There was a point early in her career when Juliette Binoche truly believed she would give her life for film.

“I thought that I could die for art,” the French actress told us during an intimate conversation at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday. The actress was in town to promote Slack Bay, a surreal comedy from French director Bruno Dumon, and was reflecting on a traumatic incident that happened early in her career. “But then I encountered physical danger while working on a film, and almost died. I almost drowned in a scene, and when I came out of the water, in the air, I realized, ‘O.K., I am choosing life. I am not choosing art.’ That was just such a strong turning point.”

The Oscar-winning actress has gone on to maintain successful acting careers in both France and America over the last 30 years, alternating between mainstream marquee features and thought-provoking indie dramas. But it still took Binoche an additional incident for her to take her health more seriously than film.

While filming Three Colors: Blue, the French drama for which she won a César Award, Binoche’s character was supposed to scrape her hand along a stone wall until it drew blood. A prosthetic hand had been made for the scene, but kept falling off during takes. So Binoche told director Krzysztof Kieślowski that she would just scrap the prosthetic and drag her own hand against the wall.

“Kieślowski was very angry at me,” Binoche said. “He said we were not going to shoot that scene. I said, ‘No, we will do it and I will get hurt, but it is fine.’ He was enraged, screaming at me. He said, ‘You never do that! This is a movie. You are not doing it for real.’ I was surprised that he was standing up for me. And it taught me awareness about drawing a line for myself on set. It doesn’t mean I am not giving myself as much.”

An early co-star also helped her confidence cause, Binoche revealed, citing Sami Frey, the French actor who played her stepfather in 1985’s Family Life.

“I didn’t have a lot of scenes with him but I remember his warmth,” Binoche recalled. “With Rendez-vous [which came out the same year], I was exposed physically because I had a lot of nude scenes. And I remember he said to me, uh uh, you protect yourself. I had no kind of consciousness of protection. Because for me it was about giving myself to the story, giving myself to an art form. The fact he talked to me and he had no interest [in me] . . . It was just a conversation between actor to actor that was very meaningful.”

In recent years, Binoche has grown into that mentor role, guiding her co-star Kristen Stewart in their critically acclaimed Olivier Assayas collaboration, Clouds of Sils Maria, which earned Stewart a César.

“I was so proud of her, I have to say, when she got the César,” said Binoche. Since the win, Stewart has signed on to two additional French films, both with Assayas. And Binoche, as someone who has worked in both the American and French film industries, has a theory why Stewart and France have developed a mutual affection for each other in recent years.

“Kristen is a young actress, and it’s very touching [for the French] to see somebody who doesn’t need to be here, because it’s not about money, it’s not about fame, it’s about exploring different ways of expressing yourself,” the actress explained. “It is touching to us because there is a tradition here in France of making movies as an art form [rather than a business]. Final cut is given to the director, it is in the law here in France. A producer cannot have a final cut. It is in the law.”

“There is a protection of the arts here that is very strong,” Binoche continued. “I think Kristen understood that very quickly. She has the intelligence. She is quick. She has this need, this curiosity of exploring, and I think as you see young actresses, young French actresses wanting to go to America, I think more and more there are American actresses who want to be in more European films as well. So I think the exchange is really opening up.“

Binoche recently switched gears, from traveling the U.S. with a stage production of Antigone to Slack Bay, an over-the-top comedy that dabbles in cannibal humor, and had some critics scratching their heads. But Binoche tries not to pay much attention to film reviews these days.

When Binoche was 21, the French actress made her first trip to the Cannes Film Festival with Rendez-Vous, the erotic drama which won its filmmaker André Téchiné the directing prize. Despite the accolades and Binoche being lauded the darling of the festival, the Oscar winner remembers reading a negative review of the film that stung to her core.

“I remember the first critic on Rendez-Vous, that came out in the Cannes Film Festival in 1985. A magazine said that I will never be [French actress] Romy Schneider. I remember that I thought, ‘This hurts, but I never wanted to be Romy Schneider so I was like why are they saying that?‘ I still can’t figure it out.”

“I can’t take it personally sometimes because you give so much of your life and your being [for films]. Now I detach myself more.”

After a few beats, lost in memory, Binoche says, “When I was a little girl at school, they asked me to write down who you wanted to be when you grow up. And I couldn’t find it. I think it tells you that you cannot dream about being someone else if you have yourself, if you have your spirit. You cannot desire to be anybody else because you are unique. Your own journey to go on. Your own fears. You cannot compare anybody with anybody else.”