In “Miss Potter,” Renee Zellweger plays Beatrix Potter, the creator of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit.” Terry recently chatted with director Chris Noonan to discuss the film and what it was like to work with Zellweger.
How much did you know about Beatrix Potter before the film? I only knew her as the name on the “Peter Rabbit” book.
I had never read her books before I got the project. All I knew was that she was a writer of children’s books. I thought I knew that those books were cutesy, uninteresting–to me–type books. But after I read the script, I was amazed by the fact that we don’t all know her story. I went back and read some of her books and was really surprised at how interesting they really were; they weren’t just this sweet picture of a world with these little animals in their little clothes. She had this dark sense of humor. She showed the world as it really is. It’s a tough world she shows in those stories. That was the reason for her instant popularity and the reason she has remained popular.
As a filmmaker, what is the challenge of making Potter’s story–growing up in early 20th Century London, becoming fiercely independent, falling in love–interesting to a mainstream audience?
I’m drawn to those aspects of her life which I feel have a universal resonance, that aren’t restricted to the turn of the century and aren’t restricted to women. It is part of a life story that anyone can identify with. She just pursued her interests and she did that relentlessly. She was sure of herself and she pursued what she believed. [Laughs.] She didn’t leave a lot of dead bodies in her way while doing that.
Talk about working with Renee Zellweger; she really threw herself into this role.
I see her as very much like Beatrix Potter. She really knows what she wants, she goes for it and she will do limitless amounts of work and completely exhaust herself researching or meeting people who might give her some insight on the character she is playing. I thought I had researched Beatrix Potter very thoroughly, but she was surprising with all the information she found out about her. [Laughs.] The most annoying thing about her was that when we were playing a scene, she would just say, “We’re stopping–it’s not real to me anymore.” I would want to wring her neck and say, “Just say the words, Renee–don’t worry about the motivation behind them.” In fact, what she was doing was preserving the integrity of that character and the story. When her instinct told her we were going away from something that was real and true, she just couldn’t do it anymore.
So as a filmmaker, how much rope do you give an actor or actress?
You don’t want them to threaten the story, that’s all. I would give her as much rope as it took for her to get the truth for her as long as it didn’t threaten the central story line. In fact, looking back on it, in every case, Renee actually strengthened the story. Generally, Renee was correct–there was some flaw in the scene that made it not work. She was a delight to work with, a very collaborative actress.
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