In a long conversation with Movieline last fall, Binoche elucidated the back story behind the terrific Certified Copy -- the film for which she won last year's Best Actress prize at Cannes and which finally opens Stateside this week in limited release. (It's available March 23 on VOD via IFC.) As usual, it's best left to her to explain, as with her tales of Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Haneke, working with screen rookie Shimell, and what made doing her own driving in the film a "nightmare."
The story about you meeting Kiarostami in Tehran is so great, but I've only read it condensed and second-hand. Could my readers and I hear it in your own words?
At the Cannes Film Festival, I had an idea of doing interviews with directors-- about this relationship between directors and actor. I found it fascinating how that kind of combination happens. And at the end of the interview with Abbas Kiarostami, he said to me, "It's a very bad idea, this interview. Come to Tehran; it's much better." So I thought, OK! Going to Tehran is not the first thing you think about when you live in the Western world. First of all, there was all this big drama between Iran and the West and France.
This was two years ago? Three years ago?
About three years ago. Things were very tense. Finally -- a year after, I think -- I wound up having some time off, and I wound up going. I asked for a visa, and I got my via; I was surprised it would work out. Also, I was surprised: As Abbas was saying, "It's easy there. Come, you'll see it's not at all what people say." So I was curious. And it just happened that when I came out of the plane, there were photographers and video people taking pictures of Abbas and myself. And I was thinking, Why did you do that? We don't need publicity! I'm just coming as a friend discovering Iran -- not as an actress! And he was thinking, Why did she do that? We didn't need that! Why did she put this press around us?
It just happened that on board the plane, there was a journalist who phoned his friends and said, "Hey, Juliette Binoche is on the plane. Make sure you have some photographers and cameras on the ground, blah blah blah." So the next day we're on the front of this New Yorker, Le Mans, kind of intellectual newspaper, and then suddenly they announce we have a project together. And we didn't! We didn't have any project together. And finally Abbas says, "This is a problem, because this is not true, first of all. For my government, I don't know how this will be taken. So it's better to deny and say the truth: We don't have any projects, and you're just coming as a friend."
So I did two days of interviews saying we don't have a project, I just met him several times on different occasions... We don't even know each other that well. At the end of the second day of interviews, finally Abbas started to tell me about this story that happened to him in Italy. He described giving a lot of details spoken in English, and at then end of it, he probably made up some stories because he could see me completely drawn into his situation. At the end, he said, "Do you believe me?" And I said, "Yes, of course." And he said, "Well, it's not true."
And then I started laughing because I could not believe he had taken me on that journey as a fairy tale. A few days later, I was still laughing about it, and it just so turned out that we went to Isfahan, this well-known city with all these mosques from, I think, the 16th century. His cameraman was there, and I was kind of dozing -- lagging behind, tired, just finished filming or something. And then I heard Mahmoud laugh, and I kind of woke up and said, "You're telling the moment of..." This, this, this, and that. And they were talking in Farsi; they were amazed I could figure it out and tell why he was laughing. And Mahmoud said, "You've got to make that film."
So I signed the contracts in the car, with fingerprints. Abbas and myself signed. And before I went back to Paris, he said, "Find a producer." I found a producer, and we made the film. He wrote the script a year after, and we shot it a year after [that].
When he was telling you his story in the first place, did you picture yourself in it at all?
No. No, no, no. I was just listening to what happened to him.
So you pictured him in it?
Of course.
I always wonder how people envision each others' stories, particularly artists.
I could see everything -- and still do, the way he described it. [Pause] It's interesting how we have a belief system. It prints in you. The first time you hear something, it prints in you forever. That's why when I got the script -- and it was slightly different and there were details I didn't have -- I said, "But remember you told me about that moment? It's not in the script. How come?" He said, "Oh, right I forgot. Well, I made it up when I was telling you the story."
And that's precisely the sense the viewer has in Certified Copy: You never know what's real, even based on some basic fact from a scene or two earlier. A language, a disclosure, a relationship. How does that work on the set?
It was exactly his script. He made up the script. He made up the story. There was some freedom, or doors opening, or some improvising, but it was very, very little. So it as mainly his idea. The way I was acting brought another turn inside the story; he didn't expect me to be so intense on specific scenes, so he ended the film quicker. We dropped three scenes. We shot chronologically. After the restaurant scene, he said, "OK, we're going to end the film here. It doesn't need to be spread out. It needs to resolve in the hotel room." That was my participation: The truth of the acting has to be there, and that was my contribution, in a way.
You've collaborated with some pretty important directors over the years -- Godard, Kieslowski, Haneke, Malle, Assayas, etc. etc. -- with quite singular visions. This project seems more flexible, in a way--
Yes, but that's why I choose them. A real good artist doesn't fear about his power, because he's already powerful. So he's more welcoming, in a way, than a director who's not as talented or has fear about his power -- who's controlling. It's not always the case, though. Haneke is very controlling, but he likes to be surprised sometimes as well. And he has a strong universe. Others are more into being more welcoming: "I want to see your soul, and I want you to feel free to be who you want to be through this character."
Your co-star hadn't acted in a film before--
Yes, but he's been acting in opera, so didn't do this with no experience.
He's said he was very grateful for your support. What support do you think he means?
I feel responsible, of course! Acting is not easy! I was very impressed, because the first day of rehearsal, he knew the entire script -- by heart. It was like I was was in a cartoon -- my jaw dropped. I said, "I've never seen that!" But I wanted to make sure that he related every word to his own personal experience as a man, because if you don't relate it to a personal experience, it doesn't get real somehow. It isn't just word-saying, or attitude-having. It has to be sort of heart-related. It has to be a body transformation in order to be live and truthful. As soon as he understood that... Because there's technique to learn in order to get there. You start with sensation
and all that. When he got that, I thought, "OK, it's all right. We're safe."
Beyond the body transformation, though, the language transforms throughout the film. How does that affect character? Were they in the script, or is Kiarostami saying, "Enh, let's do this one in Italian. Let's do this one in French..."?
Oh, it was in the script. It was very specific, and I'll tell you why it was specific: To get money from the French government, you have to have enough French words to balance out the English.
So pragmatic!
I know! The decisions of whether to speak English or French were the rules of governments.
You've got to be kidding.
Nope.
OK, so you spoke the bare minimum of French, and then...
[Laughs] We started off with Abbas wanting to make a film in English, but we couldn't. We had to be in French to get the French money. And toward the end, the assistant was counting how many words we had in French and how many words we had in English. So all of the sudden, the scenes we rehearsed in English had to be changed to French. And William doesn't speak French that fluently. I mean, he's quite comfortable -- just not as fluent as in English, of course. It was a brave tour de force, as you also say in English.
Did you do your own driving in this movie?
[Pauses] Yeah! Yeah?
I only mean it technically -- for that long, talky scene on the narrow lanes with a camera mounted to the hood.
No, I did it allll myself. And I couldn't see anything. I could see maybe one centimeter here -- a couple centimeters there when the camera was on him. It was a nightmare. And it was so hot outside. You have no idea. And we couldn't put the air conditioner on because of sound. It was quite a journey. And it was the beginning of the film, because we shot chronologically. But I had Abbas [in the car], and the sound engineer was in the trunk. I don't know how he survived, but he wanted to be there. He was sweating so much. I mean, the middle of July -- hello? And then William was next to me, and we was like, "Oh my God, Oh my God..." [Laughs] These little streets!
I know! I was saying that just watching it: It's not where you're from, and the way the reflections from the building are so precise that I know you're following a chosen route--
Oh, his frames are very precise. Very precise.
So how does that impact performance?
First day of rehearsal, he says, "Bring me a TV and DVD player." So we bring the devices, and he turns the DVD on. I actually saw the entire film cut, which meant he had come to every single place, shooting -- with his assistant, his producer, different people he'd found -- the entire script in the different locations. So he knew exactly that he'd need a piece of a street to end a certain scene. I saw the entire film before I started shooting -- from this place where they lived, their car, the village and into the bedroom.
Hitchcock used to do something similar, and some of his actors bristled -- as though the performances were secondary to camerawork.
I didn't feel that at all. It gave me the sense of the film, and it was wonderful for that because it was like an être noir. You're seeing it start out open and it stops in the end like this [closes hands] in the bedroom. They walk here, they go there, but they're going to one place. Also, I can't see the sky in the film. It was...
Claustrophobic?
Yeah! Pressing, pressing, pressing. It gave me the outside in order the help me with the inside. It was genius. I've never seen a director prepare that way.
And that doesn't threaten you?
No. It's different when you're seeing a storyboard -- where you feel like it's just images. The fact that it's moving, you see somebody searching as well. So you're searching as, with him.
With that in mind, I'm still curious about directors. How do you select projects? Is there some guiding principle?
With Abbas, I just wanted to work with him. I didn't know when it would be; they were just wishes. When I got the Oscar, that's one of the questions they asked me: "Now that you have an Oscar are you going to move to America?" I said, "No -- I want to work with Abbas Kiarostami." They didn't know who he was. For me, it's been my dream to work with great directors who have a strong vision and specific vision. Now I want to meet with Bruno Dumont; I think he's one of the most talented directors we have in France. I really want to work with him, but I don't know on what. And he doesn't work with actors either! [Laughs] I don't know why I'm drawn to the directors trying to avoid actors.
You want the one you can't have.
Well, not that exactly. But they're looking for something different, and I'm looking for something different as well. And it's not something outside. It's something inside.
If Godard stopped making movies today -- which it seems like he might -- you would have worked with him right at the midpoint of his career [Hail Mary, 1984]. It was a pretty important milestone for both of you; now you have your Oscar and he's all but rejected his own. Have you stayed in touch at all?
He asked me to do [Film] Socialisme -- to be in the movie -- but I was doing the dance tour. He loves sending texts that are not directly related to what he's doing --
"Texts?" Text messages?
No, no... Texts.
Oh. Books, letters...
Letters or photocopies with underlined specifics. He always searching and being inspired. [Pause] My experience with him was quite short, even though I stayed for... I don't know how many months in this hotel waiting for him to feel good about shooting or wanting to shoot Je vous salue, Marie. But because it was at the beginning of my career, it taught me a lot, in a way -- of being kind of... [Pause] I would say, not willing to please. So it gave me another perspective with work, because I had been in theater classes where the teacher was verge generous and outgoing and helping. And there it was almost so cold, in a way -- almost stingy. Difficult. At the same time, I could see that he was searching. So it's not out of being mean -- it's out of being in a space where he's searching. It requires so much in order to be truthful to himself. It goes into his structure; he has to find it while he's shooting. Being with the season, being with the lights, being with his emotions, and his actors' emotions as well.
Suddenly I felt there was another layer with directors that I didn't expect and that you're not being taught. You can't be taught that in school. You're just learning it as you're going. You see directors wanting to make you feel comfortable, and they're playing a role -- being in control, knowing which shot, playing the game. But when you have someone whose so truthful and not trying to play a game, it's totally a different story.
But you still stay in touch?
Not specifically. But I spoke to Haneke like three days ago. I say, "Why don't you give me news?" but we're all so in the present time. They're friends, but at the same times we all have our lives. Some moments we each other more, some moments we don't. He's busy, I'm busy, and that's that.
[Top photo: Getty Images/AFP]