Rom-com surprises, avoids cliches
When Timothy Spall and Imelda Staunton arrive at London’s Soho Hotel to discuss their new film, “Finding Your Feet,” they can’t stop complimenting each other.
Spall, who recently finished shooting “Mrs. Lowry and Son” with Vanessa Redgrave, hasn’t seen his co-star since December 2016, shortly after they finished production on “Finding Your Feet.” “People make an assumption that if you’re in a movie, you must see each other all the time,” he says, after the duo finish hugging and sizing each other up. “But we have known each other a long time.”
Spall and Staunton first met in 1975 as students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Although neither remembers the first meeting, they were aware of each other throughout the two-year course. They shared the screen in an episode of BBC Two’s “Performance” in 1992, and both appeared in the Harry Potter film series (although never in the same scene) — but it’s really this film, directed by Richard Loncraine (“Richard III”), that allows the pair to lead a picture side by side.
The heartwarming story follows a rigid, closed-off woman named Sandra (Staunton) whose life is turned upside down when she discovers her husband is cheating. In her grief and confusion, Sandra seeks out her estranged sister Bif (Celia Imrie) and joins a community center dance group that includes an amiable, houseboatdwelling gentleman named Charlie (Spall). Although it may sound like a generic plot, the film avoids cliche and sentimentality, often veering into surprising places, which is exactly what attracted the actors.
“I must say when I read the script at the start I thought, ‘Oh, I know what’s going to happen and which way this is going to go,’ ” Staunton admits. “But then it was like, ‘Oh! It hasn’t gone that way! That’s interesting.’ I found it a bit unpredictable, which I quite liked. It is this sort of film with a feel-good idea, but it deals with some of the subject matter very sensitively.”
Loncraine and Spall have been longtime collaborators, but the director actually sought out Staunton first, attracted to her strong screen presence. “Imelda, I didn’t know, but I’d watched her all my working life and realized she has an ability to carry a movie,” the director says via phone. “There are many, many great actors out there, but they can’t always hold a movie. I think the three of them — because it is very much a three-hander with Celia — have the right chemistry.”
“The great thing,” Spall says, “is that when you’re working with people who you admire and know — this sounds like a bit of a love fest, but it’s really true — you don’t have to mess about. You can get straight into the center of it. Anything that’s a problem, you iron out without any messing about.”
As to whether audiences can expect to see the pair together onscreen again soon? Maybe, if the project is right. “We try to do it every 18 years,” Spall quips. “Although let’s not wait that long, or we’ll have to do it from that home where all the actors eventually go.” April 8 birthdays: Comedian Shecky Greene is 92. Singer Peggy Lennon is 77. Singer Julian Lennon is 55. Actor Dean Norris is 55. Rapper Biz Markie is 54. Actress Robin Wright is 52. Actress Patricia Arquette is 50. Actor Taylor Kitsch is 37.