After performing in several stage productions, she was propelled into the world of auteurs Jean-Luc Godard (Hail Mary, 1985), Jacques Doillon (Family Life, 1985) and André Téchiné, who made her a star in France with the leading role in his 1985 drama Rendez-vous. She sparked the interest of Steven Spielberg, who offered her several parts including a role in Jurassic Park which she declined, choosing instead to join Krzysztof Kieslowski on the set of Three Colors: Blue (1993), a performance for which she won the Venice Film Festival Award for Best Actress and a César. Juliette Binoche was born in Paris, the daughter of Jean-Marie Binoche, a director, actor and sculptor, and Monique Stalens, a teacher, director and actress. Binoche has stated that this perceived parental abandonment had a profound effect on her. in the early 1980s, she found an agent through a friend and joined a theater troupe with which she toured France, Belgium and Switzerland under the pseudonym “Juliette Adrienne”. Around this time she began lessons with the famed acting coach Vera Gregh. Further supporting roles followed in a variety of French films: Annick Lanoë’s Les Nanas was to give Binoche her most noteworthy role to date, playing opposite established stars Marie-France Pisier and Macha Meril, in a mainstream comedy.
