Mamma Mia! Lily and Dom’s grand passion
LILY JAMES and Dominic Cooper, who starred in the Mamma Mia! sequel, are collaborating on a film about an illicit love affair.
The pair have been meeting at a restaurant in London’s Primrose Hill with director Dominic Savage to discuss the subject matter of Is This Love?
Savage told me, exclusively, that the film, developed by the three of them, is about lovers who’ve left other partners to be together. ‘It’s about the kind of exciting, absolutely-has-to-happen love,’ said Savage, who worked with Cooper on this year’s The Escape, which has garnered critical praise for Cooper and his co-star Gemma Arterton, who also produced it.
Arterton’s role as a wife and mother who leaves her husband (Cooper) has earned her a best actress nomination in the British Independent Film Awards, held on December 2. ‘That couple are out of love,’ Savage said. ‘But these two (James and Cooper’s characters) have no choice but to be together. It’s a connection that’s so powerful and strong.
‘It’s a very real, very physical relationship about what happens when the chemistry and electricity combine. Pow! When something is so passionate, how difficult is it to sustain in real life? How does love like that thrive when it’s so extreme?’
Savage said the picture would be full of characters, but James and Cooper would be the only people on screen. ‘The other characters are referred to. Alluded to. You might hear them on the other end of a phone.’
The trio wanted to film Is This Love? before Christmas — before Cooper travels to Australia to shoot the new season of Preacher, and James goes into rehearsal for the Ivo van Hove stage version of All About Eve.
But the plan now is to film in July, when Cooper’s back and James has completed her stage run opposite Gillian Anderson at the Noel Coward shot the new Working Title and Netflix film version of Daphne du Maurier’s thriller Rebecca. (It’s based on the 1938 novel, not Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 movie.)
‘It’s always exciting doing it quickly, but I’m glad we’re waiting on this,’ the director said.
The trio will meet again next month for more ‘honest and frank conversation’. They plan to finance the film themselves. ‘The idea is that if we keep the budget really small, you can just about make it,’ Savage said.