The veteran actor speaks exclusively to RadioTimes.com about her career, starring in new film Juniper and why she was so keen to be part of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune.
By Patrick Cremona
In the new film Juniper – which is released in UK cinemas this weekend – Charlotte Rampling takes on the role of Ruth, an ageing alcoholic Englishwoman who moves to New Zealand to spend more time with her family. Following her arrival, she is placed in the care of rebellious grandson Sam – and what starts out as a fiery relationship soon turns into something far more tender, as the pair strike up an unlikely rapport.
It’s a moving film with an exceptional performance from Rampling at its centre – but the veteran actor very nearly passed up the opportunity to star in it before she’d even read the script, as she explains in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com.
“My agent read it and she said, ‘You’ve got an offer from New Zealand,'” she recalls. “And I said, ‘No way, I’m not going there!’ Not that I don’t like New Zealand – my first husband was a New Zealander, my son is half New Zealander – but it’s so far away and I just thought I can’t hack it.”
Eventually, Rampling was persuaded to read the screenplay anyway – just so she could rule it out – and she ended up loving it so much that she felt the long trip would be very much worth it.
“I was really moved reading the script, there was just really something in it,” she says. “And scripts are difficult to read – you know, a film can be moving and scripts quite often don’t reveal that. But this did, it sort of came across on the page.”