Kristin Scott Thomas On Her Directorial Debut ‘My Mother's Wedding' And Reclaiming Her Story: ‘It Is My Truth'

Forbes

13 hours ago

From L to R: Emily Beecham, Sienna Miller, Kristin Scott Thomas, Scarlett Johansson in 'My Mother's Wedding' Vertical Entertainment
Kristin Scott Thomas recently made her directorial debut with My Mother's Wedding, in which she also stars, and which she co-wrote with her husband, writer and journalist John Micklethwait. It was also the occasion for the actor-turned-director to be reunited with her Horse Whisperer co-star Scarlett Johansson, who plays her elder daughter Katherine, a captain in the Royal Navy who comes back to her hometown in England for her mother's wedding. She is joined by her two sisters, Victoria, a famous actress and Georgina, a nurse, respectively portrayed by Sienna Miller and Emily Beecham.
While Katherine and Victoria have the same father, Georgina was born from a second marriage. Their fathers were both navy pilots and died when they were very young, only a few years apart.
This is a very personal story for Scott Thomas, who based so much of it on her own life. Her own father and stepfather died a few years apart, as they were both pilots in the Royal Navy. In her movie, Scott Thomas used hand-drawn animation as flashbacks when Johansson's character recalls the days her father and stepfather died.
'Memory is a very interesting thing, because people can be in the same room, something will happen, and each person will remember it differently, as we all know. I wanted to create an atmosphere that was slightly unreal and unreachable, you can't quite get a hold of it. So I thought that animation would be a very clever way to do it and keep the memory slightly out of reach. So, the father doesn't have any eyes, he's not quite real yet. He remains a kind of mystery to these girls, but Scarlett's character, Katherine, is the one who is the holder of the images, as I was the holder of the images, because I was the one who was old enough to remember my father,'' said Scott Thomas.
She added: 'In fact, the memories that we see, these sections of memories, these are all my memories as a child. So, everything that you will see is what I remember of my father and my stepfather's death. Watching the news, when my stepfather went missing, that's all true. Apart from the location because it wasn't Bosnia because I'm slightly older than that. But the heart in it is all very personal, it is my truth.'
Writer, Director, Actor Kristin Scott Thomas in 'My Mother's Wedding' Vertical Entertainment
When a movie is so close and so personal to a writer and director's life, can the version of their own story that is being acted in front of the camera, unveil new layers of truth and a new point of view they didn't have before?
Scott Thomas said, 'Well, that's what's so interesting. You can write something, in your imagination and voice, you can imagine how something is gonna go, and an actor will turn up, we have amazing actresses, and they will just take it somewhere else, and it's so interesting to see how that happens. Sometimes they wanna take it to a place, that you don't think is the right place, and you have to bring it back, and because they're all extraordinary, they're able to do that very easily. And sometimes they'll show you something that you had never thought about and it's an absolute revelation.'
She added: 'So it was really thrilling, certainly for me it was a huge privilege to watch these people work, because when you're an actor and you're acting with them, you can't watch them because you're busy. But watching them from behind the camera, you just see this incredible talent, and it is such an honor to be able to watch that. Now as an actor, I feel enriched by this experience of directing, because I understand more how my colleagues and my co-actors in the scene are able to do what they do. I'm pretty impressed now. I was quite blasé about talent before. Now I see how it sort of all works.'
Even though it was an enriching experience, directing and acting for the first time in her own movie proved to be quite difficult for The English Patient star. I asked Scott Thomas what she learned about herself as an actor directing other actors.
She said, 'When I was acting in this movie, I found it very, very difficult. That was really hard, really, really hard, because you have to be wearing two hats at the same time. So what I would do is, when I would watch the scene back, I would put my hand over the bit of the screen when I was on it and when I didn't want to see me, so I could concentrate on the others. Because as an actor, I'm sort of drawn to critique my own performance and I didn't want to critique as an actor, I wanted to critique as a whole, in a whole scene with all the other people. So it got quite complicated, it certainly made me a more sympathetic actress on set. I now understand much more why you have to do it again, why this isn't gonna work, and why they want certain tone taken down, or augmented or whatever.'
'My Mother's Wedding' Vertical Entertainment
Scott Thomas is no stranger to working with actors-turned-directors, from Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer , to Sydney Pollack in Random Hearts , so I asked her if directing her own movie and acting in it gave her a new perspective on those earlier experiences.
She said, 'Oh yes. I was much, much younger when I worked with them. But I've worked with a lot of actors-directors, I found them to be very generous to work with, as directors. And sometimes I'd get nervous when they were acting and I now understand why, because it is so hard to act for yourself, it's very, very difficult! But I really do enjoy acting with somebody who understands how it works, and it isn't just a question of lifting your chin or scrunching your eyebrows together, it comes from a much more different place. And directors who understand how to unravel a scene to get what you're really trying to say and to get to the heart of something, that's always very useful.''
Over the years, Scott Thomas spent a lot of time responding to the press often referring to her life and childhood as tragic. This was a narrative she was very much looking forward to reclaiming in her movie.
In one scene of My Mother's Wedding , Miller's character is invited to a talk-show, where she is labeled as a victim and as a tragic story. I asked the actress how important it was for her to write this scene in the movie and if it was a way to claim ownership of her own life and childhood.
James Fleet and Kristin Scott Thomas in 'My Mother's Wedding' Vertical Entertainment
She said, 'I felt it was important to underline that, yes. One of my favorite lines in the film, when the character played by Thibault de Montalembert, 'Le Grand Fromage' says, 'You're such a tragic family!' l'm like 'I'm sorry, what?' So that always makes me laugh!'
She added: 'To be labelled as a tragic childhood is quite upsetting, actually. I really enjoyed my childhood. Yes, there are terrible things that happened, but you kind of climb over those terrible things, they become, it sounds very brusque and quite cruel to say, but it's character forming, it makes you who you are. You know, I've learnt to become very resilient, and in fact the loss, the knowledge of death at such an unnaturally young age, and the repetition of death, at an unnaturally young age, gave me a kind of engine, a motor and a battery for being able to play these characters, that have touched a lot of people, whether it's Fiona in Four Weddings and a Funeral , or it's The English Patient. These are all people who have a kind of secret sadness to them, which I was able to conjure up quite easily, because that was part of my makeup. Now, luckily, thank goodness, at this ripe old age, I have now managed to let that go, and move on to these things. But for a very long time, it was a motor of mine.'