Getting in the driver’s seat
SIR Ben Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson, Grace
Gummer and some other passengers star in “Learning to Drive.”
Patricia: “At tonight’s premiere I’m wearing Naeem
Khan’s gorgeous gown, but right now, in my glamorous life, I’m doing laundry.”
She unloaded the Woolite long enough to say: “In this movie, Wendy — me — is an intellectual, highpowered critic whose husband left her and so now, having to get it together, she’s taking driving lessons. However, in real life, I’m a hardcore New Yorker who’s neglected my driving. It’s not terrific.
“Result is, in filming there were issues. I have a license, but I’m no robot. My character drives this
fakakta, ratty, old, bottlegreen Toyota Corolla. I’m told to brake 4 inches from the corner. To stop, not at the light, but in an exact place, I had to do it over and over and nearlyly hit a pedestrian.
“Every scene’s shot in New York. Every frame in the damn city. Fromm Queensboro I got a wrongng exit and ended up in Roosevelt Island.
“Teaching me to drive is great workhorse Ben Kingsley playing a Sikh. Ben’s all about work. Doesn’t care what you had for breakfast. It’s only, ‘Make the scene work.’ Fortunately, we’d already done another picture together. Listen,, when he and I made ‘Ellegy’ I was naked, so whatat can I tell you . . . I couldld hum ‘Getting To Knoww You’ with him. “Grace Gummer, Merylyl
Streep’s kid, is on thehe rise. Oddly enough, at a screening a while back I said: ‘I want to work withth you someday.’ She’s really good.”
And Patricia offscreen, other than doing laundry?
“No romance. My true love is my little rescue dog named after Isadora Duncan. When she’s bad I remind her there’s a scarf in her future. I love her madly.”madly.