Q&A: Binoche and Fiennes on reuniting for ‘The Return' and fighting for meaningful movies

Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche became friends while playing lovers in “Wuthering Heights.” A few years later, they would share the screen again in Anthony Minghella’s “The English Patient,” that historical epic that would take them all the way to the Oscars.

They’ve kept in touch in the years since, fused by those early experiences and their admiration for one another’s minds and processes. There were dinners and phone calls and trips to catch one another on the stage. Binoche went to see him in “Macbeth.” He went to see her in “Antigone.”

But they hadn’t managed to work together again until now. And, appropriate for the occasion, the story is an epic: the reunion of Odysseus and Penelope.

“We’re very, very, very good friends,” Fiennes said. “There’s a trust, there’s a bond, there’s a respect. There’s the love of friends and we celebrate each other’s work."