Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
FULL STEAM AHEAD FOR SEX, GREED AND MURDER
To launch this special issue celebrating the 100th anniversary of Agatha Christie’s first book (and our first glimpse of Poirot), Nicole Lampert goes behind the scenes on Kenneth Branagh’s VERY racy new film version of Death On The Nile...
Agatha Christie knew more than most about all-encompassing jealousy and the destructive madness that it could lead to. In 1926 the novelist’s husband Archie announced that he was in love with another woman and was leaving her. It sent Agatha over the edge and she famously ‘disappeared’ for 11 days. Her car was found abandoned at an isolated beauty spot in Surrey, sparking a frantic search for clues to find her involving 15,000 volunteers, including Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, bloodhounds and – for the first time in a police inquiry – aeroplanes, while her husband was suspected of having her murdered.
But then she was discovered at the Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, registered under the name Mrs Neele, her husband’s mistress’s surname, and claiming not to remember how she got there. The experience changed her as a person and as a writer, and became the primary inspiration for one of her most famous novels Death On The Nile, published in 1937. Now it’s been made into a major new feature film by Kenneth Branagh, due for release later this year.
Kenneth, who directed the film and appears in it as Agatha’s extravagantly moustachioed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, has used this story from the writer’s own background to make the most sensual and sexually charged adaptation yet of the famous story of lust, greed and murder. ‘The hunger for sex in Agatha Christie’s original story is very powerful and people are reckless in their pursuit of it,’ he says. ‘It’s the most unsettled of Agatha Christie’s books. She presents a veneer of sophistication, sexiness, glamour and
Jennifer Saunders and
Dawn French in character romance, but it’s brittle, fragile and dangerous. It feels heartfelt. Christie had her own share of heartache, as everyone does, and I think that extends through all of the characters in the story. Writing this book came from a raw place. Sex and death are at the centre of it.’
Agatha’s great-grandson
James Prichard, who is a producer on the film, echoes this when he says this adaptation is ‘the sexiest Christie that has ever been made. That doesn’t mean it’s explicit, but the central element of the story is passion.’
This is Kenneth’s second foray into the Christie canon as the meticulous Poirot. His first, Murder On The Orient Express, came out in 2017 and made nearly £300 million at the box office. Death On The Nile has been adapted several times before, including by Agatha herself as a play, but most memorably in the 1978 film with Peter Ustinov as Poirot appearing alongside Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Maggie Smith, Angela Lansbury and David Niven.
Once again, the new film features a star-studded cast including Hollywood veteran Annette Bening, Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot, heartthrob Armie Hammer, comedy legends Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, hellraising comic Russell Brand and Black Panther actress Letitia Wright. The sets are as epic as the cast too, all built from scratch at Longcross Studios in Surrey, and as you’ll see in our behind-thescenes peeks on these pages they certainly evoke the glamour of 1930s aristocracy.
The story focuses on the wedding and honeymoon journey of fabulously wealthy socialite Linnet Ridgeway, played by Israeli supermodel turned actress Gal Gadot, and her new husband Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer). He had been engaged to impoverished French aristocrat Jacqueline De Bellefort (Sex Education’s Emma Mackey), until she made the mistake of introducing him to her old school friend Linnet, who always gets what she wants.
‘We have a wealthy socialite’s attraction to a man who has previously been passionately in love with another beautiful woman,’ says
Kenneth. ‘There’s a wedding party where a group of exotic people who claim to be their friends surround them. But when one woman has stolen another woman’s man, there are going to be fireworks.’
Gal Gadot says she found she
‘Agatha’s heartache is in every character’ KENNETH BRANAGH
could empathise with the ruthless heiress she plays after Kenneth encouraged her to really explore the character. ‘Linnet is very self-centred, but at the same time she has so much heart,’ says Gal. ‘She’s used to having things her way, but it’s lonely at the top so she has a great void inside. She’s entitled and paranoid.’
Meanwhile, Jacqueline is brokenhearted by the betrayal but putting a brave face on it as they take a luxurious but increasingly hellish journey along the Nile aboard the SS Karnak.
In true Agatha Christie style, the trip is quickly marred by brutal murder. ‘Jacqueline is driven by her love for Simon; her whole reason for existing is Simon,’ says actress Emma Mackey. ‘Even though she’s a strong and resilient woman, she does everything for Simon. She’s heartbroken and in a great deal of pain, and that makes her dangerous.’
The film’s writer Michael Green, who was so traumatised watching the 1978 film version as a child that he slept in his parents’ bedroom for two years, says it feels like Christie’s sympathies are towards Jacqueline. ‘The book is one of Christie’s best because she brings so much authentic character and emotion into it,’ he says. ‘In this love triangle you feel she’s very much on the wounded one’s side. She has tremendous sympathy for Jacqueline.’
While the central three provide plenty of drama, added into the mix are an eclectic cast of characters who all have interweaving histories with each other. Any one of them could be a suspect. Jennifer Saunders plays Linnet’s godmother Marie Van Schulyer, a feisty but thin-skinned woman who has given up her wealth and become a Communist. Dawn French plays her nurse and companion Bowers (the two roles were played by Bette Davis and Maggie Smith in the
‘Linnet has a void inside, she’s entitled and paranoid’ GAL GADOT
1978 film), whose family lost all their money in the 1929 stock market crash. The pair were offered the roles because of their legacy of being a showbiz couple, as their characters are very rarely separated.
Michael Green says people will be surprised to see these two in such emotional roles. ‘Everyone in the film gets to score comedically, but also dramatically,’ he says. ‘The thing about French and Saunders is they’re both brilliant comedy actors, but they have these fantastic drama skills that they don’t get to use as often. They have some incredibly moving scenes.’
Game Of Thrones’ Rose Leslie plays Louise Bourget, Linnet’s devoted maid who is not happy about the relationship with Simon, while Sophie Okonedo takes the role of Salome Otterbourne, a magnetic American singer hired to perform at the wedding. Letitia Wright is cast as Salome’s niece Rosalie, a diligent young woman who manages her aunt’s career, while Russell Brand plays aristocratic Dr Windlesham, who was once engaged to Linnet. Tom Bateman returns as Poirot’s right-hand man Bouc, who just happens to be an old friend of Linnet’s, and Annette Bening plays his mother, renowned painter Euphemia, a character created for the film.
But there is love alongside all the lust too. Aside from the main romance between Linnet and Simon, Bouc also finds love, while his mother meets an old flame. ‘Everybody in this story has some kind of strong relationship to love,’ says Kenneth. ‘Whether they’ve been rejected by it, are in the middle of it or, perhaps in the case of Bouc, are in the full flush of it.’
Annette Bening says of her character, ‘She’s a woman of great passion and I think that when she started as an artist she had some great love affairs. She’s an aristocrat but operated a little bit outside of the norm and got deeply involved with some people who hurt her very deeply. But her main interest now is her son, and she will do anything to protect him.’
Meanwhile, Poirot’s extraordinary moustache, which snakes across, up and around his face, is back – but a little trimmed. ‘The moustache was a little controversial in Murder On The Orient Express, but I love it,’ says James Prichard. ‘My great-grandmother described it as “the greatest moustache in all of England” and there is no doubt that Ken’s is the greatest. It’s a little less extreme this time – maybe something to do with the warmer climes – but it’s still really a key feature that reflects his character.’
While the release date of the film has moved several times because of the pandemic, the hope is that when it does reach the screen it will be as popular as the first. A secret third Poirot film is already in the works. ‘What I love is that these films have done something special with the stories to bring them to the big screen, but they also appeal to a modern audience,’ says James, whose father was the son of Agatha’s daughter Rosalind. James was five when Agatha died. ‘I’m glad that they’re giving a whole new generation the chance to see just how special my greatgrandmother was.
‘She was a woman writing at the beginning of the 20th century but her stories have as much appeal today as ever. My dad used to think their popularity would run out; now we’re beginning to realise it never will.’
‘People in passion’s grip do dangerous things’ KENNETH BRANAGH