Fiennes, Binoche join DiCaprio here
She came for work, he came for pleasure. Actors Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes are making separate visits to Israel this week, celebrity news program Good Evening with Guy Pines reported Sunday. Binoche, an Academy Award winner for 1997's The English Patient, was set to arrive in the country Monday to film Disengagement, the latest movie by Israeli director and Cannes Film Festival favorite Amos Gitai (Free Zone, Kippur).
Fiennes, 44, who earned an Oscar nomination alongside Binoche in The English Patient, preceded his French counterpart by several days on a visit to his girlfriend, a 23-year-old member of Tel Aviv's Batsheva dance troupe. Previously Oscar-nominated for his work as the Nazi commandant in Schindler's List, Fiennes will return to the big screen later this year as the title character's nemesis in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
The Guy Pines Web site noted that Fiennes had enjoyed a "softer landing" in Israel than the country's previous celebrity visitor, Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio. In a first for local paparazzi, Pines hired a helicopter after DiCaprio's arrival in Tel Aviv last week in an unsuccessful attempt to get pictures of the Titanic star with his girlfriend, Israeli swimsuit model Bar Rafaeli.
Nathan Burstein