In the Disney comedy Dan in Real Life, Academy Award-winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient) is wooed by brothers played by Dane Cook – the one she’s dating – and Steve Carell – the one who falls for her without knowing she’s with his brother. Although it’s just a distant memory now, Binoche was actually involved in sort of a similar situation involving her older sister when they were both kids. “When I was like nine years old we were in love with the same guy at school,” laughed Binoche. “It was awful.” Sadly, nothing ever came of the crush. “He was very blonde and this wonderful boy, but I never really talked to him. I was just in love with him. That was enough.”
Transitioning to a Comedy: Binoche’s filmography is loaded with dramatic films, but the actress says Dan in Real Life was actually more challenging than her more serious roles. “It was more difficult in a way because it’s like breaking the rule of my other films where I just plunge into it with a sort of an artistic rage somehow. This one I had to somehow have the horse inside me, but just controlling it a little more.
I had to adjust myself because after the Hou Hsiao-hsien film [Flight of the Red Balloon] I was completely free, like not having any dialogue or anything. Suddenly I was like, ‘Okay, this is page one. All the words have to be there,’ so it was like an adjustment I had to make.”
Sticking to the Script: You might expect a film starring Steve Carell and Dane Cook to be loaded with improv, but Binoche says there was surprisingly little. “Not that much, no. It wasn’t improv’d at all. You know, some people ask me, ‘What was it to work with two comics?’ You know, comedians, and it felt like, ‘Well, how does it feel for them to work with a dramatic actress?’ It was like two different worlds that have to meet. I have to say that the commitment was serious. On the set it was not like, ‘Ha ha ha,’ things. It was like very real and thinking as actors, trying to lift the story into a comedy but yet you have the inside of the characters.”
And Speaking of Steve Carell and Dane Cook: Binoche wasn’t really familiar with either actor before beginning work on Dan in Real Life. “I didn’t know them,” confessed Binoche. “Because in France, you know, I didn’t see anything of his. You know, 40 Year Old Virgin didn’t work. And The Office we didn’t get. So we started to notice him with Little Miss Sunshine. And then, that’s it. And Dane, we don’t know.”
Carell was already signed on when Binoche came onboard the film. “Steve was [but] Dane was like me. That’s why we met in LA because he wanted to see if the chemistry was working. Peter made us sing together. I had to sing with Steve Carell. I’d met him, just sat down and said, ‘Hi, how are you?’ ‘Good.’ And then I had to sing. So we sang, put the music on and I didn’t know the song. It was with Barbra Streisand. I remember her voice and said, ‘Oh my God!’ And with Dane we had to dance together.”
Bonding with the Cast and Crew: The cast got together in the house to get used to each other and to get comfortable working together, an experience Binoche understood and appreciated. “You have to make a family and take the time for it and play around,” said Binoche. “We had to write one another’s stories and we had to sing together and dance together again. There were games made because I had to learn all the games I didn’t know. It’s very American. You know, the bowling, the pancakes… So it was a process of me becoming an American.”
Analyzing Her Character: She’s the object of two men’s affection and Binoche describes her as an angel. “She’s playing the angel because I think inside her there’s so many needs unfulfilled. She’s like an orphan in need of family. So this big house with a whole bunch of kids and good atmosphere just fulfils some kind of emptiness she feels. But I think that she needs to be perfect to hide her real person somehow. You know, the fragility, she needs to hide it.”
Binoche drew upon her own experiences in relating to life as part of a big family. “I do [have a large family] on my father’s side,” said Binoche. “There’s a big, big family with lots of cousins, like 25 cousins. We would gather every summer like this, you know? So I have this feeling very much of this surrounding of -- there’s sort of a joy as a child. As an adult, it’s a different story because you see all the layers and all the complications of your relationships and all that. I come from divorced families so now the gathering at Christmas is like, ‘She’s not coming.’ ‘He’s not coming, I assure you.’ As we all know, it’s complicated. Families are not an easy job.”
The Appeal of Dan in Real Life: Binoche explained what drew her to the very American film. “It was a combination. I didn’t know, I was not aware that it was this Disney film. I was not aware of that. I didn’t know it was like a Hollywood film. I know now, but at the time when I read the script, there was something about it I liked, that I had to meet with the director to know [more].
I hadn’t seen his films so I saw Pieces Of April and I loved it because there’s sincerity in it. It feels authentic to me. It touched me. The subject touched me very much and I think Peter [Hedges], he’s very good at telling stories that belong to your heart and to the family kind of questions. I think he’s very good at that. I could see that in Pieces of April. At the same time, the comic aspect but also the tragic aspect of life. And that I like very much because I think it’s so true, you know, in life. You don’t cry all the time, but we have to laugh about crying, otherwise it’s unbearable. I think that his films represent that.”
