What intrigued you about the role, initially?

It’s a great part of British history – y’know, the king who abdicated. And he abdicated to marry a divorcee American, which at the time was incredibly scandalous. And I liked the complexity of that: is this a man who deserted his duties, or is this the greatest love affair of the Twentieth Century. And depending on who you talk to, people have wildly opposing views about that. I like the fact that this is a story about women. There aren’t that many films that are female-centric, and I thought that was quite courageous. I like that it took this very big, global story and somewhat contextualised it by seeing it through the prism of a modern day character. So the film becomes a meditation about what you would be prepared to sacrifice for love – which I think it accessible to me, as an audience member. Whereas, if I just look at the headlines of the story – y’know, “King Edward abdicates”, I have no connection to that, that’s too far away from me.

Madonna spent ten years researching the story. Did you find that a bit daunting before arriving at the set?

No, I thought it was exciting. I mean, working with a director, you want them to be prepared, you don’t want them to show up not knowing anything. So you want them to have all the information. You hope that the director will have the answers for you, because there are a lot of questions when you’re starting out. Madonna compares with Peter Weir in terms of sheer preparation. I was totally blown away by her.

What was she like to work with as a director? She was everyone’s personal mentor – more so than your average filmmaker – in terms of getting out of her actors what she had interpreted of their parts…

That’s as it should be. They are the person who’s vision you’re there to serve. What I really admire about Madonna is that she had a very clear vision of the story she wanted to tell, and that’s not always the case on every set: sometimes directors are uncertain, and that leads to confusion and un-confidence.

Did you feel you had a personal connection with Madonna? She was challenging you to learn knew skills – such as dancing and horse-riding – for the part.

Yeah. The bit that most terrified me about the entire endeavour was learning to dance. I’m not the world’s most natural dancer, and the dance I learned didn’t even make it into the film in the end. But it was like something out of Strictly Come Dancing – it was very complex. And honestly, doing that in front of one of the most famous dancers in the world is not a picnic. But as you say, she challenged us to not allow time for the word ‘no’, and to feel the fear and do it anyway. You feel pretty good about yourself when you realise you can do things you never thought you could.

And for the role did you do a lot of your own…

Stunts? Yes, all of them!

Well I knew that, that was fairly obvious [D’arcy laughs]. The many stunts that there are in it, obviously…What I meant to ask was how extensively you researched for the role.

I read a lot – as much as I could in the time allowed. At some point it has to fall away though, because the real blueprint is the script. That’s the thing that you have to try and serve. And in the case of Wallis and Edward, there are so many conflicting stories out there about them that at some point it starts to become slightly counter-productive to keep reading, because you can’t play all of it – you can’t be true to all of those books. We’re not making a documentary here, we’re not historians, we’re telling a story.

You feel that the love affair sparks up immediately. Have you got quite a healthy relationship with Andrea off-screen?

Yeah, we get on really great. We did from the minute we met, actually. We had a very fun and playful relationship immediately, which made things very easy on set.

W.E. is out today.

Words: Jack Mills

The post W.E. – James D’arcy appeared first on Wonderland.

What intrigued you about playing Wallis Simpson?

Well, the script was the first thing that arrived to me. Madonna had seen me play Margaret Thatcher in this film called The Long Walk to Finchley . I thought it was unique in the sense that it was exploring loss in Wallis Simpson’s life but through the eyes of a future fictional character. And then Wally, the future character and Wallace the historical character have their own relationships going on. Then I was interested to meet Madonna and see what her vision for it was. I remember the first time I met her, she crept around a door and was incredibly graceful and fine-boned and very ethereal looking. She was totally ignited by her passion for the story and conveyed that to me. It became infectious, like a rash – it started catching.

How did you go about preparing for the role?

I immediately started researching Wallace, and went straight into watching the footage of her and finding out about the reasons for all the physical manifestations she went through – really where that came from and started piecing together her life from there and perhaps just capturing a little bit of her spirit. So by the time I went to meet Madonna, I had a feel for her physicality. Aesthetically perhaps I started to lean towards her – I certainly had a centre parting by that point [laughs]. I was dressed pretty matronly, too.

By the time you met her, she was already heavily into her own personal research. Did you find this daunting?

She was ten years into it, yes. I didn’t find it daunting, I found it wonderful and exciting and I wanted to get on the train. So fortunately the day we met, she responded to me the way I responded to her and we were together every day for seven months, until the film ended. It was really a fantastic experience mining what this woman’s life might have been.

She obviously did so much work in developing her understanding of what was required… How did she go about bringing her vision out in you?

The research me and Tom did only affirmed what we’d read in the script, emotionally I mean. There’s one thing to research something for ten years and to write a brilliantly unbiased historical account of something, and there’s another thing to research something and to have a certain empathy with it that leads to a piece of art. That really demands a huge emotional capacity in a person – which Madonna has in bounds.

And the role of Wallis carries a huge emotional weight…

Yes. Of course, there was the great tragedy that I think was expressed very well in the movie, and she saw the writing on the wall before it ever happened – she tried to back out of marriage. How does one person – man or woman – live up to the responsibility of a kingdom?

W.E. opens across the UK on the 20th
Words: Jack Mills

The post CLASS ACT: Andrea Riseborough appeared first on Wonderland.

The minute Andrea Riseborough graduated from RADA in 2005, she was anointed “One to watch”, landing her first three TV jobs while still a student. Since then, she’s done her alma mater proud, winning the 2006 Ian Charleson Award (for exceptional performances by British actors under 30) for her epic double-bill turn in Sir Peter Hall’s productions of Measure For Measure and Miss Julie, and making an unforgettable impression with her acutely clever take on the young Margaret Thatcher in BBC Four’s 2008 TV biopic The Long Walk to Finchley.

Blessed with an uncanny facility for sharp-eyed character detail, Riseborough is now getting to flaunt it on the big screen. She is following up smallish parts in the Brit-star-studded adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s dystopian novel Never Let Me Go and real-life crowd-pleaser Made in Dagenham with the two biggest film roles of her career: waitress Rose in a 1960s updating of Graham Greene’s classic Brighton Rock and British royal family scourge Wallace Simpson in Madonna’s second directorial outing, W.E.

When Wonderland meets her at London’s Groucho club, the petite, bird-like actress looks in danger of being swallowed whole by her winter wardrobe, bedecked as she is with thrift-shop jewellery, vintage fashions and a shimmering green Aquascutum raincoat. She would appear frail if it weren’t for her astute, voracious intellect (she’s always got five books on the go). Riseborough, it transpires, knows her mind and isn’t afraid to speak it.

You seem to move around a lot. Weren’t you in LA for a while?
For the past two years, yeah, but I haven’t really been there. I lived in New York this year, too [doing off-Broadway play The Pride]. And I spend a lot of the time of the year in Idaho, which is where my partner Joe’s [Appel, American street artist] family are from. But I am moving to Paris.

How come?
It is purely fuelled by wanting a home. You mustn’t let life slip by because you’re available for everyone all the time. The thing that I love doing is reflecting on life – if I can’t enjoy it myself, then I’m fucked. I’m not sure what Paris will hold for me. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll move somewhere else.

Rose in Brighton Rock is a wallflower, but also strong and tenacious. Was she tricky to play?
This is always a difficult question to answer. Because what you’re asking me is, is what I do easy? With Rose, I just had an immediate response. She is not the centre of her own world and the importance of her happiness isn’t particularly pivotal in terms of her existence. But nor is she a victim. She’s the strength. She has all the bravery of someone who’s in love for the first time.

Have your parents always been supportive of your path?
Totally. My parents aren’t people who have fear of not succeeding. I suppose I only realise that by saying it to you now. There were times when we had a lot and times when we didn’t but they wouldn’t let that impede them and didn’t pass that on to me.

That must help in an insecure profession.
Is it more than any other? I’ve never worried about it because I don’t feel like I can’t survive if I don’t have nice things.

You seem to like nice things … you’re dressed very fashionably today.
Thanks, although it’s slightly different when I tell you where everything’s from. This top is my best friend’s grandma’s from 1960. We’ve had it for years – most of our clothes are recycled. I think my fashion sense is just a case of putting lots of colours that don’t go together together and then people thinking it’s quite chic afterwards. [Laughs] I like my clothes to be old friends.

Talking of dressing up, how was it playing Wallace Simpson?
It’s funny, I know she was such a style icon but that’s probably the furthest away thing in my mind. To me, the clothes and jewellery were just an outlet for her perfectionism … I did get to wear her jewels in the film. I had six bodyguards following me all the time, even when I had a wee. And Galliano did the costumes. I wear 72 different dresses – the aesthetic is insane. But for me the interesting thing is, Who the hell was she behind all of that? She was so demonised, thought to be ugly, called a man …

You really vanish into your characters so we can’t wait to see what you do with Wallace. Do you ever get fed up being called a chameleon, though?
All I can say is that it fulfils me to really explore people. I would get quite bored otherwise.

Photography: AJ Numan
Fashion: Julia Sarr-Jamois
Words: Matt Mueller

This article first appeared in Wonderland #25, February/March 2011

The post Andrea Riseborough appeared first on Wonderland.