Anna Chancellor: Oh,
hello! |
JF: Great film.
[To Anna]
Now, you're not to do what [you] did last time we interviewed
you... [Anna had accidentally used an expletive during her
previous interview with Richard and Judy.] |
AC: No. |
Richard Madeley: Don't
tell us why the character [in Four Weddings and a Funeral] was
called 'Duckface'. |
AC: No, we won't
go into that. |
RM: Don't tell
us. Never tell us ever why she was called 'Duckface'!
|
JF: [To
Zoë] We loved Harry Potter, I have to say. |
Zoë Wanamaker: Good. |
JF: I'm
a great Harry Potter fan; I've read all the books and
everything. You're absolutely Mrs Hooch, you just really
are. You looked fantastic.
|
ZW:
Thank
you. |
RF:
Speaking
of Mrs Hooch, can we just kill this one - |
ZW: Madam Hooch, Madam Hooch, please. |
RM and JF:
Madam Hooch. |
RM: Mrs Hooch?! Speaking as Madam Hooch - this big
debate [about] whether the broomsticks go brush first or brush
backwards - what's your take on this? |
ZW: Brush backwards, of course. |
RF:
Well, absolutely. |
JF: Who suggested
the other? |
[Richard talks to Judy, and they miss Zoë's next comment] |
ZW: Otherwise, you'll go backwards! |
RM: All these white witches said the film was wrong, that
actually the brush of the broom for a witch should be at the
front. |
ZW: [Laughs] Oh,
I didn't go into research that hard about which way it
should go! |
JF: This play you're in together at the moment is a very
interesting one: Boston Marriage. Basically, it's
set at the turn of the century, isn't it? |
ZW: [Agreeing] Hmm. |
JF: Yep. And is it about a triangle or
quadruple, or...? Do you know what I mean? Because
you two [Anna and Zoë's characters, Claire and Anna] are lovers
in it. |
AC:
We are, yes. |
RF: You're lesbian lovers. Right.
|
JF: [To
Zoë] You're also married [in the play], aren't you? |
ZW: No. |
JF: Oh, sorry. I thought you were married.
|
RM:
No, no. The play
centres essentially [on] whether you're going to stay together
or whether - who is it that fancies the younger woman? |
AC: I've got a crush on someone else. |
RM:
Right,
a younger woman. |
AC: What's happened in the story is that we've been separated
for a while. We presume that we've been very hard in our
luck. And we both separate. We both think this
probably happened to see how much money we could get in order to
continue our relationship, because girls of course didn't have
many jobs, did they? It wasn't that easy. So, Zoë goes off and finds a really rich protector, and
has loads of jewellery and loads of new clothes. And I
come back, and she goes, 'What have you got?', and I go, 'I've
got a new girlfriend'! |
JF: When you say
a really rich protector, then a male protector?
|
ZW: A male
protector, yes. |
JF: That's where I got muddled up. |
AC: He is married, you're right.
|
JF:
Right.
|
RM:
If
it was the other way around that would be known as a
beard. Is there an equivalent word? |
AC:
The beard comes into the play. A beard.
|
ZW:
Yes,
a cover. It's a cover, it's a walker. |
RM: In terms of the passion which we see on stage between the
two of you... Most male actors would say that kissing
another man in an homosexual scene, when they themselves are
heterosexual in real life, is incredibly difficult: they really
have to psyche themselves up for it. Women are much more
touchy feely together, aren’t they? |
AC: Yes. |
RM:
I
just wondered, is a lesbian kiss on stage
- |
AC: It's lovely. |
RM: Good. You’re taking us there... Is a
lesbian kiss on stage easier to do than an heterosexual kiss on
stage? - Because you’re both girlies, and girls can do that
kind of thing. |
JF: They're not girlies! |
RM: You know what I mean! |
ZW: [To
Anna] You answer that. |
AC: No, Zoë,
you do it. |
ZW: I don’t
quite understand. I think it's all the same thing, really. |
RM: Is it more difficult, I'm saying, to kiss a man right
because of the sexual charge that applies, than it is to just
kiss another woman actress? |
AC:
It
depends what the guy's like. |
ZW:
Yeah,
it does! |
AC:
If you feel he hasn't been getting much of it, and then
you can feel those kisses can be a bit tense. |
RM:
Yes, I can see that. |
JF:
Are you joking? Are you serious? |
AC:
Yes. |
RM:
Were your kisses tense?
|
AC: No, ours are lovely. |
ZW: They're
smashing. No tension in them at all. |
RM: Thank
you for clearing that up. |
JF: You've just transferred from the Donmar to,
umm... Tell me the name of the theatre, again. |
ZW: The
Ambassadors. |
JF:
The
Ambassadors. Right. Which means you get paid a lot more money, does it? |
ZW:
Lots, lots more money.
|
JF: Why is
that? Because they can charge much higher prices for the
seats? |
ZW: Yes. |
JF: Yes.
How is that all working at the moment? When we hear that
theatre in London - especially after September 11th - is,
you know... There are so few Americans around. |
ZW:
[Theatres]
Have suffered. |
JF: [Theatre] Has
suffered. Have you noticed that? |
ZW: Not in our play. We haven't noticed that at
all. |
AC: Not yet, no. I don't know about Christmas - who's going to come to the
theatre over Christmas - whether that is traditionally tourists,
or whether we'll still pull in the English crowds who stay home
in London. |
RM: Well,
fingers crossed. [To Zoe] Talking about the 11th, you've
been to Ground Zero, haven't you? |
ZW: I did [go]. |
RM:
Because
- obviously - you were born in America. |
ZW: Yes. |
RM: And you felt
a sort of - what? A kind of [inaudible] pull - that you had to go? |
ZW: Yes. I was curious to see what had happened to New
York, to see how it had changed. And also a couple of my
friends were very badly affected by it. And when I
spoke to them on the phone, one of them in particular was crying
a lot, and I really felt I should be there and see what has
happened to lots of friends of mine, and also the city itself -
and it was very badly hit I think, emotionally. |
RM:
Everyone
who's been there and come back tells a different story, really,
has a different mental photograph of what ground zero was like,
what it did to them to see what’s there. What did it do
to you? |
ZW:
Well, I saw it during the day, and it's actually much
more upsetting during the day, because you actually see the
reality of it and the ugliness of it; although, being America,
they've cleaned up so much, they've cleaned up so much -
and that was 2 weeks after it had happened. I also went
because lots of people weren't going - flying - people were
frightened of flying. |
JF:
And
was it important to you to make that point? |
ZW: I think so. I didn’t want to be bullied. I
was going to go a week earlier, but then I was a bit nervous -
well, like everybody - then I felt I wanted to be there. I
wanted to see what people had been through. Although it is
very difficult for us, being European, who have gone through
thousands of years of terrorism in one way or another. |
RM:
And
the Blitz. |
ZW: And the Blitz. And been invaded all of our
lives, all its civilization. Americans never had that
danger of invasion, and so I think it was very scary for people. |
JF:
They've been very shocked, haven't they? |
ZW: Very
shocked. |
JF: It's
knocked their confidence enormously. |
ZW: Tremendously. |
JF: You regard yourself as a European, then, do you -
definitely? |
ZW: Yes I do, I
do. Well, I've lived here since I was three. I
wasn't educated in America, so I still feel... although I feel
American, I feel much more European. |
RM:
But
how funny, though, that you felt the call, that you had to go
there. |
ZW: I did.
It was friends of mine who had suffered that, really...
What I... And I wanted to know why. |
RM:
Thank you both very much indeed for coming in. It's
lovely to talk to you both.
[To Anna] It's [with] some trepidation... It's the first
time we've met since that infamous interview. It's all over the American blooper shows... |
AC: It's the highlight of my career, Richard! |
RM:
It's one of the highlights of ours, to be honest with
you! Did you know afterwards - and we've got to be
careful, we don't want to go there again - how soon afterwards
did you realise that what you said has... sort of... you can't
do that? |
AC: Well,
when you started tearing your hair out, that's when I realised I
wasn't to say that. I didn't realise that, no, I didn't
know about any of that. |
JF:
No, you didn't know about any of it, OK? [Laughs] You
do now. |
RM:
Well,
good luck with the play, anyway. |
AC and ZW: Thank
you very much. |
AC:
Nice to see you.
|
RM: Nice to see
you.
|
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