Homer’s “Odyssey” may be from the 8th century BC but it remains among our foundational works of literature.

It is timeless in telling of Greek king Odysseus’ 10-year journey home from the Trojan War. How his wife Penelope and only son Telemachus were threatened by unruly suitors who competed for her hand in marriage and threatened to murder her son.

That epic saga is retold in “The Return” with Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus, Juliet Binoche as Penelope and Charlie Plummer as Telemachus. It’s a violently realistic, brutal and bloody recreation of the ancient world.

“I said yes, because I loved the script and wanted to work with Rafe,” Binoche, 60, explained in a Zoom interview of this reunion with her “The English Patient” co-star.

“I never played a queen. I was interested in understanding her fear. Trying to feel what it feels like to be the queen – but actually, I’m not sure she feels the queen. She is acting like the queen when she has to but otherwise, she’s in this castle trying to save herself, save her son.

“This is a woman who’s feeling abandoned, who’s having this terrible situation she doesn’t know how to deal with. It felt,” she emphasized, “very real, actually. It felt like she’s trying to survive.”

When the king does appear, alone, disguised as a beggar, Penelope does not recognize him.

“When she sees Odysseus the beggar, she’s upset because  she’s been left alone. Why is he not embracing her and say, ‘We’re going to do something, find a way to stop this madness.’

“But it’s not happening like that. There’s doubt: Is Penelope faithful? All these questions! That’s why it’s so interesting – and endless. These characters,” she noted, have endured, “Because they really go to the core of human beings. They are the architecture of our behaviors and our fears.”

Because Penelope has been fending off for years these suitors eager for marriage and a throne, she could be played as a nervous wreck, a woman on the verge of a breakdown.

Binoche gives her a spine of steel.

“As we talked and rehearsed, our director Uberto Pasolini understood that he had to leave space to us, that he had to trust.

“I had a sort of contract with him. I said, ‘Okay, you give me the first three takes, with you’re not telling me anything. I’m just going to give you what I feel, what’s coming to me. Then, after that, I’ll do exactly whatever directions you want.’

“So we had that lovely contract together. And at the end he says to me, ‘In the editing room, I mostly took the first take.’ ”

“The Return” opens Dec. 6