Juliette Binoche

She has appeared in more than 40 feature films, been recipient of numerous international accolades, is a published author and has appeared on stage across the world.

Coming from an artistic background, she began taking acting lessons during adolescence. After performing in several stage productions, she was propelled into the world of auteurs Jean-Luc Godard (Hail Mary, 1985), Jacques Doillon (Family Life, 1985) and André Téchiné, who made her a star in France with the leading role in his 1985 drama Rendez-vous.

Her sensual performance in her English-language debut The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), directed by Philip Kaufman, launched her international career.

She sparked the interest of Steven Spielberg, who offered her several parts including a role in Jurassic Park which she declined, choosing instead to join Krzysztof Kieślowski on the set of Three Colors: Blue (1993), a performance for which she won the Venice Film Festival Award for Best Actress and a César.

Three years later Binoche gained further acclaim in Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (1996), for which she was awarded an Academy Award and a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress in addition to the Best Actress Award at the 1997 Berlin Film Festival. For her performance in Lasse Hallström's romantic comedy Chocolat (2000) Binoche was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

During the 2000s she maintained a successful, critically acclaimed career, alternating between French and English language roles in both mainstream and art-house productions. In 2010 she won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy making her the first actress to win the European "best actress triple crown" (for the Berlin, Cannes and Venice film festivals).

Throughout her career Binoche has intermittently appeared on stage, most notably in a 1998 London production of Luigi Pirandello's Naked and in a 2000 production of Harold Pinter's Betrayal on Broadway for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. In 2008 she began a world tour with a modern dance production in-i devised in collaboration with Akram Khan.

Often referred to as "La Binoche" by the press, her other notable performances include: Mauvais Sang (1986), Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991), Damage (1992), The Horseman on the Roof (1995), Code Unknown (2000), Caché (2005), Breaking and Entering (2006), Flight of the Red Balloon (2007) and Camille Claudel 1915 (2013).

Binoche was born in Paris, the daughter of Jean-Marie Binoche, a director, actor, and sculptor, and Monique Stalens, a teacher, director, and actress.

Her mother is of Polish descent. Her maternal Polish Catholic grandparents were imprisoned at Auschwitz because they were considered to be intellectuals by the Nazi occupiers.

She also has French, Flemish, Brazilian, and Moroccan ancestry.When her parents divorced in 1968, four-year-old Binoche and her sister Marion were sent to a provincial boarding school.

During their teens, the Binoche sisters spent their school holidays with their maternal grandmother, not seeing either parent for months at a time. Binoche has stated that this perceived parental abandonment had a profound effect on her.

She was not particularly academic and in her teenage years she began acting at school in amateur stage productions. At 17, she directed and starred in a student production of the Eugène Ionesco play, Exit the King. She studied acting at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique (CNSAD), but quit after a short time as she disliked the curriculum.

In the early 1980s, she found an agent through a friend and joined a theater troupe with which she toured France, Belgium and Switzerland under the pseudonym "Juliette Adrienne".

Around this time she began lessons with the famed acting coach Vera Gregh.

Her first professional screen experience was as an extra in the three part TF1 television series Dorothée, danseuse de corde (1983) directed by Jacques Fensten, which was followed by a similarly small role in the provincial television film Fort bloque directed by Pierrick Guinnard.

Following this Binoche secured her first feature film appearance with a minor role in Pascal Kané's Liberty Belle (1983). Her role required just two days on set, but was enough to inspire Binoche to pursue a career in film.

The 2013 Berlin Film Festival saw the release of Bruno Dumont's Camille Claudel 1915, a drama which recounts three days during the thirty years French artist Camille Claudel (Binoche) spent in a mental asylum despite the fact that she had not been diagnosed with any malady.

The film examines Claudel's fight to maintain her sanity and find creative inspiration while awaiting a visit from her brother, the poet Paul Claudel. The film received excellent reviews with Binoche in particular gaining excellent reviews for her performance.

Following this Binoche has completed work on A Thousand Times Good Night for director Erik Poppe in which she plays a war photographer, the romantic drama Words and Pictures with Clive Owen from veteran director Fred Schepisi. She is currently shooting Godzilla for director Gareth Edwards.

The film is due in theatres in May 2014. August 2013 will see Binoche reunite with Olivier Assayas for Sils Maria. The film written especially for Binoche will also feature Bruno Ganz, Kristen Stewart and Chloë Grace Moretz. The film is expected to debut at Cannes 2014.

Following this role Binoche is slated to appear in Nobody Wants the Night by Isabel Coixet which is due to begin shooting late in 2013.

Since 1992 Binoche is a patron of the French Cambodian charity Enfants d'Asie (previously ASPECA). Through this charity she is godmother to five Cambodian orphans, and has funded the construction of a children's home in Battambang.

Starting in 2000, Juliette Binoche has been involved with the organization Reporters Without Borders. In 2002, she presided over "Photos of Stars" with Thierry Ardisson. Nearly 100 French stars were given disposable cameras, which were then auctioned, the buyer then having the exclusive photos taken by the star developed.

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