In The Passion of Dodin Bouffant, they embody a couple united by their love of good food. A feature film by Trần Anh Hùng (Eternity), which Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel will present at the Cannes Film Festival this Wednesday, May 24. If they form an ardent duo on the screen, we often forget that the two actors lived a real idyll at the beginning of the 2000s. The actors met in 1998, on the set of Children of the Century, by Diane Kurys. Juliette Binoche is 34 years old; Benoît Magimel, ten years younger. At the time, the actor imposed a golden rule on himself: never mix professional and private life.
"I don't like this ambiguity"
Benoît Magimel and Juliette Binoche attend the 27th César Awards. (Paris, 2 March 2002.) Getty Images
"It's a point of honor," he explained in the show "On n'est pas couché" in June 2013. I told myself never to mix the two. I said, "We're waiting for the movie to end, we'll see what happens." I don't like that ambiguity, I don't like this report." A principle that does not resist for long the attraction between the two filming partners. On December 16, 1999, the couple, now official, gave birth to a daughter, Hana. A child they raise away from prying eyes. "Twenty years ago, the spotlight was mainly on Juliette Binoche, recalls Benoît Magimel in the columns of Paris Match, in March. It was easier for me."
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In video, Cannes 2023: climbing the steps of May 18
Before adding: "I have refused a film if she was hired at the same time so that one of us stayed with our daughter. I avoided nannies, I tried to be normal... Because absence cannot be replaced." The actor and his girlfriend nevertheless allow themselves some red carpets as a duo, such as that of the César in 2002, on which Juliette Binoche arrives adorned with a fur stole, or the premiere of Jet Lag, by Danièle Thompson, seven months later. And if Hana grows up in the shadow of the spotlight, she will still follow in her parents' footsteps. In 2020, she accepted her first role as an actress in the film Avec amour et acharnement.
The climb of the steps on Thursday, May 18
In pictures
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"Love endured"
Benoît Magimel receives a Golden Swann and poses with Juliette Binoche, president of the jury of the 29th Cabourg Film Festival. (June 13, 2015.) Getty Images
The romance between Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel ended in 2003, after four years of relationship. But the former couple remains on good terms. In 2015, he met again by chance, at the Cabourg Film Festival. Winner of the Swann d'or for his performance in La tête haute, Benoît Magimel then poses with his ex-partner, herself president of the jury. Eight years later, when Juliette Binoche calls out to Jamel Debbouze, who humorously praises the merits of blockbusters on the stage of the César 2023 – "I do not agree, we also make entrances," she tells him when he suggests to put ninjas in his film Ouistreham -, Benoît Magimel defends his former partner.
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"I thought it was great for Juliette Binoche to react," he said in "C à vous". It's good to react, we need more (to do it)." A mutual respect that is reinforced during the shooting of their latest feature film. "I may lack a little hindsight but finding her on a set twenty-five years after Les Enfants du ciel by Diane Kurys was simple and natural," says Benoît Magimel to Madame Figaro. An opinion shared by the main interested party, who confides on the subject in the columns of Marie-Claire. "Everything has been transformed on this shoot," she says of the evocation of The Passion of Dodin Bouffant. The love endured despite the lack of communication for twenty years." A tenderness that will, no doubt, be perceptible on the steps of the Palais des Festivals.
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