Oscar winner Lonergan an unlikely but welcome writer for Starz’s ‘Howards End’
Kenneth Lonergan is not the first name that comes to mind when you think “stately period piece.”
In a 25-year career as a screenwriter, director and dramatist, Lonergan has gravitated to contemporary tales of tragedy and alienation, often revolving around well-meaning, self-sabotaging screw-ups. He clinched this reputation last year with a screenwriting Oscar for “Manchester by the Sea,” his wrenching portrait of an emotionally arrested Massachusetts janitor moving on — if not exactly recovering — from nearly unimaginable personal loss.
He also hasn’t worked in television since penning two episodes of the Nickelodeon animated series “Doug” in the early 1990s, and he had never previously adapted a novel.
All of which made him an unlikely choice to adapt “Howards End,” E.M. Forster’s 1910 novel about the intersecting fortunes of three families in Edwardian London, into a miniseries on Starz.
Even Lonergan was unsure initially that he was the person for the job. For starters, when he was first approached about the project, he’d never actually managed to finish the book.
“It just didn’t grab me the first time,” the writer says on a miserably rainy and windswept March afternoon that feels like a scene taken from Forster’s novel, the plot of which turns on a misunderstanding involving an umbrella. “I don’t push through most books, which is not a good habit.”
He tried again and finished the book but worried about what he saw as Forster’s overly schematic exploration of class and its thinly developed romantic relationships, a point he raised with executive producer Colin Callender.
“My response was, ‘That’s exactly why we want you to write it,’ ” says Callender, who approached Lonergan about the BBC/Starz coproduction well before “Manchester by the Sea” became a critical and commercial success.
Though Lonergan wasn’t known for his literary adaptations, Callender was excited by his portrayals of women and young people as well as his “peerless” range. “I think what he does is explore character in great depth, and in a way that’s surprising and unexpected,” he said. “He avoids the easy traps, the easy cliches.”
The result is a revelation: Lonergan has enhanced Forster’s novel rather than dramatically altering it.
The story follows Margaret and Helen Schlegel (Hayley Atwell and Philippa Coulthard, respectively), a pair of unmarried, upper middle-class sisters, and their interactions with the wealthy Wilcox family, headed by Ruth (Julia Ormond).
Directed by Hettie Macdonald, the four-part series offers a glimpse at a society in flux that’s both historically faithful and relatable to contemporary viewers, especially the independent, idealistic Schlegel sisters. Lonergan was particularly taken by Margaret, who offers a unique combination of “a really lively emotional life and a really sharp intelligence. You don’t see a lot of characters that think their way through things the way she does.”
This version stands on its own merits despite the long shadow cast by the Oscarwinning 1992 Merchant Ivory film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Lonergan says he wasn’t intimidated by the popularity of that adaptation, which he recalls only fleetingly.
The chance to work on a period piece was a primary selling point for Lonergan, who calls Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon” one of his favorite films and cites the BBC’s 1995 version of “Pride and Prejudice” starring Colin Firth, Jennifer Ehle and Firth’s wet shirt, as “the gold standard of long-form literary adaptations.”
“All that dialogue is straight out of the book. They speak in the most formal, Jane Austen-y sentences, and it works just beautifully,” he says, praising the miniseries for capturing Austen’s “incredible sense of humor.”
His version of “Howards End,” which aired to glowing reviews on the BBC in November, also feels surprisingly funny, with Helen and Margaret’s hypochondriac brother, Tibby (Alex Lawther), and dotty Aunt Juley (Tracey Ullman) providing steady comic relief.
“There’s no point in doing anything if you can’t put in some jokes,” says Lonergan, whose curmudgeonly demeanor is tempered by a wit so dry, you can’t always be sure it’s there.
Director Macdonald, who has known Lonergan since they were both young interns at London’s Royal Court Theatre, was struck by the humor, verve and intellect of his adaptation — qualities present in the novel but somewhat overlooked by the staid romanticism of the Merchant Ivory film. “His writing is just so full of life, and that seemed to me brilliant and unusual for a period drama,” she says.