want to go on. It's the lacking that makes you search for something better.
I won't do something just for the sake of working.
As an actress we don't beat one another. It's whoever's right for the part.
I think it's the same simple thing for everyone - to be happy, and have love in your life.
My ambition is to have beautiful encounters, not to make money.
There was probably something as a child I wanted to express, something unsaid that I needed to share.
Some words, you know, it's amazing but some words would come only in French, and when I speak French, it would only come in English. And so the adjustment is very difficult sometimes.
If you told me tomorrow that I couldn't act anymore, it wouldn't bother me. I have only one wish: to meet the man of my life.
I was so happy when they cast me in Chocolat, because it's one of my vices.
Maybe it's because my mother divorced and my grandmother divorced, so maybe I'm frightened deep down. But then I also feel there is no real need. Why do I need to get married? To reassure me? No I don't need reassurance.
When you make a film, it's a bet. You don't know how the film is going to be, anyway.
As an actress, I think there is always a political consciousness there.
Movies are open doors, and at every door, I change character and life... I live for the present always. I accept this risk. I don't deny the past, but it's a page to turn.
I've been changed watching films or reading books or hearing music, and that helps you to live your life.
You make your own path as an actor. Nobody does it for you, so you have to invent yourself.
I really don't think that the Oscar changed my career much because I didn't want it to.
For me, habit is just a synonym for death.
I try to see my films just once. it's like a dream you've been through when it's been intense, and you just have to go through it once more just to make sure you've had it.
When I'm in the movie, I'm entirely in the movie. When I'm on the set, I'm 200 per cent there; when I'm at home, I'm 200 per cent at home.
When you really put your heart in the work, you don't think of how you look. And I think that's the beauty of it.
I'm not obsessed by looks. I think you can become a prisoner of your own image.
I wanted to work with people from the world, with different minds and different visions.
I have stories that I'd like to maybe one day consider directing, but you need a lot of time to write and put it together.
I am not a great French woman. George Sand, Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir are great French women.
I would have loved to have met Marilyn Monroe and have dinner with her.
I was used to theatre classes. I studied with my mother; she was a theatre teacher and directed, too, so it was very family-like. Then I studied with a great teacher in Paris, and she was wonderful; she pushed me, but she was a warm soul.
I'm not even aware of my success. Success is such an illusion.
Oh, I'll be forgotten too, don't worry.
My aim was never to be an American star; otherwise, I would have moved to Los Angeles.
I never really worked in Hollywood. Some American producers came to Europe to shoot films with me, so it's a different situation... It was not my aim.
What I need is to express my passion for life... It's movement I'm interested in, the life in me, the life in humanity.
I've never thought of my characters as being sad. On the contrary, they are full of life. They didn't choose tragedy. Tragedy chose them.
Movies are open doors, and at every door, I change character and life.
Acting is a tough business, and you need to be in good shape mentally and physically.
Before I thought there was a common denominator between my films - as if all my characters were sisters - but I'm not so sure now.
Being a famous actress may give you a sense of being important, but believe me, it's just an illusion.
But I think it's a little different in Europe, because 40 is really the best age for a woman. That's when we hit our peak and become this ripe fruit.
But I've never felt that being an actress is being in a comfortable place. It's seen from the outside that we're being driven in big cars and having these gorgeous suites and all of that. But come on, it's not about that.
But, you know, when I choose a film I need to believe in it and believe I can do something special with it, and after a while that means not trying to judge or analyze why I should do it. You have to follow this intuition thing, which is a mystery to me.
