Miss Potter

Renée Zellweger plays Beatrix Potter
For the first half of 2006, Texan Renée Zellweger spoke in an English accent as she starred as Beatrix Potter in MISS POTTER, directed by Chris Noonan.

“It sounds dramatic but it is actually the lazy way to do things,” said Renée Zellweger, gazing out across at Lake Windermere on a perfect spring day. “It means I don’t have to concentrate on whether or not I am speaking properly.”

The intensity of Zellweger’s focus as she neared the end of shooting had diminished not one iota. She had been Beatrix twelve hours a day, six days a week. She had scarcely had a day off during the film’s packed eight-week schedule. And for weeks before shooting started, she had immersed herself in the research she considered necessary before undertaking the part.

“The script for MISS POTTER was so beautiful it’s hard to believe it’s not fiction. Quite apart from her extraordinary professional life, she went through so much privately,” Zellweger continued. “I felt a strong kinship with her, a really strong attachment to the woman and the material.

“In her younger years she tried to conform to the woman she was meant to be, and I guess we all have a bit of that in us. But she was fiercely private and successful in keeping the things that mattered most to her away from public gaze.”

The similarity between actor and subject was not lost on Zellweger. No surprise that she should be first choice to play the iconic English writer and artist, Beatrix Potter, creator of Peter Rabbit, Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, Jemima Puddleduck and their friends. Zellweger earned honorary Brit status thanks to two successful incarnations as Helen Fielding’s inspirational singleton Bridget Jones. She won the best supporting actress Oscar® in 2004 for her role as Ruby Thewes in Anthony Minghella’s COLD MOUNTAIN. In 2002 and 2003 she was Oscar® nominated as best actress in BRIDGET JONES’ DIARY and CHICAGO.

There was no question when it came to casting Beatrix Potter that Zellweger was the right actress for the part.  Producer David Thwaites was in no doubt:  “Renée is a chameleon as an actress.  It’s very important to her for everything to be accurate.   She takes it very seriously, particularly playing a character that lived.   The amount of research she does to make sure she doesn’t misrepresent the character is quite staggering.”

Zellweger enlisted the help of the ladies who run Frederick Warne & Co, the original publishers of Beatrix Potter and still the guardians of the imprint.   “They have been brilliant at maintaining the integrity of Beatrix Potter.   The more I read and researched and the more information I was given, the more uncertain I became about who she was.”

Zellweger realized she had to trust the script and find the truth within it.   “When I first read the script, I felt this character, I knew who she was,” she enthused.   “I understood why her growing up informed the woman she became.   I understood why she became more and more reserved because of the restrictions placed on her by her parents.   She was cut off from her peers, from the people you would normally expect her to move around.   She was insecure.   She was shy.   Her journey made perfect sense to me and why she needed these characters to express the things she couldn’t say.”

Zellweger was delighted when Ewan McGregor was cast as Norman Warne, Beatrix’ secret love.   She and McGregor had thoroughly enjoyed working together on DOWN WITH LOVE, and she suggested him for the role.     

Of course, the lynchpin for Zellweger, was the director.   “Because of the highs and lows of this woman’s life, it could easily become melodramatic.   Fortunately there’s no danger of that at all with Chris Noonan –he always looked for the honesty rather than playing the drama, reality rather than fairytale.   He has great confidence and I like that.   He knew how he wanted the story told.   And he’s very gentle.   We all decided about halfway through the movie that he is probably the nicest man on the planet!   It seemed like a perfect partnership—a lady who created these beautiful stories that resonate with children, and Chris Noonan with his curiosity and his gentle manner, and how he handled the telling of the story.   It seemed right.”

It is intriguing that Beatrix Potter ceased to write her stories, despite their huge success, once she moved to the Lake District.   “Her work seemed to stem from her creative inner voice.   The people closest to her described her as merry, joyful, jolly, happy.   They said she had a glow, she had laughing brilliant blue eyes.   She gravitated towards a different lifestyle and her work took a backseat to her real life as she grew older.   It obviously reflects that she was fulfilled, that she found a life that was satisfying on every level.”

This multi-faceted, complex woman, a woman ahead of her time, a high achiever, stifled in her youth by the social expectations for a woman of her class, proved a fascinating voyage of discovery for Renee Zellweger.   “It is interesting to read her journals because they are the only firsthand account we have.   They are written in code, and yet so self-consciously, that you imagine she knew they would be read.

“There are so many contradictions: she was very introverted and felt discomforted in crowds.   And yet she was very assertive!   But you have to remember that a lot of the accounts about her were from people who were children when they met her, and memory can become deluded by the years.   It has been an extraordinary journey to try to pick through the contradictions and put the pieces of the puzzle together, because nothing was easy, nothing was blatantly obvious, nothing was clear.”

Arguably the most stimulating part of the experience of becoming Beatrix Potter was filming in the Lake District, the place that Beatrix loved so much.   “You really can sense the peace she found there, that she craved.   The access to all the things she liked most, the things that inspired her, the colors she used in her paintings, the quiet that allows you to sit and take it in.   This would feed the woman’s work.   You can feel it.”

When the film ended, Zellweger returned to her own voice, and her own life.   “Acting has given me more than I ever hoped it would.   I had no idea how important it would become to me as a creative outlet.   It has been extraordinary in terms of the opportunities I have had, and what I have learned, and seen.”

Playing Beatrix Potter, a woman who instinctively pushed the barriers of her time, has made the woman who played her appreciate the freedoms of her own time.  

Ewan McGregor plays Norman Warne
Publisher Norman Warne was the great love of Beatrix Potter’s young life. For Scottish actor Ewan McGregor, both the character and the real life story, were unknown when Renée Zellweger first talked to him about being in the film, MISS POTTER.

The funny thing is that once I started the film I found Beatrix Potter stuff everywhere,” said Ewan McGregor with a grin. “I’ve got kids and my house is full of Beatrix Potter—and I hadn’t even noticed!”

Warming to his theme, he added: “My parents sent down the complete works of Beatrix Potter when my daughter, Clara, was born. Then I started noticing we had egg-cups, and plates, stuff all over the house!

“But I didn’t know anything about her and that’s why I’ve enjoyed the script so much because you discover what an extraordinary woman she was.”

It was Renée Zellweger who first approached McGregor about playing Norman Warne. “We’d had a lovely time working together on DOWN WITH LOVE but it was very difficult because it was so specifically the ‘60s style of Rock Hudson-Doris Day comedy and if you didn’t get it absolutely right, it didn’t work.

“Renée and I kept saying, let’s do something straightforward together, a drama, something not so technical and tricky. And out of the blue, Renée sent me the script for MISS POTTER.”

Beatrix Potter was well into her 30s when she met Norman Warne. “He was a very sweet man, and I think—unlike his brothers—he was good with women. In our story he’s stayed at home looking after his invalid mother, and he’s spent a lot of time in the company of women, not just his mother, but also his sister, Amelia.

“The real Norman Warne was an editor at F Warne & Co and was more or less in charge. We’ve altered things so that editing Beatrix Potter’s book was his first job, because he’s been at home looking after his mum. I imagine his brothers told him Miss Potter was a tough cookie, and put the fear of God into him.”

As the relationship with Beatrix flourishes amid the disapproval of her upwardly mobile parents, anxious for a “good” marriage, and certainly not to someone in trade, we see Beatrix and Norman falling in love.

“Because Norman has spent time with women, he’s comfortable with them, and probably gave them more respect.”

For Ewan McGregor the role meant growing a handsome moustache and wearing a range of formal Victorian attire that Oscar® winning designer Anthony Powell found for him at the celebrated costume house, Cosprop.

“It’s nice for me to be the age I am and playing the parts I do,” McGregor said. “My horizons have broadened a lot, and I think that’s about my age.

“The whole thing about making a film is quite confusing when you’re young and playing leading roles is quite complicated. I used to champion various departments and worry about their problems, and argue their cause with producers, when really I should have been concentrating on learning my lines and doing my work. As you get older you realize people are quite capable of taking care of themselves, and it’s not your business!”

One of his great delights about making MISS POTTER was working with Bill Paterson, an actor he has admired since he saw the television series TRAFFIC in the late ‘80s. “He was phenomenal on that. I find now I’m getting to work with people I’ve always revered. I watched Jim Broadbent when I was at drama school and wondered if I’d ever work with anyone that amazing—and then, when I made MOULIN ROUGE! I did. I felt the same about working with Bill on MISS POTTER.

“Bill still loves being an actor, and I enjoy being an actor more and more each day. I fit in with actors, they’re my people…

“I’d always wanted to work with Emily Watson, so playing her brother was terrific, and we’ve developed a relationship that’s quite close, they are obviously good friends. Millie becomes good friends with Beatrix, and there are a lot of scenes where we knock around together, followed by the ever present Miss Wiggin, played by the wonderful Matyelok Gibbs.

“It’s a classic love story, about a powerful woman who wasn’t prepared to know her place. And it’s been a lovely atmosphere on set, it’s a real actors’ film and Chris Noonan has given us the space to create something in a very satisfying way.”

Between films McGregor spends time being a devoted dad to four children, and indulging his passion for motor bikes. He has quite a collection of bikes—and acquired another from the Isle of Man museum while filming MISS POTTER At the end of each movie he tends to take off for a few days on a bike and just get back to reality after the cosseting that occurs on a film.

This started during MOULIN ROUGE! when he took off for four days during the Easter break and just headed hundreds of miles into the outback. He’s done similar trips in America after BIG FISH, riding from Alabama back to Los Angeles before flying home to Britain.

“It’s a reaction to being on film sets for huge amounts of time. After a while your head is about to burst. On a film all your decisions are made for you and they can’t help but treat you like a child. But the thing about a bike trip on your own is that there’s only you making the decisions, and they are comparatively simple—where are you going to sleep, where are you going to eat and where are you going to buy petrol. It gives you time to reflect.”

His love of biking also resulted in a round the world trip with his chum Charley Boorman, son of filmmaker John Boorman. The pair so enjoyed the experience, and the TV series and book that came out of it, that they are now planning another venture for 2007—a trip from the north of Scotland down the length of Africa to Cape Town. This will also enable UNICEF ambassador McGregor to visit a number of UNICEF projects in Africa.

“I got involved with UNICEF through our LONG WAY ROUND trip because we wanted a charity to benefit in some way from the trip, and both Charley and I are fathers, so we wanted something to do with disadvantaged children. Being involved with UNICEF is good for me because it means when I’m doing publicity, I can often slip in stuff about UNICEF instead of it all being about me, me, me… That makes it all more acceptable.”

And it helps McGregor keep a sense of proportion. So no complaints about the size of his trailer, then? “Come on, there are limits!” he laughed. “I’ve been so lucky. I travel well when I’m working, I’m looked after and I stay in nice hotels. And I don’t want it any other way. But the experience of seeing the reality of people’s lives on the other side of the world is amazing.

“The other evening I was watching David Attenborough’s PLANET EARTH series on television and there’s an image of the world in the end credits. I looked at the top of the planet and thought, ‘I rode around that’ and it hit me in a way that it hadn’t until that moment—I rode round the top of the world!”

About the Filmmakers

CHRIS NOONAN / Director
Australian Chris Noonan is the man who turned a pig into a megastar, when he wrote and directed BABE in 1995. Although a respected screenwriter and television director, BABE was his feature directing debut.

Encouraged by his father, Noonan made his first short film, COULD IT HAPPEN HERE? when he was 16. It won a prize at the Sydney Film Festival and was later screened on Australian television. Noonan was in the inaugural intake on the directors’ course (along with Gillian Armstrong and Phillip Noyce) at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

Noonan worked for Film Australia, making short films and documentaries. He worked as assistant director on the cult movie THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS in 1974.

In 1980 he documented the lives of a troupe of handicapped actors, the acclaimed STEPPING OUT. He directed the Australian mini-series THE COWRA BREAKOUT, and wrote and directed five episodes of the mini-series, VIETNAM, and made his television movie debut with THE RIDDLE OF THE STINSON.

Alongside MISS POTTER Noonan has two further projects in development.

MIKE MEDAVOY / Producer
From agent to studio chief, to canny independent producer, Mike Medavoy has made an impact on literally hundreds of films. Beginning his career at Universal Studios in 1964, he moved from the mailroom to casting, and became an agent, eventually heading up the motion picture department at International Famous Agency in 1971. United Artists appointed him senior VP of production in 1974 where he was part of the team responsible for ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, ROCKY and ANNIE HALL.

Medavoy co-founded Orion Pictures and during his tenure PLATOON, AMADEUS, ROBOCOP, HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, THE TERMINATOR, DANCES WITH WOLVES and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS were released. In 1990 after ten fruitful years, Medavoy became chairman of TriStar Pictures. Under his aegis the releases included PHILADELPHIA, TERMINATOR 2, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, CLIFFHANGER, THE FISHER KING, LEGENDS OF THE FALL and Steven Spielberg’s HOOK.

No less than sixteen of his films have been nominated for the best picture Oscar®—and seven have won.

His more recent productions include VERTICAL LIMIT, COUNTRY OF MY SKULL, ALL THE KING’S MEN, PATHFINDER and ZODIAC.

Medavoy is chairman and chief executive of Phoenix Pictures.