FEATURE FOCUS
Ralph Fiennes takes the role of Charles Dickens — and the director’s chair — in The Invisible Woman
n THE INVISIBLE WOMAN n HONG KONG: BOX OFFICE n HONG KONG: HOT PROJECTS n FUTURE LEADERS IN SALES AND ACQUISITIONS
Dickens uncovered
Ralph Fiennes’ second directing project following Coriolanus tells the story of Charles Dickens’ secret love affair with a young actress. Who better to play the iconic author than Fiennes himself? Sarah Cooper reports.
street urchins, he looks like he was born to play Charles Dickens. But after the challenge of his directorial debut Coriolanus — in which he also played the lead — Fiennes was initially reluctant to take on both act- ing and directing. “It was a tough call. I was a bit wary having done
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it once on Coriolanus. But as I got to know Dickens, the actor in me saw the appeal of the role and the feeling that I should take it on became stronger and stronger,” says Fiennes, who is now midway through the film’s 10-week shoot. Based on Claire Tomalin’s biography, the film
tells the story of the secret love affair between Dick- ens and young actress Nelly Ternan, played by ris- ing UK star Felicity Jones. Kristin Scott Thomas, who appeared alongside Fiennes in The English Patient, stars as Ternan’s mother along with Tom Hollander who plays fellow novelist Wilkie Collins. The project originated with Stewart Mackinnon
at Headline Pictures, who recently completed Dus- tin Hoffman’s Quartet. Mackinnon bought the rights to Tomalin’s biography, optioning it to BBC Films, which also backed Coriolanus, and develop- ing the project with BBC Films and production and development funding from the BFI Film Fund. Headline was looking for a director, and BBC
Films head Christine Langan approached Coriola- nus producer Gabrielle Tana of Magnolia Mae Films with the project. “I read the book and gave it to Ralph and said I thought it was something really
n 28 Screen International at Cannes May 18, 2012
atching Ralph Fiennes on the set of The Invisible Woman, complete with beard, Victorian costume and surrounded by
‘It’s taken a long time to accept the relationship. Instinctively people have been protective of Dickens’
reputation’ Ralph Fiennes, actor-director
special. He was captivated by it,” says Tana, who was instrumental in raising private financing from the US for the project. “We knew we had a brilliant director on our
hands, and it just so happened that he was also per- fect for playing Dickens. I think we gave him a fabu- lous quandary and I’m very glad he was courageous enough to rise to the challenge,” adds Langan. With his trademark attention to detail, Fiennes
worked with the film’s screenwriter Abi Morgan, whose credits include Shame and The Iron Lady, to develop and hone the screenplay for two years. “We tried to respond to Claire’s biography and
the tortured nature of their relationship. With the age difference, him being married, the fear of scan- dal, it wasn’t an easy love affair,” says Fiennes, who brought Rob Hardy on board as director of photog- raphy after seeing his work on James Marsh’s upcoming Shadow Dancer while it was still in post. “We seemed to have a shared approach going
into a period film, visually, compositionally,” says Fiennes, who has taken the decision to shoot on film. “It was definitely the right way to go because it has a richness to it and a texture of light and col- our which I love.” The production has been buoyed by what Lan-
gan calls a “dream team”, including the Oscar-win- ning costume designer of The Duchess, Michael O’Connor, and production designer Maria Djurko- vic who was Bafta-nominated for Tinker Tailor Sol- dier Spy. The shoot has taken in a plethora of London locations including the Reform Club, Hoxton Hall
and Princelet Street. “London is a gift in terms of locations. Yes we’ve had the usual logistics of shooting in a major city, but to have the architec- ture of the period, that is priceless,” says Tana. For Eve Schoukroun, managing director of West
End Films, which is handling international sales on the project, the film is as much about Nelly Ter- nan and her evolution into womanhood as it is about Dickens. “It is a very feminine film, and I’m glad the title reflects that. I also wanted to make a love story, and when I read the script I thought it was a very sophisticated and deep love story which is still relevant today,” adds Schoukroun, who has already sold the project to Lionsgate for the UK and Hopscotch for Australia. “The story reveals more about Dickens the man
but also honours the memory of an extraordinary woman,” says Mackinnon, who produced together with Headline partner Christian Baute. With the combination of Fiennes, Jones and the
renewed interest in Dickens in this bicentennial year of his birth, the film promises to be “one of the UK’s most high profile and hotly anticipated inde- pendent productions” in the market, according to BFI Film Fund senior executive Natascha Wharton. But while Dickens’ work has been adapted for
the screen on hundreds of occasions — including a new BBC Films version of Great Expectations in which Fiennes stars as Magwitch — this is the first feature film to centre around the man himself. “I sense it has taken people a long time to accept
the relationship, because instinctively people have been protective of his reputation,” says Fiennes. n
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