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| KEEPING UP APPEARANCES
MAKING UP
Annette Bening as Julia Lambert. builds a temporary bridge with her producer husband, Micahel Gosselyn (Jeremy Irons)
being julia
LEGENDARY HUNGARIAN DIRECTOR ISTVÁN SZABÓ, WHO WON AN OSCAR IN 1982 FOR MEPHISTO, HAS MADE FILMS IN ENGLISH BEFORE. BUT BEING JULIA, BASED ON A SHORT NOVEL BY SOMERSET MAUGHAM, IS HIS FIRST COMEDY. NICK RODDICK TALKED TO HIM ABOUT TIMING, WORKING FROM SOMEONE ELSE’S SCREENPLAY - AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SOUFFLÉ AND A CAKE.
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It’s the summer of 1938, and Chamberlain has just returned from Munich waving his famous piece of paper. Europe is on the brink of catastrophe. But, in the West End of London, it is business as usual, with the beautiful Julia Lambert (Annette Bening) coming to the end of the successful run of yet another hit play.
Clouds of a different kind are gathering for Julia, however. With her 45th birthday fast approaching, Julia realises that leading roles in the kind of elegant drawing-room comedies she has made her own will soon start to dry up. Even her husband, the astute producer Michael Gosselyn (Jeremy Irons), will soon have to look round for another leading lady, on the stage if not in life (although theirs has been a marriage in name only for many years now).
Then into Julia’s life comes Tom Fennel (Shaun Evans), a maladroit but ambitious young American who professes himself her greatest fan and soon becomes her latest lover. For a while, Julia is transformed: even her performances have a new edge. But then the unthinkable happens - Tom seems to be relegating her to a supporting role.
At first Julia is mortified, shedding real tears for the first time in her adult life. No one believes her, however, since she is renowned for being able to turn on “the waterworks” at will. But then, when Tom asks her to audition a young actress with the wonderfully thirties name of Avice Crichton (Lucy Punch) - whom Julia (rightly) suspects is Tom’s new lover - she sees her chance, and begins plotting an act of revenge to be fought on the place she knows best: the London stage.
Was it Robert Lantos who originally brought the project to you?
Yes, he sent me the screenplay. But he didn’t mention that he would like me to direct the film. We did a film before Being Julia called Sunshine and we had a very, very good time together. He supported me and he’s a great producer. He sent it to me and he asked me for my opinion. I told him that it was a great screenplay but the question was, who was going to direct it because it needed lightness, something which could seduce the audience…? Then he said later that he would like to invite me to do it!
What was your reaction?
It surprised me very much, to be honest, because Robert knows my films. But he said that I deserved to do something which is not so heavy a burden to shoulder. The heaviness of history and politics is not there. I asked him to give me some time to think about it, because it’s like the difference between a soufflé and a cake. Until now, I did only cakes, so it’s a very courageous decision to invite me to do a soufflé!
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