‘Louis Wain used cats as a cipher to reflect on our own nature’
The stars of a new biopic about the eccentric Victorian cat artist talk to Laura Harding
Long before cats were the stars of viral videos and endless internet memes, there was the work of the eccentric artist Louis Wain.
You might not know his name but you have probably seen his paintings, featuring anthropomorphized, large-eyed cats and kittens, often walking on their hind legs and engaging in activities such as dancing, reading and drinking tea.
Now his extraordinary life has been turned into a film, starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role, with Claire Foy playing his wife, Emily.
“Louis used cats as a cipher to reflect on our own nature,” Cumberbatch says. “That’s the really important thing to stress with his work and with his life, and I think that’s why he made such a connection.
“He used them as a medium to explore a human condition and the kind of eccentricities and playfulness and silliness that Emily encouraged him to reflect in them, in his work.”
The Doctor Strange star, 45, describes learning about Wain as a “journey of discovery”, adding: “I was really intrigued about this extraordinary artist whose images I had a sort of a faint flicker of recognition of in the back of my head, maybe on a wall somewhere in school, or institution or postcard or a museum.
“But not anything to do with his life, and the importance of what he achieved, and the sort of struggles and tragedy of some of his life, as well as the wit and humour and brilliance of it.”
While many artefacts of the Victorian artist remain, little is known about Emily, the woman who was so important to Wain, with whom he adopted their beloved cat, Peter, when such a thing was not done, and whose death four years into their marriage seems to have changed him deeply as a person.
Foy, 37, who portrays Emily, says: “I think Will (Sharpe, the writer-director) did a really good job of filling in what that period of time must have been like when she was alive and when they were married and when they had moved to Hampstead, and that must have been, for him, an incredibly happy period of time.
“And also taking into account what sort of person he was, and therefore what sort of person she must have been.”
The Crown star continues: “There were very few accounts of her of what she was like, but she was a governess so she was educated. She was a very clever woman, and pretty brave, as well, to take on that career, because it must have been pretty lonely and quite scary to be a woman in a world on your own.
“But I love what Will did with her, which was to make her be able to see the world very clearly. She sees it and she says, ‘The world is full of beauty’”
Film maker Sharpe adds: “I think you have a real sense of how these are two people who never quite felt like never quite felt fully connected with a world, with society around them. But in the meeting of each other, were able to open their hearts and minds and to appreciate the world around them.”
● The Electrical Life Of Louis Wain is in cinemas now