Jason Di Rosso: How did you come to the project?
Juliette Binoche: Actually, the idea came from me. I phoned Olivier [Assayas] and asked him if he would be interested in writing and directing a script about women, the feminine. I mean, the core of the film is his vision, because I didn’t have the story, I just had a feeling and an idea.
But then after that, when I read the script about this actress Maria, I thought it was amazing, because Olivier wrote the script of Rendezvous, a role I played more than 20 years ago. So the resonance between life and the film he wrote was funny. When I read it I was surprised and at the same time not surprised, because I had played an actress in a script he wrote a long time ago.
Sometimes it's good to have a tap on the shoulder saying 'that was great'. But in France, I think, there's not a lot of that kind of expression. It's part of the culture.
JB: No, I didn't brief him at all, and I don't agree with everything that's being said. Like when my character is saying, ‘I don't rehearse, I believe in spontaneity.’ I don't agree with that. I mean, I do believe in being alive and spontaneous, but you have to work a lot as well.
It’s not one versus the other. I think it's very French that you don't touch the text too much, you don't analyse too much, it's just sort of a miracle. You're born an actor. I don't believe in that.
The French mostly don't rehearse. I'm not talking about theatre; I'm talking about movies. But American films, you rehearse, or English. You know, with Anthony Minghella, for example, we rehearsed a lot. It was part of the shooting, which is very much a theatre way of reaching a role.
JDR: It's interesting, you being the sort of impetus behind this project. Do you feel that there aren't a lot of great roles for older actresses or actresses in middle age?
JB: Now this is an old story. This is an old question of American journalists. I don't believe that. I think you can create. I've always seen things that way, you know? So, for me, it's never been a reality.
JDR: Yet this film so articulately deals with the neuroses of your character becoming older and perhaps not really accepting what that might mean about her career and about how she should see herself. Obviously it's not a biographical or semi-autobiographical sort of thing at all, but what really pleased you about the character? What did you enjoy about playing her?
JB: What I enjoyed was to show the cost of what an actor can go through. That was, for me, exciting because it's very intimate. I've never seen a film talking about that: what it can cost. It's not only mental, it's your heart. Your guts have to feel it, your body, you have to have chills, otherwise it doesn't work.
It doesn't mean that I love suffering at all, on the contrary. But there's something of having to allow yourself to let go of your ego and let go of your fears; you have to somehow. There's a descending feeling, a sensation of letting go of yourself. What my character's going through in the film is that. She is realising she has to go through stuff in her own life in order to embody this character, and it's not always easy.
JDR: At what point were you aware that Kristen Stewart was on board? Did you have anything to say about her casting?
JB: Yes. Kristen wanted to play that role very early on, and Olivier wasn't sure whether she should play the other role or not.
I emphasised I wanted Kristen to play it; because she wanted to, and you have to trust actors. When they really want to play something, I think there's something underneath you have to listen to. So Olivier listened.
There was a moment when he had some doubts, but then he listened and really loved her. Even though he doesn't really say what he feels while we're shooting, because there's a kind of pudic side to directors in general in France. I mean, some directors, they don't say what they feel. Like Bruno Dumont would never say anything to me.
JDR: Is this only approval and compliments and nice things, or just in general, they don't offer feedback?
JB: I think in art movies it's really what happens quite a lot.
JDR: Why is that?
JB: It’s because you're going from one shot to the other one, and when it's done you let go and you go to the next one. It's not about saying, ‘Oh, that was so good.’ We don't need that, and I know Kristen was not used to that.
JDR: Because in Hollywood there's a lot more ‘that was great’?
JB: In the American education, there's something about being positive and saying it, which is very nice, actually. Sometimes it's good to have a tap on the shoulder saying ‘that was great'. But in France, I think, there's not a lot of that kind of expression. It's part of the culture.
JDR: Do you felt Kirsten suffered a little for that on set?
JB: I had to say something to her like, ‘Don't take it personally; it's just the way it happens.’ But she couldn't believe that what she gave was not taken care of, in a way. But the film, at the end, takes care of it. That's what it is. We had a lot of joy playing those bitches.
JDR: They're not bitches, though.
JB: No, I'm just kidding. No, they're tense. They tease each other, especially my character. While we were working with Kirsten, we knew that it was the heart of the movie. So the tension that we brought, we wanted it. Not knowing when they were going into the play or when they were going back into reality, going back and forth all the time, that was the challenge of it, as well as the excitement of it, because you don't know whether it's true or not.
JDR: That's the great thing about this film, it does shift, it's on that knife edge between reality and fantasy. It reminded me a lot of Abbas Kiorastami’s Certified Copy.
JB: It's a theme in Kiarostami's cinema, as well in [Michael] Haneke's films, you have a lot of back and forth. You play with that dilemma: where is the reality? Where is the fiction? It's very much close to life. It's really a human question of ‘what is real to me’?
This film, Sils Maria, is part of that. There's truth in fiction. There's an expression, I think it's a French expression: ‘You're an actress, you know how to lie.’ For me it's always been the contrary: ‘You're an actor, you know the truth.’ You know how to play truth.
That's what it is. You have to make it real, you have to make it true. For me, being an actor because you lie is totally unfair.
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