What was it about this particular film that drew you to it?

The thing about the fund is that because we're establishing, we're working with established filmmakers, we had a group of filmmakers, but it's a little bit like, in a small way, the MacArthur Genius Grant in that they're selected.

There's a selection committee, a nominations committee.

So we'd known Hassan's work and Wad Akhatib, who's an extraordinary film for summer.

She was a big champion of yours.

And so there was, and Kihi Kwan was on the nominations committee as well.

And so we selected Hassan.

people are fearful, angry, upset about it? The polls do suggest that people here in the UK, opinions have changed.

He was just-

He was the, um, child of two alcoholic parents and so he grew up, I think, killing birds in a park.

Um, and it would never happen now, but um, you know, a, a gentleman saw him and took him off the streets and educated him and put him through high school, and the minute he could, he wanted to get out.

So he, he lied about his age, joined the, the Navy, and he went to the Antarctic, and I think he decided to become a Unitarian minister.

And my mother, who was at, um, teacher's college in Melbourne, he ...

Well, his, his ship broke down leaving the Antarctic, so they had to dock in Melbourne, and there was a teacher's dance, and they didn't have enough men.

So they went down to the port.

So would you, would you-

Uh, tell me how, tell me what you, how you thought about this role and how you approached it and, and what you wanted to make out of it.

Well, uh, the things that I've always enjoyed playing most, uh, in theater and in film as well, they've been parts and stories that I have had no idea how to approach at all.

They sort of ...

I think that as an actor I can often confuse anxiety with excitement.

And so I think because of that excitement I, I, and particularly with a role like Elizabeth, I just immersed myself.

Um, I, I read a lot of, obviously, a lot of biographies about her, but it was discussions I think that, um, and the various opinions that came out of the conversations of, um, about her and about the legacy that she, she left England and, and really how she culturally transformed, um, England as, as we know it.

And what I, I was curious that listening to all the cast, the English cast, that they had such in differing facts, um, and they kept saying, "Well, this is backed up by, by historical fact." And I thought, "That's amazing." So I, I tried to sort of embrace all those disparate, um, opinions about her and galvanize them.

Mm-hmm

[laughs]

I, I mean, look, I always sort of lean into the things I don't quite understand, you know, um, and to, to greater and lesser success.

I mean, sometimes it's great to play things that are perhaps closer to you in ways that you don't, you're not fully cognizant of until you step into that character's shoes or that set of circumstances.

But I think the thing I connected with, and I think where it connected with so many people, um, you know, who, who've seen it screened and obviously in Venice where, where Jim, you know, won the Golden Lion, is that even though it's a quiet film, it really speaks to that thing that so many of us understand is that, you know, it's that we live, seem to live in this trench, I guess, between who we are, who we've evolved to become in the outside world, and then who we revert to being when we're with our siblings and our parents.

What, what did he tell you about why he wanted to make it? I mean, how, how recently had he lost his, his most recent parent? I think it, it was only in the last few years that he lost, uh, was it his mother or?

Yes.

And I-- look, and I, I think it's also being a father, you know, a, it, which has changed him profoundly and, and, uh, I- I think, you know, we're all daughters, sons, brothers, sisters.

It's, it's a, it's something that is a kind of a, a universal thing, and you don't stop being that even though your parents pass away.

It was so much more subtle and...

Well, it was so liberating for starters because I was playing him at one of his most sort of iconic, visually iconic periods, you know, when he went electric.

I lost a lot of weight.

And so the clothes were feeling, cause he was rake thin himself and quite in a conventional sense, quite feminine, big hair, small body.

And he was wearing a lot of heels and quite embellished shirts.

So I lost a lot of weight.

And so the clothes felt differently on me.

try that.

Mm-hmm.

... it's a really complicating thing. And I, and I... It's all these little things that, that... 'Cause he's, Todd is an amazing director, but also an amazing writer, is he put all these little clues in that she went, and she'd obviously spent a lot of time with the Shipibo-Conibo people taking ayahuasca.

Yeah.

... I thought, "I don't know how to read a score." I learned piano as a girl, but I have to, I have to break this score apart and choose the bits that we're gonna play and I really have to learn how to do this. And so in a way, the part was so overwhelming. It's not a, it's not a film about conducting, as I said-

And so that all feels... keeping of the tone, but it's so interesting to watch a couple be that...

Committed.

Yeah.

I mean, it is a movie, as you say, and the stakes are really high, and they would do...

It's so romantic.

They would do anything for each other.

They would die for each other.

Did you ever get to meet the queen?

oh god those streakers were great but

yeah they were you'd always beg for there to be a streaker at the football game it's um yeah um Well, of course, when I first stepped up, I was totally green.

And there wasn't really...

There was red carpet to walk on, but there wasn't...

It was much more chaotic and not as organised and orchestrated as...

And over-designed as the whole enterprise is now.

I remember the very first time I went to the Oscars, I was behind the fabulous Celine Dion and she was wearing that.

Because when you're working on a character, do you... imagine what that character would wear or do you find the clothes and develop her from within that or him?