A meal, plus lessons in life and reconciling with your ex, courtesy of Juliette Binoche and ‘The Taste of Things’
LOS ANGELES — Across 41 years and 70-some films, Juliette Binoche — the gold standard for cinematic expressivity, and for performances both imposing and delicately shaded — has figured out a few things.
One: “Do your own work. Because you cannot rely on directors.”
Two: Her favorite screen actor is the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and they once spent four hours over dinner discussing “oh, everything. Life.”
Three: She does not like to be told to hold back, even — perhaps especially — by filmmakers she admires. Binoche’s latest film, the visually droolworthy period picture “The Taste of Things,” was written and directed by the Vietnamese French writer-director Trân Anh Hùng, whose works include “The Scent of Green Papaya,” a similarly delectable number.
“A couple of times,” Binoche recalls, “he came to me after a take and said, ‘Juliette, can you be more … neutral this time?’ And I said, ‘What do you mean, neutral?’” She speaks these
