(San Sebastian) Actresses must learn to say ‘no’ to roles that turn women into objects, Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche said on Sunday at the San Sebastian film festival where she was presented with an award for her acting career.
Posted at 11:08 a.m.
Updated at 5:57 p.m.
“You also have to know how to say no to things so as not to be in a kind of system where we see you like that”, declared Juliette Binoche, one of the most recognized French actresses.
When she was offered roles where she was “someone’s wife, or objectified as a woman,” she says she turned them down.
“I just said no because I wasn’t interested,” the 58-year-old actress told reporters, admitting she felt “very lucky” to have played so many interesting roles while throughout his career.
“It’s not always easy, but you also have to know how to jump into an unknown where you are no longer in macho codes”, continued Juliette Binoche, whose role in The English Patient (1996) won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Juliette Binoche, who has played some 75 different roles since her big-screen debut in 1983, says she tries “never to judge a role, but to embrace it with all its contradictions, all its darkness and for what ultimately makes it human.
The festival presented him and Canadian director David Cronenberg with an honorary Donostia award on Sunday evening in recognition of their respective careers.
Past recipients of the Donostia Award — the festival’s highest honor — include actors Meryl Streep, Richard Gere, Ian McKellen and Robert De Niro. Last year’s awards went to French actress Marion Cotillard and Hollywood star Johnny Depp.