The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
‘Churchill’ stars, screenwriter discuss D-Day drama
Brian Cox didn’t know it, but when British historian and screenwriter Alex von Tunzelmann was writing the script for the new film “Churchill,” she had the veteran British thespian in mind for the titular role.
“As a screenwriter, you have someone in mind, just to help focus the character,” von Tunzelmann says during a recent phone interview. “The (movie’s) producers asked me at one of the first meetings, ‘Who do you want for Churchill?’ I immediately said Brian Cox, and they kind of, you know, shrugged at that point. “‘We’ll never get him.’” They did get him, and he makes it sound during a separate phone interview, that they need not have worried.
“I took very little convincing,” says Cox, whose lengthy list of credits includes blockbusters “Braveheart,” “The Bourne Identity,” “The Ring” and “XMen 2” and who played psychiatrist-turned-serial killer Hannibal Lecter before Anthony Hopkins, in 1986’s “Manhunter.” “When you get a script like that — I’ve done a lot of movies over the years, but I’ve never had a script that has been total in its representation of a character and representing in a way that is original and true. It was irresistible.”
“Churchill” — which opens June 2 in Northeast Ohio, exclusively at Cedar Lee Theatre in Cleveland Heights — is a portrait of Winston Churchill during a very brief window of time, relatively late in his first stint as British prime minister. It is an important few days, of course — a handful of days in 1944 leading up D-Day, when the Allied Forces’ invaded Axis-controlled France.
The film, directed by Jonathan Teplitzky (“The Railway Man”), features veteran actress Miranda Richardson as Churchill’s wife, Clementine, and John Slattery, of “Mad Men” fame, as U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of the supreme Allied commander.
While sympathetic to its subject, “Churchill” does not always paint a flattery picture of its namesake historical figure. As portrayed by Cox, Churchill has grave doubts about the coming massive military strike — called Operation Overlord. He believes, increasingly fervently, that too many young British and American lives will be lost. He tries to talk Eisenhower and others out of it and even goes to so far as to pray, in a very passionate scene, for continued bad weather, which would scrap the operation.
It is not universally accepted that von Tunzelmann has this correct — see, for example, bit.ly/ Did Churchill Oppose D-Day — but the writer says she based the narrative largely on what she calls the “incredibly candid” war diaries of Alan Brooke, a senior officer in the British Army played in the film by Danny Webb.
“They really kind of paint a picture of a man whose powers were beginning to wane, who was becoming more vague and couldn’t get out of bed in the morning,” she says. “And I found that a sort of extraordinary idea, that just at the point where the Allies were beginning to win the war, that Churchill himself — maybe partly because of the huge, kind of physical effort he’d put in — was beginning to fail.”
Of course, he is often with his trademark cigar in “Churchill,” but also with a glass.
“Facts and truth are usually very different things,” Cox says when asked about this slant on Churchill. “It’s very hard to put a character together. But then you deal with what you know about the character. Churchill was a depressive. He suffered from this thing called black dog. He drank an extraordinary volume of alcohol, starting in the morning with Champagne, going through to lunch, where he’d drink brandy, topped off with wine, and then in the evening he’d have whiskey. He thought nothing of it, but in many ways it’s a form of self-medication.”
For her part, von Tunzelmann sounds OK with, perhaps, not pleasing everyone.
“There are always going to be different perspectives on someone like Churchill, especially because he’s an icon,” she says. “People tend to have very strong feelings, good or bad, about him.”
A fan of many historical movies, she says “there’s a difference between being accurate and truthful,” echoing Cox’s sentiment.
“You’ve got blanks to fill in, so there always has to be some fictionalization,” she says. “And, of course, there are ways of bringing things to the screen sometime that is all (dramatization).”
She notes a scene in which, after Churchill has committed himself and King George IV to being on board one of the ships during the invasion — something to which Eisenhower strenuously objects — the king (James Purefoy of “The Following”) visits him to inform him they will not be sailing toward the beaches of Normandy.
“That was something that did really happen. Churchill was very keen at the last minute to do that, and he kind of roped in the king,” she says. “But in real life it was a letter. Of course, in the movie you don’t want to watch Churchill just read a letter. It’s much more interesting to have the king come and tell him in person.”
If you’re thinking Slattery — who recently played a Boston Globe editor in 2015 Oscar winner “Spotlight” but who may be best known as the heavy-drinking and womanizing advertising executive on the now concluded AMC series “Mad Men” — is an unusual choice for Eisenhower, get in line.
“I’m assuming somebody else fell out of it, which is usually the way I get anything anyway,” he says during yet another interview. “I said, ‘What? This is crazy. I don’t look anything like him, sound anything like him.”
However, he liked the script, spoke with Teplitzky, liked the idea of working with Cox and was a little scared by the whole prospect, he says.
“I thought, ‘Those are all good reasons (to do it),’ so I took a flier.”
Slattery read everything he could find on Eisenhower to prepare for what was a brief shoot in the United Kingdom.
“I just thought I would do my homework and get ready to go toe to toe because I knew that’s what the scenes required and I knew that Brian would have done at least as much homework as I did.”
With apologies to Slattery, the scenes that drive the film are those Cox shares with Richardson (“Damage,” “The Crying Game”), whose Clementine loves Winston but is constantly frustrated by him and even managing him.
“I found their relationship completely fascinating, and I think Clementine Churchill is such an interesting person,” von Tunzelmann says. “She’s pretty strongly independent in her own right, and in real life she disagreed with him politically a great deal.”
In one memorable scene deep into the story, Clementine asks her incredibly grumpy husband, “Do you want to be coddled, Winston?”
“I’d settle for a little respect!” he shoots back.
“Then don’t complain when someone tells you the truth,” she says.
Cox is appreciative of his time on screen with Richardson in the film.
“Unquestionably, she’s one of the best actresses I’ve ever worked with. And she and I are very alike in that we’re very (intuitive) as actors,” he says. “Miranda was priceless, as far as I’m concerned. Absolutely priceless.”
Cox is far from the first man to portray Churchill, of course. Many others have done so, among the more recent is John Lithgow, who plays an older Churchill in his second run as prime minister in the Netflix drama series “The Crown.”
Unsurprisingly, Cox scoffed when asked if he’d watched any other actors do what he was then set to do as preparation.
“Why would I watch anybody else’s performance?” he says with a disbelieving laugh, and notes he’s a fan of Lithgow, who sent him a “welcome-to-the-fraternity-of-Churchill” note. “This is my creation. This is my role, so I’m dealing with it from my perspective. … It’s my truth about him.”
And, no, von Tunzelmann was not disappointed she got her first choice for the role.
“For me, this is completely a dream come true,” she says. “What’s amazing about Brian and why I wanted him from the start was he has that amazing combination of strength and vulnerability and wit, and I think that’s a very Churchillian thing.
“He absolutely does everything I could have hoped and more with it. I couldn’t be happier.”