The tights test: is there any difference between them?
Darkest Hour tells the story of Winston Churchill in the early days of the war. Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily James, who play his wife and secretary, talk to about the importance of the females in his life
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Few figures loom as large in the UK’s public consciousness as Sir Winston Churchill. His image is as easy to conjure up in our minds — cigar in hand, rotund in stature — as members of our own family. To many, a picture of him is a picture of British defiance and strength.
It is harder — perhaps impossible — to visualise the women who helped him through some of the greatest challenges he faced during his first weeks in office as prime minister in 1940, during the early days of the Second World War.
It is that period, as he faced pressure from within his party to pursue peace with Hitler at any cost, that is the focus of Darkest Hour, the new film by Atonement director Joe Wright.
Gary Oldman is almost unrecognisable in the part of Churchill, thanks to a face mould and foam bodysuit that took four hours to get in place, while Kristin Scott Thomas plays his stoic and chic wife, Clementine.
An icy blonde in the role, she is now resplendent in her brunette crop as she sits, perfectly
❝ You want to portray a real person in a light that’s reflective of who they were and what they stood for
composed, in a London hotel room.
“These parts have been played so many times by brilliant people, like Harriet Walter in The Crown, there is a great weight to it because you’ve got to be as good as everyone else,” she says.
“Then there is the thing that struck me when I decided to take this on — I’m trying to portray somebody who is a national treasure.
“Clementine is less well known today than Winston, but at the time, I think she was really important.
“She was a proper first lady and how do you bring life into something that belongs to everybody? That is public property?
“I think that was very much her situation as well, because her husband was public property, her husband was the prime minister in a very, very tense and worrying time, a terrifying time.”
Clementine Churchill would not be the first woman in history to see her role downplayed, if not airbrushed, out of history. So does this film, which makes clear their bond and her influence, redress that injustice?
“In a very small way,” she replies. “It’s not a film about Clementine. The day will come when there will be a film about Clementine and then we can talk about redressing.
“But it is very difficult to create a space for her because he is such an overwhelmingly fabulous character, in all senses of the word. Not only was he brilliant and saved us, but he was also wildly entertaining and kind of eccentric.”
Be that as it may, Scott Thomas is anxious that the role Clementine played is not underestimated. “I don’t think she does get as much credit as she should.
“She was a great support to him, she provoked him, she consoled him, she kicked him when he needed a boot, and they had a very stormy relationship, a very passionate relationship, which lasted for many, many years.
“I think she was absolutely part of the engine, she was at the heart of it all.”
Also part of the engine was Churchill’s secretary, Elizabeth Layton, played in the film by Downton Abbey alumnus Lily James.
The 28-year-old, who is playing her first real-life character, also felt the burden of history on her shoulders.
“You have a responsibility, collectively, to have understood and learned as much as you possibly could,” she says.
“When you are portraying a real person, you want to portray them in a light that is reflective of who they were and what they stood for and therefore how they affected our history.”
Giving some voice, and some credit, to the countless women whose names are not taught in schools seems to be particularly important to her.
“There were a lot of women during the war that feel like they have been forgotten and they are the unsung heroes.
“I could see a whole film