MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Here's a story for you. A warrior king has just washed up on a beach. He's been gone for 20 years. His wife, the queen, has been waiting, pining for his return. And all of this is unfolding on the island of Ithaca. Yes, we are talking "The Odyssey," the epic poem by Homer. It's come to the big screen as a big new movie, "The Return."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE RETURN")
CLAUDIO SANTAMARIA: (As Eumeo) There is no king. He sailed to Troy years ago, took the best men with him. None of them came back.
RALPH FIENNES: (As Odysseus) Who do you serve now?
SANTAMARIA: (As Eumeo) The queen Penelope and her son.
FIENNES: (As Odysseus) No man at her side?
SANTAMARIA: (As Eumeo) All year, they've been turning up for miles around, waiting for her to choose.
FIENNES: (As Odysseus) Has she?
SANTAMARIA: (As Eumeo) She's strong, keeps them waiting for her husband to return.
KELLY: Her husband, the king Odysseus, is played by Ralph Fiennes, Queen Penelope by Juliette Binoche, and they both join me now from New York. Welcome.
JULIETTE BINOCHE: Hi.
FIENNES: Hello.
KELLY: Hi. We pick up at the end of Odysseus' story. After long years fighting the Trojan War, long years trying to get home to Ithaca, Ralph Fiennes, give us a taste of what Odysseus has been through in those years.
FIENNES: He's been at war for 10 years, initially, and then a further 10 years traveling, all kinds of adventures, meeting witches and monsters, and all kinds of obstructions. And the wrath of Poseidon is the main reason why, in Homer, Odysseus has not returned. In our film, you don't know that. All gods and monsters are gone.
But what the director, Uberto Pasolini, wanted to emphasize was the cost on his soul of being away for so long - fighting, killing, probably committing terrible atrocities as a warrior at war. And then ongoing, he's been with other women in his travels. But he's a sort of wreck of a person in our film when he is washed up on the shore of Ithaca, with all this sort of inner landscape of battle, war, adventure. Yes, you could say he's betrayed his wife, but I think he's just a man who's been lost for a long time.
KELLY: Juliette, what has Penelope been doing during these years? We know she's been doing weaving, a whole lot of weaving.
BINOCHE: Yes, but also trying to have a sense of sanity being on her own as a queen and seeing, you know, the royalty going down so much because people are starving, and the suitors around her trying to get the power, and bringing up her son and expecting her husband to come back one day but not knowing where he is. So there's a lot of anxiety in her as well as a lot of hope.
And in this script, Penelope is somehow different. It's not just the waiting wife being a saint. She's a woman with feelings, with needs and fighting those, you know, feelings of anger and feelings of feeling abandoned. And so that was so interesting to play because it felt complex, and it felt very modern. It's not simple. It's - they're complex characters.
KELLY: Let me take us to the moment when, after 20 years, Penelope finally comes face to face with Odysseus.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE RETURN")
BINOCHE: (As Penelope) Where have you been since you left Troy?
FIENNES: (As Odysseus) Traveling. Drifting.
BINOCHE: (As Penelope) Did you hear of my husband in your travels? Must be dead - the man who left would never have stayed away from his son, his wife, his people.
FIENNES: (As Odysseus) Perhaps he's afraid.
KELLY: And we're left wondering, does she recognize him? How could she not recognize him? Who does she think she's talking to?
BINOCHE: It's not very clear in the book, is it? - whether she recognizes him or not. But I think, how could she not recognize him? They were married. She knows his voice. I'd like to leave it to the audience to decide. And Uberto, the director, has been really cautious in editing that scene in order to have the choice.
KELLY: Yeah. I kept watching your eyes, Juliette Binoche...
BINOCHE: (Laughter).
KELLY: ...Trying to figure out when were they going to flash, and I would think she's got it. She's there.
BINOCHE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
KELLY: Yeah.
BINOCHE: Yeah. That's the art of the director and the editor, you know, to find the right place to - you know, to - whether to cut it or not.
FIENNES: When I played it, I think I knew you had seen me. I knew it. And I knew she decides not to call him. She talks of him as, did my husband do this? Who is my husband?
KELLY: Yeah.
FIENNES: Have you seen my husband?
BINOCHE: Yeah.
FIENNES: But as we played it, I knew she had seen me, but neither of us are prepared to self-identify to each other. There's this sort of weird thing holding us back because the distance - I thought that was a wonderful piece of writing that...
BINOCHE: Yeah.
FIENNES: ...We are held back. I can't say it's me, and she can't say, I know it's you.
BINOCHE: Yeah, she can't say, but yeah, she's furious...
FIENNES: Yeah.
BINOCHE: ...That he's not able to come and say, here I am.
FIENNES: Yeah.
BINOCHE: I'm back.
FIENNES: Yeah.
BINOCHE: I want to save you. I'm going to protect you. We're going to have a plan. And that's why when she decides to go for the bow, the challenge is so big. She's going to challenge everyone. It's like, OK you playing that game? We're going to play that game now.
KELLY: Well, to explain the bow, the bow is this giant bow that only Odysseus in his youth could string and shoot through - what is it? - 12 arrowheads.
FIENNES: Axe heads.
KELLY: Axe heads.
FIENNES: Yeah.
KELLY: The perfect shot - and I'm - as the audience, I was left wondering, can he do it? This is a wreck of a man.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY: How is this one going to end? (Laughter) We've talked about how Odysseus and Penelope were separated for 20 years. In a way, the two of you, Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes - you were separated for longer than that. It has been 28 years since we have gotten to see you both onscreen together, 28 years since "The English Patient" came out in 1996. What has this reunion been like?
BINOCHE: Joy.
FIENNES: Well, we've...
BINOCHE: Yeah.
FIENNES: ...Been friends over the years. But when this project brought us together, I think we both recognized there was a kind of - it felt inevitable.
KELLY: Well, and you said that in a passive way, like, when the film brought you together. But I was reading, Ralph, you were involved first, and you thought, I know who Penelope needs to be, who needs to play her.
FIENNES: Well, actually, yes, I was involved. But...
BINOCHE: Don't say no.
(LAUGHTER)
BINOCHE: Please, say yes. It was your idea.
FIENNES: (Laughter) It was.
BINOCHE: He's always saying that it's Uberto, our director, who had the idea, which makes me really feel bad. I'm teasing you, and now are you taking it personally? Come on, Ralph.
FIENNES: No.
BINOCHE: Ralph.
FIENNES: The - it's sometimes that you can't see the thing that's in front of you, and that's just human blindness. So I couldn't see that Juliette Binoche had to play Penelope with me. That was a door opened, a crack in a window by our director. But when the shaft of light that carried her name hit me, I went yes. Yes.
BINOCHE: (Laughter).
KELLY: Well, it was the right call. Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, this has been a great pleasure. Thank you both so much.
BINOCHE: Thank you for having me.
FIENNES: Thank you. Thank you very much.
KELLY: They are back together, as you just heard, starring in the new movie "The Return."
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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