The Press Box - 'The Big Picture' — Stephen Frears and the Inner Workings of the Royal Family (Ep. 357)

Episode Date: September 29, 2017

The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins break down their favorite films about the British royal family (1:00) before Sean sits down with acclaimed director Stephen Frears to discuss his new film ‘Victoria and Abdul,’ making films about the royals, and his longevity in the industry (10:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I wanted to tell you about Black on the Air, hosted by the one and only. The great one. Larry Wilmore, even though he's a Lakers fan, I still like him. I think he's talented. But he has all kinds of guests on from Neil deGrasse Tyson to Al Franken to Bernie Sanders. You name it. They're coming on, pop culture, politics, newsmakers.

And then at the beginning of every podcast, Larry does a little riff about whatever is either sticking in his car or things that he's enjoying. Although he has been enjoying much lately. the way the world's going, but Larry will riff on anything, and then he has guests on, it's great. If you liked everything else that he's done, comedy-wise, if you love this Comedy Central show, you will love this podcast. It is a medium that he has built for.

It's called Black on the Air, hosted by Larry Wilmore. Get it wherever you subscribe to your podcasts. I don't actually find filmmaking terribly difficult, though I'm sure you're not supposed to say things like that. But it's just understanding the subject and understanding what it is you're making, which quite often you don't.

I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of the Ringer, and here's the big picture. What makes the royal family so interesting? The legendary filmmaker Stephen Freer seems to know. Over the course of 40 years, Frears has made movies like The Grifters, My Beautiful Laundrette, dangerous liaisons, and high fidelity. But some of his best-known work is about the Royals, including 2006 as The Queen and his new movie Victorian Abdul, which chronicles the unlikely friendship between Queen Victoria

and an Indian Muslim man who visits her court named Abdul. I'll talk with Stephen about his movies and the Royals, But first, I'm joined by a royal correspondent and the ringers culture editor Amanda Dobbins to break down what makes the royals so compelling in the first place. Amanda, thanks for joining me. Sean, thank you so much for having me on this day. Amanda, this is your lane. This is your scene. The Royals on film is your biggest interest in the universe.

Yes, probably. If you had to pick one. Okay. What I need you to do is explain why the royals are interesting because to me they're not terribly. And even Stephen, who we will hear in this conversation, doesn't seem particularly interested in the. royal family, but maybe in sort of the things that they compel out of storytelling. But for you, why are you interested in these people? The royals, to me, are interesting because they are obviously very public figures.

For a lot of history, they're the closest thing you have to celebrities, which is another interest of mine. But they are in a very unique position, which is they are, their entire existence is a public role, but they are also obviously human beings with private lives. And so the stories that I like best about the royals are kind of. kind of investigating that tension between who you are in public and who you are in private and the tension that that can inevitably produce. So that's a key element of Frears' movies about this.

You know, Victoria and Abdul hits on this a little bit. What are some other films that do this really well, in your opinion? All right. So I have, I've made a list for you. I love a list, as you know. An important thing to note about this list is that there are a couple things I've discounted from the very beginning for this reason. So there are no Shakespeare's. my royal movie list because Shakespeare royals, which are obviously extremely culturally important,

are mostly about history and power. And what we're talking about here is character studies. Okay. So the madness of King George, the third. Break it down. 1994 film starring Nigel Hawthorne as King George III. Do you remember who King George the third was? I have a vague memory of this film because it was kind of an Oscar bait-ish item in the 90s. But tell me more. Right. He also lost the Revolutionary War. Oh, that's a bad beat. Wow. Tough sell.

And this film is written by Alan Bennett and adapted from the play by Alan Bennett and is about a period after King George lost the Revolutionary War. And people thought he was losing his mind. And so there was a power struggle of whether he was allowed to be king. And instead of depicting that as a heart-rending drama, the madness of King George III is a comedy. And it's absurdist. And it talks about the idea of getting older and not being able to trust the people around you and not knowing who you are anymore.

But it's also really funny. And I think does a good job highlighting the absurdity of the concept of a king, which is a very true thing. That's a great recommendation. I've actually never seen that, so I have to go track it down somehow. It's very funny. Okay. What else? Marie Antoinette, which you had to know was coming.

Sure. Sure. The sofiologist of the ringer. And possibly, I think it's probably my person. favorite Sophia Coppola film? No, I don't think it's the best Sophia Coppola film. Why is that movie good? Great. Thanks for asking. Cam Collins wrote a great piece for us about it a couple months ago, and he kind of isolates

the rule that gossip plays in that movie. And the movie is a very interesting Royals movie because it's about a teenager, and it kind of shows, again, it's a subversion of this idea of these are very stodgy, boring people, just in crowns. who don't say anything. And I think you forget that these people are often very young, are often not prepared for anything that they're supposed to be doing. And in fact, I probably shouldn't have the jobs that they have. And it also is a very good portrait of what it's like to be a teen girl, which speaks to me personally on top of all of that. It is also very beautiful to look at it. And I shouldn't, I'm talking about these very seriously,

but the frivolity of all of these movies is also certainly appealing to me. Yeah, it's notable that the two that you've highlighted so far are kind of frothy in a good way. You know, they're not these intense costume-bound dramas that we're used to seeing, right? Yes. So what else? Well, the line in winter is kind of the classic one. That's a little bit more stodgy. It's extremely stodgy, but it's kind of you can't not include it on the list.

Sure. We'll explain what it is. It's a classic film. It's a classic film from 1968. It's Peter O'Toole as Henry II. Catherine Hepburn as his estranged wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. And then he has several sons kind of vying for his love and for his power. And it kind of goes back and forth.

And that's the tension of the movie. And it's basically who's afraid of a Virginia Woolf, but with crowns and daggers and stuff. And it's great because it's Peter O'Toole and Catherine Hepburn just acting like crazy. Speechifying, jousting verbally. Just really, really big speeches and is very fun. And in terms of the power struggle but also the family struggle that is a theme in many of these films because it's a hereditary monarchy. So it gets handed down from father to son. But this is fun because it has a mother in it too.

And that's what I respond to more. Sensing a theme there as well. So what's number four? Well, this is my favorite. I was going in reverse order. Oh. Yeah. Okay.

This is great. Yeah. The suspense is building. And it's convenient that we're doing this podcast because the queen is I had a feeling. I think the queen is exceptional. Me too. One of the biggest reasons I wanted to talk to Stephen is because of how much I like the queen. Yeah.

And, you know, it does, that idea of public and private lives is obviously manifested explicitly throughout the film in a very interesting way. Let's explain a little bit of what the queen is about for those who haven't seen it. Absolutely. The queen is about the week after Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris. And it is about how the royal family handled that death and what they did. did kind of publicly to acknowledge it or remember her and how the United Kingdom responded to Diana's death and the chasm between those two reactions. And then it becomes an expiration of kind of what is the queen's role. What should she be? Who should she be to her constituents

and kind of what people want from a public figure. It's a very interesting thing. And there's a lot of similarities again with Victoria and Abdul and the queen in so far as there's a lot of imaginative in conversation. In Victorian Abdul, we know that Victoria kept pretty rigorous journals, and we know that there is some reporting around what goes on inside the court of the queen, but the writer who, Peter Morgan, who I know you're also a very big fan of, is creating a lot of identity and story out of whole cloth, right? He's presuming that Tony Blair would say a certain thing to the queen and that she would say a certain thing back to him, right? I believe so, though. I have to think his sources are pretty good.

He's made basically a whole late career of making TV and films and plays about Queen Elizabeth. There's the Queen, there's the Crown, obviously, which I wasn't allowed to include because it's a TV show, but I think it's excellent. And then... Well, you've managed to include it. Yes, here we go. And then also, he did a play starring Helen Mirren called The Audience. So I tend to believe that the observations are grounded, in fact. But it's one of those things where when somebody is chronicling something and they get something wrong, people reach out to them and say, you got this wrong, here's the real information.

Yes. By now, one suspects Peter Morgan has received all that information. And maybe Stephen Furr's too, although possibly not. And I don't think you really seem to care. Right. And also Stephen Furze and Peter Morgan had already worked together on a film about Tony Blair. Yes, it's called The Deal. Exactly.

So I just kind of think that they're positioned in a way that they are parsing what's happening and making larger significance out of it. Okay, so wrap this up. Yeah. Do you aspire to the lifestyle of a royal? Like, I can't fully understand why this would be compelling to you. Because it just seems like a boring life. No, absolutely not. There's something soothing in its dullness in that you know the stakes and you know that

nothing terrible is going to happen to those people. And you also know because they're so reserved and emotionally stunted in many ways that there is going to be nothing terribly awkward or upsetting. It's very controlled, which I'm revealing a lot about myself here, but I find it to be soothing. I have no interest in going hunting or writing. I like corgis, but, you know, I don't need a pack of them. It seems extremely boring, and I think what the Crown does particularly well, and the Queen does as well, is that it highlights how boring and unfun these lives are.

I just like knowing what's going on behind the scenes, and that's what these movies do. Wow, this is an amazing look into your psyche. Amanda, thank you very much for explaining what makes you tick and for explaining what makes the royals compelling on film. Thank you for having me. Now here's my conversation with Stephen Frears. I'm quite honored and pleased to be joined by Stephen Frears today. Stephen, thank you for joining me. Pleasure.

Stephen, this is another film about the monarchy that you've made here. And that seems to be an area of interest for you. I'm curious what appeals about stories like that. I mean, I guess so. I could see that both the queen and Victoria, they were in a position that was very, very interesting where their public life and their private feelings conflicted. And I suppose that's what I find interesting. The fact that it's to do with the monarchy seems to me secondary.

Incidental? I don't find the royal family very interesting, but I'll probably get my head cut off. And yet somehow you're able to portray them in an interesting, compelling life? Yes, that's what I'm told. So this film has something in common with the Queen aside from the monarchy, which is that in some ways it seems as though you have to imagine conversations that we don't know to have specifically happened. Well, that's always a pleasure. I mean, that's the Queen.

In the Queen, she had this weekly conversation with the Prime Minister. Nobody else is present. Neither of them will say what happened. So all you can do is imagine it, but that's rather nice. So no one's at the back saying, well, actually, it wasn't like that. It was like this. That's a relief. So in Victorian Abdul, you know, there were documents.

There was obviously a book that Lee Hall's script is based upon. There were letters. She wrote a lot of letters. She would write three or four times a day to him. I mean, you'd only just down the corridor. So she would write a lot. I know that you tend to respond to a script. Yes, entirely.

What's the process like when you receive a script? Do you have a lot of thoughts that then you want to share with someone like Lee to change of film? No, I just read it. If it's good, I tend to have to go and have a lie down and I get nervous that it'll stop being good. So I read it and walk around and after a couple of days I realize it's still in my head. So I know it's interesting me. Yes, and then I sit down with the writer and begin the whole process. What do you think producers and writers want out of a filmmaker like you, given your vast experience at this point?

I'm told that they chose me because I was brave and irreverent. What that means I have no idea. Well, that comes across in the film, right? That's sort of the tonality. Yes. I mean, I can see that it had a very precise tone. And, you know, there's a famous quote from Billy Wilder. A film director doesn't have to know how to write, but he has to know how to read.

So I guess I generally read them correct. It seems as though in a lot of your films, and I've rewatched quite a few this month, the notion of propriety is at the center of a lot of the stories. I'm not quite sure I know what that means. Well, in films like Dangerous Liaisons, or the queen or even high fidelity where there are these characters and there's this sort of mode of acting

that is appropriate in a current setting and you see you have an eye for that. Do the characters then observe it or disrespect it? A bit of both, right? It seems like you're moving between those two ideas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that something that is it conscious to you when you're looking at a story?

Do you think people see that about your films? I can see that people live by codes and that a lot of time, you know, all this is nonsense about political correctness I spend a lot of time breaking the code and I enjoy the code being broken. That makes sense. How do you break the code?

Well, in this country you like Muslims. So I wanted to ask you about that. Obviously, that's a theme of the story. Obviously, Victoria is becoming fond of a Muslim character. And it's quite shocking, but it's not shocking to her in any meaningful way. She's more intelligent than that. Is that your interpretation that she was an elevated figure? Well, why would she, well, no, you don't have to be elevated.

Why would anybody in their right mind care about, I mean, care about things like that? What is eccentric is that your president cares about it and sort of worries about it, you think, nobody else in their right mind gives a second thought to it. So you just take people the way they are. This film obviously was started well before the current situation we find ourselves in. It was in the air. And was that something you identified early on? Well, I always found the politics of the film sympathetic.

That's to say a film. between a white, very, very powerful white English woman and a Muslim. I always found that, so I found the racial conflict interesting. That was actually, if you think about it, true of my beautiful laundrette, which I made 400 years ago. So in a sense, nothing has changed except that Daniel Day Lewis has been replaced by Judy Dench, much of a muchness. I'm sure he would appreciate that. I think he'd be flattered. Tell me when you're crafting a real life.

character, do you feel comfortable taking liberties with their life? Yes, but you draw a line, it's entirely arbitrary. I remember again on the Queen, the only line we really drew was that she didn't engage in what we call psychobabble. She didn't say, oh, these are my feelings like we all do. She didn't talk about her own feelings, which I guess is probably correct. But whether she wore brown shoes or blue shoes, I have no idea. Do you like engendering other people to find that psychobabble, though?

There's obviously a lot of conversation around the stag scene in the queen. In the queen, we had to, yes, there are a lot of shots of people saying she's doing this because her father died. I mean, there's a lot of psychological explanation having to be done around the back, as it were. Yes. There's a little bit less of that in Victoria, but you do have characters talking about her all the time. Yes. What is it that is compelling about Victoria to you? She was so ridiculously powerful.

and ruled over all the people in the film, I mean, she simply was the most powerful woman in the world. When I was a young, when I was a child, the map was 75%, a quarter of the map was pink, and we British owned it, and she was the leader of we British. I don't know who stopped being the emperor. I think probably George V.

Must have stopped being. Or maybe George the 6th was the emperor until separate, until independence. So I don't quite know when the empire formally came to an end in India and the person in England stopped being called emperor. I suspect George VI was an emperor. There's something interesting though because she does seem to have obviously a great distance between a lot of her subjects. You know, that's not something that we see quite so much in real time.

But her reign does sort of mirror Elizabeth's in terms of length. I wonder if that's interesting to you. Yes. I don't know quite what that means. They just were these sort of, rather remarkable women. I mean, Elizabeth, you know, I'm not a fan of the monarchy, but I can see that Elizabeth has done a rather good job. I'm prepared to acknowledge that. Have you heard much from the monarchy since you've made, I mean, this being the second film,

nothing, not a word. They don't, you must understand that they are semi-divine. They rule over us. You know, they don't, it's not like that. I mean, I didn't expect to hear. You said something interesting after the Queen about how you understood when you came to America that you were a subject and not a citizen. Well, I remember learning that. You used to say in the passport about her Britannic Majesty's subject, you know, would you let him in? And you suddenly think, well, these people are all citizens. Why can't I be a citizen? I think probably it's changed.

I think by now I've become a citizen. But that is what I wanted to ask you. Hearing the word subject was quite startling. But maybe it's changed. Has anything in recent British political times changed that feeling? No. No, Brexit or anything like that? No, no, no, no Brexit's nothing to do.

It has its own ridiculous problems, but that's done to do with it. No, I don't know when I stop being a subject, but I have a feeling it happened. Perhaps they sneaked it in without telling me. So what is the difference between working with someone like Judy Dench and Ali Faisal, who you've not worked with before? and who is a younger actor, obviously. Well, there's all the difference in the world. I mean, underneath it all, they've both got talent,

but Judy's an enormously experienced woman and kind, protective, thoughtful. You know, Ali's a child. I mean, he does it all, like you would expect a boy to with a great deal of enthusiasm and freshness. Does anything for you change in terms of how you communicate with an actor like that?

No, no. Say less and less. I hardly talk to Judy. Sometimes I'll say something, and she says, oh, you mean act better? I say, more or less, yeah. Well, that's easy to do when you're an amazing talent, right? Well, or when you know somebody that well. How has your attitude towards making films changed over the course of 40 plus years?

Well, I've got older, so it's more burdens. You know, it's like, I mean, you know, we're just releasing this film. You just look at the sort of mountain. It's got to climb. What are some of the other burdens that you, see in front of you before you take on a film? Making the film, of course. I tend to make films about things I don't know anything about.

So I have a lot of education to do, of self-educating to do. But I enjoy that very much. I don't find that particularly burdensome. I don't actually find filmmaking terribly difficult, though I'm sure you're not supposed to say things like that. And everyone thinks you should be, you know, broken-backed. But it's just understanding the subject and understanding what it is you're making, which quite often you don't.

What keeps you motivated to keep making films? Oh, it's very, very enjoyable. Listen, you get to invent a world, you get to invent the world in which the world is then invented. You know, I work with very, very clever people. I notice that I do less and less. They do all the work. That's interesting.

It's interesting. People say, well, what do you do? And I say, well, I do the thinking. There's a little thin seam of stuff that I can see that I do that no one else, that I take responsibility for. But you work with such brilliant cameraman and designers and costume designers. They're all formidable.

And you eventually work out a way of conducting a conversation with each one of them. When I was younger on making something like Dangerous Liaisons, it was much harder because I didn't quite know what bits I was supposed to be doing. But by now you think, oh, I'll just do the bits I can do. You get on with all of that. I can do this. I'll look after this. confidence thing? Do you have to develop that over time?

Yes, of course. But it's very, very nice. Do you know other stories that you still want to tell? No, I simply don't think like that. I like being hired. I like being sent a script. I like not having a clue. When people can say, oh, I'm going to send your script, it's about this. I say, no, no, no, shut up. I'd rather find out for myself. I like opening the script and discovering what it's about. And then I say, I have to go and lie down because I get so nervous.

it'll collapse, then if it keeps going, you know you're onto something. Has that always been true for you? Even going back to your first films, you wanted to be delivered something to you so you could figure out what you could do with it? Well, it's not, I didn't really think about it. That's how I, because I worked a lot at the BBC and they would commission, they'd come to you with a script and say, do you want to do it? If you don't do it, someone else is going to do it. So it's not, you weren't in that situation of having to raise money or anything, all the things that happened now. So in that sense, it was rather, it was a privileged position.

So I've just got used to that. If someone brings me a script, I think, oh, my God, this is going to get made. And that's when I sort of panic. I remember on Philomena, they kept saying, no, we've got momentum. We've got Judy. I said, just, no, no, no, that's what the problem is. Now, calm down. Let's think about it a bit more.

So I've never had that particular. I've scarcely ever had that problem having to raise money and sell things, which I have no talent for at all. What do you make of the award season work that has to be done? I live in England. I live a long way away Would you've been nominated many times Your actors have been nominated many times It's very flattering

But that doesn't mean you should take it seriously Fair enough So how do you figure out what you're going to do next? I got sent a script which I liked No, I've got it to television I'm really cheerful I'm going back to make a television film I would put money on it

It's the best thing being done in England Really? It's a really, really good script I've got Hugh Grant and Ben Wishaw It's a terrific story It's very, very funny I'm like a child. I'm so happy. Your career has been dotted. You know, you've done plenty of television through the years.

Yes, but I don't. You use your finger as though they were troughs. I think of them as the peach. Did they go higher? No, I just am absolutely thrilled. And I'll bet nobody's making a better film. I remember when the laundrette came out, you just thought, oh, no, what's got a film as good as this? Interesting. So I, to me, poverty was always a source of great strength. What do you make of how people receive television versus film now, where they see your, films. Does it matter to you if it's in a theater or not?

I mean, I do like all that business of going to the... I mean, I go to the... I won't see films except in cinemas. And I like the lights going down. I'm like the queen mother. She said, oh, I like the bit where the lights go down. I understand entirely. But I have made a lot of television, and it's just that's the way it is. You know, now there are a lot of original films that go to say streaming services and they never get a chance to appear.

I haven't... I haven't sort of come across that. I know what you're talking about because of the route can, but I haven't come across that, yeah. The truth is, you know, it's really tough getting films made. If someone will pay for it, just say thank you. You've had staggering success doing that, though, over the years. I mean, how many have you made now? 40 plus. I don't know. I don't count. Do you watch many films? No. Other people's films? Yeah. I like to go to the cinema. Yes, I like to go at the weekends. Is there anything you've seen lately that you've enjoyed or filmmakers that you have an eye on?

Oh, I liked Kenny Lonergan's film very much. Oh, Manchester by the scene. But I didn't understand La La La Land. I'm too old. I'm a little bit younger than you and I didn't understand it either Oh that's a relief But I like the film we made before that The one about the drama I thought that was great Quite good

So hats off to him Do filmmakers come to you and ask you for advice Are you in context of you? Well students I teach So students come and ask for advice Yes Yes What's the teaching experience like

For film students now Well it didn't exist in my day So it's a million times better What's good about film schools You get an opportunity to make films It's only one way you learned to be a direct, you know, Sandy McHendrick said film direction can't be taught. It could only be learned.

You know, make a film. If you wanted to be a film direct, make a film. Easy. And you can make them now on your phone. So just to wrap up, I'm wondering if you could describe for me what it was like at the beginning of your career, given that you were present and working during something of a golden age for British cinema. You were on the set for if.

I was taught by very, very classy people. Carol Rice and Lindsay Anderson were both very, very good people and very good film. and very good filmmakers. Do you reflect on what was imparted to you by Carol or Lindsay? No, oddly enough, they used to slightly say the opposite. I mean, Lindsay would say, oh, go and do anything. I mean, his own career was the exact opposite of that, but he knew what mistakes he'd made.

I remember Jack Clayton saying, don't wait five years like we all did. Just go and make a film. You know, make a gangster film, whatever it is. Just go and work. You did that. And so I went on working. And they were much more.

You know, they'd brought about a sort of revolution in Britain, and I think it probably took out, took quite a lot out of them. And now 50 years later, you find yourself giving the same advice to students. Just make a film. There's nothing else to say. It's a great place to have. It doesn't terribly matter what it is. Just make it.

Stephen, thank you so much for your time. No, it's good fun. You didn't tell me I was going to have a nice time. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Wanted to make sure you subscribe to The Watch with Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan. Two longtime friends who have had, this podcast since 1973. Yeah, that's how long. It was even before a podcast they were having this. These guys spent their whole life arguing with each other. And now we just record it and they go

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