You may know Juliette Binoche from movies such as The English Patient or Chocolat. She’s a beautiful and talented actor who speaks and acts in multiple languages. But that’s not why I’m writing about her today. I’m writing about Juliette because she’s shown a great deal of courage lately. She’s not only continued to excel in her 25-year acting career, but in her 40’s she’s expanded her creative self-expression into completely new media such as dancing, painting and poetry. And don’t think she’s done this in the safety of her own private life. On the contrary, she’s gone on a dancing tour around the world and has her paintings and poetry on exhibit in New York.
Of course, the critics out there are none too kind – “stick with what you know Juliette” is the gist of their complaints. But why should she stick with acting only? As a creative person, why shouldn’t Juliette try new things and expand herself while she’s at it?

So many times we’re afraid that if we stray off the beaten path that it will be “bad for our careers”. But I’m willing to bet these different trajectories in Juliette’s life are not hurting her acting career, but are in fact giving it new life, a new dimension. And through these other projects, her audience is getting to know her in ways they would never have if she had just stuck to acting.  More importantly, Juliette is undoubtedly getting to know herself better by tapping into her creative reservoir in these different ways.

Nowadays, most people’s career path isn’t as straight and narrow as it used to be.  These days, people don’t enter into a company, stay there for thirty or forty years until they secure a top management position and a pension.  My contention is that people will no longer enter into a career and stay in it for thirty or forty years anymore either.  With all the changes in our economy and technology, where services, products and information are delivered in completely different ways, I contend that people are going to be choosing careers more than once in their lives.  And if they don’t change their career during their lifetime, they will forge their own career path which will be radically different than what has been done in the past.

So it’s no surprise that Juliette has branched out into different modes of expressing herself.  And perhaps she may not switch careers and quit being an actor.  In my opinion, it would be a shame if she did quit.  But she’s forging her own path that’s not necessarily sanctioned by the critics, but is borne out of her heart and soul.

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