THE LOST KING
THE LOST KING Sally Hawkins has a hunch there’s a king buried in a car park in Stephen Frears’ dramatisation of Richard III’s rediscovery.
Steve Coogan and Stephen Frears’ search for Richard III is not in vain.
Iloathe Julian Fellowes,” declares Steve Coogan with a virulence that catches Teasers unawares. “The things he produces are love letters to the establishment, which makes me feel slightly nauseous.” Given their respective political persuasions (Coogan is a staunch and public supporter of the Labour Party, while Baron Fellowes of West Stafford sits as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords), a level of antipathy is maybe to be expected.
In Coogan’s case, however, this extends to the Downton Abbey creator’s creative milieu: a world of inherited wealth and hereditary privilege that can’t help but irk the satirical brain that gave us Alan Partridge.
Which explains why he and writing partner Jeff Pope were drawn to the story of Philippa Langley, an amateur historian and Richard III enthusiast who instigated the search which resulted in his remains being discovered in 2012. Convinced the late king could be found beneath a council car park in Leicester, Langley defied expert opinion and the scepticism of academics and followed her gut. Her intuition led to the exhumation and 2015 reburial of England’s last Plantagenet ruler. It also bolstered endeavours to redeem the reputation of a monarch who, thanks in no small part to Shakespeare’s “history” play, has been vilified relentlessly for more than 400 years.
“I like the idea of throwing a stick in the spokes of the establishment,” Coogan continues. “I feel I can sleep much better at night when I do that. Philippa was an amateur who went up against the establishment, so it fit the bill. The bare bones of the story, if you’ll excuse the pun, were such that I knew there was a real human story to tell.” A number of writers, The Crown’s Peter Morgan among them, had a stab at condensing Langley’s eight-year campaign into a workable screenplay. “But in the end it was taking too long so I just said to Jeff, ‘Why don’t we write it?’” says Coogan. “We like stuff that’s got substance and is also entertaining, and this had all the components we love.”
Given the success of Philomena, the 2013 drama about a Catholic mum’s search for her son that Coogan and Pope ended up winning a BAFTA for, it seemed logical to approach that film’s director, the veteran Stephen Frears, to direct The Lost King. “He’s the devil we know,” says Coogan of an 81-year-old stalwart who, thanks to films like The Queen
‘We like stuff that’s got substance and is also entertaining’ STEVE COOGAN
and Victoria & Abdul, is no stranger to uncovering royalty. “He’s very robust, he knows what he’s doing and he wants to help tell the story.” Frears, for his part, was immediately intrigued by a herstory he describes as both “absurd and extraordinary”. “It takes the piss out of the establishment and I’m all for that,” he chuckles. “And it’s a good story about a woman who worked out what had to be done and did it.”
The Langley we see in Frears’ film doggedly pursues her cause despite having two sons to raise and a chronic fatigue condition. According to Frears, the actress who played her would need “both frailty and strength” – qualities he saw in abundance in The Shape Of Water’s Sally Hawkins. When casting her amicably estranged husband John, meanwhile, he didn’t need to look far. “I was going to be there anyway as I’m a writer and producer,” smiles Coogan. “It was an interesting supporting role that was within my capabilities, so I thought I might as well do it.”
One of The Lost King’s bolder dramatic flourishes is to make King Richard manifest as Philippa’s ghostly companion and confidante. The role is played by Harry Lloyd (Game Of Thrones’ Viserys Targaryen), who also appears as an actor portraying Shakespeare’s Richard on stage. “Obviously Richard III didn’t actually appear in Philippa’s mind,” says Coogan. “But she did say she imagined having conversations with him, so we thought we would push that idea and bring him to life.” “He’s sort of a poltergeist,” says Frears, who picked Lloyd because he was “heroic and had a sense of humour”. “We have to deal with both the 15th century and now, so that’s what the boys came up with.”
One thing that wasn’t in the ether was filming in Leicester itself, which according to the director has become something of a Crookback theme park. “It’s all Richard in Leicester now,” he says. “The grave itself is now glassed over, so it was easier to do it somewhere else.” That somewhere else was the picturesque city of Edinburgh, although that too was not without a few problems. “Leicester is a city of red brick while Edinburgh is made of granite, so it was difficult finding red brick buildings,” Frears continues. “I think there’s two, and I think we used both of them.”
With its classy cast, fact-inspired story and touching combination of the historical and the personal, The Lost King has a lot more in common with Philomena than just its central team of creatives. Indeed, it’s something Coogan recalls Frears joking about when he was initially approached. “He said ‘Oh, so you’ve swapped evil nuns for evil dons,’” the actor says. “It’s a slight over-simplification, but I suppose there is a certain truth in that.”
THE LOST KING OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 7 OCTOBER.