It sounds like a cliche, but it's true -- at 45, Juliette Binoche is becoming rejuvenated by her hometown of Paris. The City of Light is once again her city of life.
"We moved back to Paris, and we're all excited; I feel like a teen-ager again," the Oscar-winning actress said by phone from her new place. "We lived outside (of Paris) for a while, because my son was going to a different school."
The luminous international star is back on home soil as part of the ensemble cast in "Paris," a celebration of the city directed by Cedric Klapisch ("When the Cat's Away," "L'Auberge Espagnole").
She's also winding up a yearlong dance-and-art exhibition tour this month in New York and says she has recently discovered qigong, the Chinese meditative practice that she believes will be key to the quality of the rest of her life.
So rejuvenation is indeed the right word.
"I hadn't been in a French film for a while," Binoche said. "People in France think of me as belonging to this other world -- the 'stranger' world. (Laughs) Because it's my passion, in a way. That was my dream when I started as an actress, to have the freedom to travel around and work with different visions and different ways of seeing life."
"Paris" is an ensemble patchwork quilt that views one of the world's most beautiful metropolitan areas through the eyes of Pierre (Romain Duris), a young dancer who is dying of a rare heart disease. To help him through his final months, his sister Elise (Binoche) moves into his apartment with her three children. In other story threads, a disillusioned college professor (Fabrice Luchini) falls in love with one of his students (Melanie Laurent of "Inglourious Basterds"), and a love triangle develops among operators of a fish stall at a farmers market.
"I wanted to work with French actors I did not know," Binoche said. "Like Romain Duris. I had never met him. Most of the actors in this film I had not worked with."
She also wanted to work with Klapisch, whom she first met when he was an electrician -- yes, an electrician -- on the set of Leos Carax's "The Lovers on the Bridge" (1991). "I didn't even know his second name, but I remembered 'Cedric.' "
By that time, Binoche had established herself as an international presence. She built her career in the 1980s, notably in Jean-Luc Godard's "Hail Mary," Andre Techine's "Rendez-vous" and Philip Kaufman's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being."
Of the legendary Godard, Binoche said, "I was very impressed by him, and I was full of desire. And because of my needs, I was shocked by his short way of responding sometimes on the set, because he was trying to create something special, he was in his world, and I was expecting he would be like a teacher in class -- teaching the actor.
"I didn't know the teacher wouldn't give a ... about me! (Laughs) ... When I think about it years after, I think it was a great lesson. I do remember him being generous, moneywise, and when you're a young actress, you remember the people treating you well, and that meant a great deal at the time, because I had very little money."
Binoche hit her stride in the 1990s, starring in Louis Malle's "Damage" opposite Jeremy Irons, Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Bleu," the first of the "Trois Couleurs" trilogy, and winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Anthony Minghella's "The English Patient."
Kieslowski, in particular, was a favorite, because "it was like a huge family," Binoche said. "We would do very few takes -- most of the time just one, and we would laugh a lot. ... I miss him a lot, of course. He was an adorable, intelligent man."
This decade has been one of continued success -- Lasse Hallstrom's "Chocolat" opposite Johnny Depp, Michael Haneke's thriller "Cache" and the American romantic comedy "Dan in Real Life" opposite Steve Carell.
Binoche, the daughter of a sculptor and an actress, has been painting for many years, but her recent exhibition and book, "Portraits In-Eyes," is her first. She had never danced before, either, and her collaboration with choreographer and co-performer Akram Khan was first presented in London a year ago.
Binoche said she will concentrate on acting in the near future, but was thankful for the experience.
"I start with almost an emptiness," she said of her artistic approach. "The experience of jumping into an intimate place is where it's exciting. So it doesn't matter which way you're doing it, what matters is expressing yourself. That's the core to me.
"That's why if someone told me 'you will never act again,' I would be OK with that, because there are other ways of expressing yourself."
(E-mail G. Allen Johnson at ajohnson(at)sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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