Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes last appeared together on screen in the 1996 movie “The English Patient” but the French actress said it felt like “no time” had passed when they reunited for their latest movie, “The Return.”
“It was very moving to work with Ralph again,” Binoche, 60, told Page Six at the Bleeker Street and Cinema Society premiere of “The Return” on Tuesday night.
It’s the third time the pair has worked together. They first co-starred in 1992’s “Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.”
“There was no time [passing],” she continued. “It didn’t feel like we had worked many many years ago. It felt like [the present].”
The duo’s latest film is a retelling of Homer’s “Odyssey,” with Fiennes playing Odysseus, who washes up on the shores of Ithaca after 20 years away fighting in the Trojan War. Binoche plays his beloved wife, Penelope, who has spent the years as a virtual prisoner in her home fending off eager suitors.
Fiennes, 61, told us that his mother first read him the Greek saga when he was “seven or eight” but noted that “I think it changes.”
“When you’re a boy, it’s like a big adventure story,” he explained. “When you come to it as an adult, it carries a different meaning. It’s about life’s challenges and owning yourself.”
The “Chocolat” actress added that being true to oneself is a difficult task and joked that “sometimes I lie.” Fiennes, however, heartily disagreed.
“She’s one of the most truthful people I know,” he gushed. “That’s what’s so great about acting with her.”
After the screening, guests including Patti Smith, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Aidan Quinn, Gina Gershon, Julie Taymor and Bleecker Street President Kent Sanderson trekked to The Leopard at des Artistes for a glass of wine.
