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Juliette Binoche grew up in Paris in the 1960s. She describes her parents as “actors, but they were doing other things to survive”. They separated when she was four years old, which meant Binoche spent much of her time either at boarding school or living with her aunt. She says that in hindsight this unstable life was probably instrumental in her acting. “It was a childhood of travelling and not knowing where I was belonging,” she says. “I think it helped me as an actress very much, because it opens your heart in a way. It hurts but you’ve got to find a way to survive inside you.”

2. She directed plays at school

Her parents’ passion for acting meant Binoche often went to the theatre and read plays at home. Their influence was even present at school. “At school, my mother was my theatre teacher,” says Binoche. “She was full of will, my mother.” When she was 15, Binoche herself became something of a teacher. “I created a sort of class [at school] and did what my mother did, directed plays,” she says. “Seeing that I was most passionate, and probably terrible… when I was 18 my mother found a class for me, where I met Véra Gregh.” Gregh would become her acting teacher and a vital influence. She calls her the woman who stopped her from "acting" and instead made her “recreate life”.

3. She learned from a god of French cinema

One of Binoche’s first screen roles after leaving drama school was in 1985’s Hail Mary, for Jean-Luc Godard, one of the titans of French cinema. He was not easy to work with. “He would change his mind all the time on set, or sometimes come to set and he didn’t want to shoot,” she says. “But I felt he was respecting us because he was paying us quite well.”

Having worked with teachers who tried to get her comfortable with acting, she says Godard would do the opposite. “He was always trying to shift things so you wouldn’t feel comfortable,” she says. “You were not feeling calm. Not feeling at home. I think that was good because that’s what he was trying with himself. He was trying to put a camera where it was not comfortable, but it was inventive… That for me was a big difference, of learning, ‘Oh right, so no help from the director. I will come on set always prepared.’”

4. She almost drowned making a film

In 1991, Binoche appeared in Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, directed by her then boyfriend Leos Carax. It was a famously long, difficult production. “It was two and a half years of trying to shoot it,” says Binoche. “It was expensive because the actor [Denis Lavant] had cut his hand, so we had to postpone shooting.” The film has a reputation for being the most expensive French film ever made, but Binoche is not so sure. “The most expensive? I don’t know. There was a lot of jealousy going on in France because it was special.” She calls the experience “positive”, but it was almost the last film she made. “We were shooting in a swimming pool and I had 14 kilos around my waist… We had two scuba divers helping us breathe in case we needed air.” At one point she signalled for help but the scuba diver didn’t see her. “I had no more air and the weight and the clothes. I had to go up. I fought for my life. I thought it was a turning point: ‘Goodbye life!’ or I was going to survive. During that time, I really had a clear idea that I was going to say yes to life forever and the art would be second.”

5. She considered becoming a painter

Binoche has always enjoyed painting – she played a painter in Les Amants du Pont-Neuf – and says she thought of pursuing it more professionally. “When I was 13, I was painting quite a lot,” she says. “I loved it as well as I loved acting. I went to see an exhibition by my mother’s friend who was a painter, and I said to her, ‘I don’t know what to choose. Can you help me with this choice?’ She said, ‘Why do you want to choose?’” The artist signed a poster for her with the advice, "To continue everything". “I put that poster in my bedroom forever and it continued working on me. Why do I need to choose? Just do everything you want to do in life.”

6. She found her Oscar-winning role terrifying

In what was widely considered a surprise result, in 1997 Binoche won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in The English Patient, playing a nurse caring for a seriously injured man. Nobody was more surprised than Binoche. She says she had a mixed experience making the film. “It felt like I was on a cloud of love,” she says. “But I was very frightened. The first month of shooting I was trembling and very fragile. I was super-frightened. But then the second half was pure joy.” She puts a lot of that down to the director, the late Anthony Minghella. “He was so protective and helping. He was very different from Godard! Somebody with me, helping me give the best I could.”

Back in the early 90s, Binoche was approached by Steven Spielberg, who wanted her to play a role in Jurassic Park (she’s said in the past that he also approached her for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Schindler’s List). She turned him down because she’d already committed to make Three Colours: Blue with Krzysztof KieÅ›lowski. “I think I said yes to Blue before,” she says. “And also I felt Blue was an exciting, deep story.” She jokes that perhaps she would have joined Jurassic Park if she’d been offered a non-human role. “I was not playing a dinosaur,” she says, when asked why she turned it down. “That’s what I said to Steven”.

8. She’d still like to do Shakespeare

When John Wilson asks Binoche what dream roles remain, she says, “I don’t think that way… It depends who you’re doing it with and who’s directing. Of course, I would love to do Shakespeare.” When Wilson suggests she might play Lady Macbeth, she reveals she’s already turned that down. “It’s funny you say that, because Thomas Ostermeier, the director, asked me to do it in New York, actually. But it means really working for many, many, many months. I love working, but that would be a big challenge. So I said no.”

9. She’s the queen of the universe

Binoche has worked consistently through her whole career and puts that down to pursuing roles, not just hoping roles will come to her. “I didn’t just wait for the phone to ring,” she says. “I also go to the directors and, you know, be creative in my own way.” Asked if the big budget movies, like the Marvel franchise, appeal, she’s unsure whether or not she’s been in one. “I don’t know whether they’re Marvel or not,” she laughs. “Ghost in the Shell, was that a Marvel? Godzilla, is that a Marvel?” Wilson clarifies that, no, they are not Marvel. “I don’t think I would fit into it because I don’t know whether they’re Marvel or not, because I’m not very interested in that world,” she laughs. “I don’t think I would fit into it because they would put me in what? Do what?” “Queen of the Universe?” Wilson suggests. Binoche replies simply, “I am anyway!”