Atwell cuddles up to Pooh’s timeless magic, innocence
MOVIES
LOS ANGELES — With Disney’s “Christopher Robin,” Hayley Atwell leaves the Marvel Universe and Agent Peggy Carter to play a woman fighting a different kind of battle as a supportive wife and mother in post World War II England.
The film resurrects A.A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh” characters, including Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit and Roo, who help an adult Christopher (Ewan McGregor) rediscover the family he’s lost as a workaholic.
Atwell’s Evelyn Robin wisely takes their unhappy daughter to the country, trusting that Christopher will see the light.
Atwell, 36, finds the movie’s resurrection of Pooh, the quiet, philosophical honey bear who made his debut 92 years ago, to be remarkably current.
With his unruffled demeanor and quiet observations, Pooh is “a Zen master,” she said in an interview at the Montage Hotel. “That Pooh is happening now, when in our society everything is speeding on, always being engaged with social media, he’s very timely.
“Pooh is not judgmental of it at all,” she added. “It’s just not a thing for him.”
For Atwell, recently praised for the “Howards End” miniseries, the film illustrates, “That universal connection of your sense of what your life was like when you were younger, where you actually had everything in you to connect with other human beings.
“It was a time of cherishing friendships, knowing how important they were — and being able to just do nothing. And in the doing of the nothing you have freedom in a way.
“That’s always what the Pooh stories have been about, that innocence. Within that innocence, children have the amazing ability to see the truth very gently. That’s what Pooh does. It’s a nice reminder of that time.”
Of making “Christopher Robin,” Atwell said, “My friend reminded me recently, when I was about 7 or 8, I said, ‘Come over. We’re going to play a new game: We are the founders of the Freddie Mercury fan club and we have to write the fan letters to our office.’
“We would read them out and then spend the afternoon replying to these fan letters, saying, ‘Freddie appreciates your support. He’s on tour at the moment.’
“I didn’t remember doing this at all! It was when as a child your imagination is so free. There’s magic in there, it’s this sweet spot of life.”