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alter or modulate for the
screen version of her
performance?
What she and I talked
about was that she needed
to exclude the audience from
the conversation. Maggie
is such a great, great stage
actor -- she’s a great film
actor as well -- but, as a
stage actor, nobody is able
to include the audience so
deftly. And she was keen that
the performance never felt
that it was pushed too hard.
So it was just that, really.
How did Alex Jennings
come to your attention for the role of
Alan Bennett?
I first worked with Alex in 1985
and I’ve done many, many plays with
him. And he played Alan Bennett in an
autobiographical play in London that Alan
wrote a few years ago called
Untold
Stories
, which I’d done at the National
Theater. And Alex was so good as Alan
in that show. He was better at playing
Alan than Alan is at playing himself,
which Alan has quite often [done] over
the years. Alan is an extremely well
loved and celebrated figure in the British
performing arts, on television and on
stage, but he’s gotten to the point where
he really doesn’t play himself well any
more and Alex plays him much better.
On set, was Alan’s screenplay
sacrosanct or did you allow your
actors to improvise?
With Alan’s scripts, I know exactly
where you can’t deviate from them.
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