Film Russell Baillie
A beautifully crafted, heartfelt script by a first-time Kiwi feature director enticed renowned art-house actress Charlotte Rampling from her Paris home to rural Coatesville.
This year, Charlotte Rampling has four new films coming out. Three are by prominent directors, one is by an unknown New Zealander. There’s assisted-dying drama Tout s’est Bien Passé, directed by François Ozon, who has cast her twice before, including in 2003’s erotic thriller Swimming Pool, which seemed to start a career revival that continues to this day. She’s the abbess in Benedetta, an adaptation of the book Immodest Acts: The life of a lesbian nun in Renaissance Italy, directed by Paul Verhoeven, the old Dutch master of sex and violence. Both films were in competition last month at the Cannes Film Festival. And she’s Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam in Dune, the latest attempt by French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve to bring Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi novel to the screen.
Clearly, at 75, Rampling does not lack for offers in the sort of films that have long been her trademark: variously edgy, sexually charged, transgressive, European and often destined for cultdom.
Her fourth film of 2021 is something of a departure. In Juniper, she’s Ruth, a ginsoaked granny who has come all the way from England to live out her last days on her son’s farm in New Zealand, where she makes life interesting for her teenage grandson.
It’s the debut feature by director-writer Matthew Saville, who wrote the film inspired by his ailing grandmother who moved into the family home when he was 17. He always had Rampling in mind for the role, which certainly puts her withering stare and imperious manner to good use. She liked the script and, despite the need to travel from her home in Paris to the paddocks of Coatesville, agreed to do the film after Saville flew to France to meet her.
It wasn’t Rampling’s first time in New Zealand. She had visited in the 1970s with first husband Bryan Southcombe, a Kiwi in swinging 60s London who had set up a publicity firm and become her manager as she rose from modelturned-actress to left-field leading lady.
It’s a rainy summer morning in Paris when Rampling takes the Listener’s call.
Did you think New Zealand had changed much since you were last here?
No, not really. It reminded me of a lot of things that I felt about it years ago. Bryan was a New Zealander and we stayed some time in Auckland and went all around.
Why did you take the role in Juniper?
It was a beautifully crafted script and it was very moving. And quite often a first film from somebody who writes the script, it means it’s cinema d’auteur or author cinema, which I’ve always liked. If it really works, it’s a very heartfelt thing. It did mean coming a long way, but the quality of written work is very important for a film to have a chance, even if you don’t know the work of the director. A lot of scripts arrive and they’re a bit messy.
Not many would arrive from the other side of the world.
When my agent got the script, she said, “Oh, there’s one from New Zealand. I think you had better read it.” I said, “I’m not going to New Zealand to make a film.” It wasn’t because I didn’t like New Zealand, but just the idea of the journey and it was actually quite bad timing. I’d worked a lot and I’d just moved home and a lot of things in my private life are a bit complicated. But that’s the power of what happens in cinema, in an actor’s life. You just get a call and you can’t resist it. I’ve said no to lots of stuff, but I couldn’t say no to this.
Was there something about your character that appealed?
I thought the character was really intriguing, and all the other characters – it’s not a big cast – had a great feel about them. It’s a gut feeling. I’ve always gone for gut feelings in what I do, because that’s the way I like to work, whether it’s a small film, big film, middle film, whatever.
She might be a frail grandma, but she’s still a transgressive character, which has been a mark of many of your roles.
I think she’s just a free spirit. A lot of people feel the need to conform and then there are other people who like to live the lives that they really feel are inside them, even if it doesn’t really conform to the rules of society. So, she’s one of those more colourful characters. They make good subjects for stories.
Given your career experience and the fact that you’re, well, Charlotte Rampling, that must be quite intimidating for those working with you for the first time.
Possibly for them. Certainly not for me. For me, it’s great because I’m getting into the third stage of my life, and if I
can be working with someone who’s even younger than my son, it’s really interesting for me, because it keeps you in the world. When you get older, you can get rather isolated with just your peers and your age group. So that’s another fascinating aspect of making films: you’re telling stories of all different ages, told by all sorts of different people
You’ve done many movies, especially in the past two decades.
I was at a stage when I wanted to work more and there was some good stuff coming in, but there’s only a certain amount of stuff you can play.
You had two films in competition at Cannes this year, but you didn’t go?
No. I decided not to go this year. I just don’t want to be in big crowds.
How have you found the whole pandemic experience?
I’ve been okay, because I have a decent place to be, so I can be quite inside if I want to be. It’s an odd time, but odd times are also interesting times in other ways – learning how to be with yourself more, learning not to always have to depend on people, not always being in groups, not always having to have a social life. All that sort of thing. I’ve learnt a lot from it. I actually quite appreciate a lot of it. Not obviously the distressing side, but there are always positives in these things.
You’ve lived in Paris since the late 70s.
I’m an entrenched foreigner in Paris. People say, “Oh, you must be French.” No, I’m never going to be French. It’s funny how people think you’re going to become another person because you live in that country. I’m just here for other reasons. So you don’t necessarily become a citizen. I’m not even a citizen. I should get a passport now, actually, with Brexit and all that.
How has living there affected your outlook?
I’ve always wanted to be a traveller. I’ve always wanted to wander. I’ve always wanted to move around Europe. I wanted to be European, actually, even before sort of being a European was really happening in a major way. So I’m that kind of person. I love my country. I love England, but I didn’t necessarily have to live there. My father was a military man and we moved around, so that moving feeling stemmed from a young age. I just wanted to make films in different languages and different countries. I wanted it to always be changing. It suits my personality, I suppose.
You published the memoir Who I Am a few years back, but it covered only the first few chapters of your life before your career started. Why was that?
It was just more reminiscences of my childhood. I wouldn’t write about my career. Somebody might write about it if they really think it’s that interesting. But I don’t think I would do it. Maybe when I’m in my nineties – I might live that long because my dad lived to 100. So when I’m in my nineties, and if I still have my head on my shoulders, I might start to write something.
You’ve been in some terrific films over the years. There’s also been some often strange and less terrific ones, such as Zardoz from 1974, which was both. Do you rue the failures?
But I love that film. That film became a cult film in France. Some people thought it was completely mad. It had a fine director, John Boorman, but you never know. People never blame you. Actors, we really get away with a lot – you are not responsible for it unless you’re very bad in it.
Is there a film you think you’ve been bad in?
Oh, yeah, I’m sure. Some I haven’t even seen. We can see everything now, all the time. But, back then, if you missed a film, you missed it. l
Juniper opens in cinemas next month. Dune opens on October 21.
In Juniper, Rampling plays Ruth, a gin-soaked granny who has come all the way from England to live out her last days in New Zealand.