Claudine
24-11-2009, 01:45 AM
JJ Feild on playing Henry Tilney in Austen's Northanger Abbey
It was a terrifically short filming schedule, so we really had to jump in at the deep end and get stuck in. We started with the final scene ? the first scene we shot was will you marry me Catherine! It can be a little bit strange shooting the last scene first but all filming is shot out of order, so you should know where you character is supposed to be at any time. But you do usually get to know people before you say you love them and ask them to spend the rest of their life with you!
Proposing to a stranger was the least of JJ's worries. Learning to dance was far more nerve-wracking.
The first time Henry and Catherine meet is at a Bath ball. I get to prance around and pretend I'm a good dancer! They get on very well and she soon finds out that there are all sorts of mysteries about his family. The character of Henry Tilney was based on Jane Austen's unrequited love - on which she based a lot of her work - called Thomas Lefroy. We filmed the ballroom scenes in the King's Inns, Hall of Judges in Dublin, in which hangs a giant portrait of the Chief Justice of Ireland Thomas Lefroy. So we were dancing underneath me!
To prepare for the dances I had to fly backwards and forwards to Dublin and be told off viciously for my posture, my arms, my legs, my chin, where I look, where I breathe! Maybe I should have taken more note of movement at drama school! It was fantastic fun though. The Movement Director Sue Mythen was an absolute perfectionist - it's like she's been transported from that time to here. She was very structured and precise which is great, because at the end of the day I'm never going to be able to do 100%, but if I can get 50% of what she wants then I think I'll get away with it.
As well as dancing, JJ also had to undertake his fair share of stunts.
The strangest scenes I've ever had to shoot were the fantasy scenes, which involved sword fighting, being airbrushed with white make-up to look gothic, running around in a cow field with horses - which seem to dislike me - and slipping in cow pats all night in the rain! And all whilst trying to look dashing! We spent some time with a stunt man called Phillipe Zone, who was convinced that as long as we try to kill each other then it will look convincing!! We also spent a lot of time training on the horses. I had a beautiful gray called Smirnoff who liked to bolt at the sight of a camera. So I managed to gallop around most of the Wicklow countryside, unintentionally, to try to get control of her.
As a fan of costume drama, JJ enjoys each element that goes into starring in one.
I seem to do a lot of costume dramas. Northanger Abbey was my fourth of the year. I did three Victorian ones and then Regency. Sometimes it can be easier to play something which is so alien to yourself, although you do get odd costumes, which pinch in very strange places. And lots of frilly sleeves which get in your lunch! The costume department got very bored of me coming back from lunch with my frilly sleeves covered in ketchup!
It's been nice to go back and watch as many Jane Austens adaptations as possible. To be honest, I hadn't read any Jane Austen before this. Strangely enough, after reading Northanger Abbey, I have noticed more and more layers to her writing which I didn't necessarily appreciate before. It's been really nice getting into one of our classic writers as a result of getting a part. Although we don't have a society now where you have to marry for money, the themes in Austen are pretty universal. We are all searching for a partner and love and hoping that we can throw out all of our issues and backgrounds and simply be with the person we love. Whether it's in Austen's time and it's about throwing away your inheritance or it's in modern times and it's about throwing away the baggage we have with our past, it's a very universal thing. That's maybe why people keep going back to Austen.
Andrew Davies brings an awful lot of pace to Jane Austen's writing. Her books were huge with a lot of chapters simply about a dance or a meal. In order to keep it ticking along, you need to pick the right bits and keep it alive and fresh. Andrew is incredible at keeping the emotion and the humour while tightening the pace.
"Owl Song" tells the inspiring and heroic story of the most important woman composer of the twentieth century Peggy Glanville-Hicks - a brilliant, witty, pipe-smoking, suit-wearing dynamic individual; a musical pioneer who forged a formidable career in Europe and North America in the mid-twentieth century.
JJ plays Stanley Bate in this film in 2010
Stanley Bate was born in Plymouth and died in London aged forty-six. He begabn as a pianist, won a scholarship for compositon at the Royal College of Music, where he studied under Ralph Vaughan Williams, and then, with a travelling scholarship, went abroad, taking further lessons from Nadia Boulanger and others including a marriage to Peggy Glanville-Hicks. His varied output includes 4 symphonies, concertos, incidental music, chamber music, and songs. From 1946 to 1950 he was resident in USA.
http://www.musicweb-international.com/bate/index.htm (http://www.musicweb-international.com/bate/index.htm)
It was a terrifically short filming schedule, so we really had to jump in at the deep end and get stuck in. We started with the final scene ? the first scene we shot was will you marry me Catherine! It can be a little bit strange shooting the last scene first but all filming is shot out of order, so you should know where you character is supposed to be at any time. But you do usually get to know people before you say you love them and ask them to spend the rest of their life with you!
Proposing to a stranger was the least of JJ's worries. Learning to dance was far more nerve-wracking.
The first time Henry and Catherine meet is at a Bath ball. I get to prance around and pretend I'm a good dancer! They get on very well and she soon finds out that there are all sorts of mysteries about his family. The character of Henry Tilney was based on Jane Austen's unrequited love - on which she based a lot of her work - called Thomas Lefroy. We filmed the ballroom scenes in the King's Inns, Hall of Judges in Dublin, in which hangs a giant portrait of the Chief Justice of Ireland Thomas Lefroy. So we were dancing underneath me!
To prepare for the dances I had to fly backwards and forwards to Dublin and be told off viciously for my posture, my arms, my legs, my chin, where I look, where I breathe! Maybe I should have taken more note of movement at drama school! It was fantastic fun though. The Movement Director Sue Mythen was an absolute perfectionist - it's like she's been transported from that time to here. She was very structured and precise which is great, because at the end of the day I'm never going to be able to do 100%, but if I can get 50% of what she wants then I think I'll get away with it.
As well as dancing, JJ also had to undertake his fair share of stunts.
The strangest scenes I've ever had to shoot were the fantasy scenes, which involved sword fighting, being airbrushed with white make-up to look gothic, running around in a cow field with horses - which seem to dislike me - and slipping in cow pats all night in the rain! And all whilst trying to look dashing! We spent some time with a stunt man called Phillipe Zone, who was convinced that as long as we try to kill each other then it will look convincing!! We also spent a lot of time training on the horses. I had a beautiful gray called Smirnoff who liked to bolt at the sight of a camera. So I managed to gallop around most of the Wicklow countryside, unintentionally, to try to get control of her.
As a fan of costume drama, JJ enjoys each element that goes into starring in one.
I seem to do a lot of costume dramas. Northanger Abbey was my fourth of the year. I did three Victorian ones and then Regency. Sometimes it can be easier to play something which is so alien to yourself, although you do get odd costumes, which pinch in very strange places. And lots of frilly sleeves which get in your lunch! The costume department got very bored of me coming back from lunch with my frilly sleeves covered in ketchup!
It's been nice to go back and watch as many Jane Austens adaptations as possible. To be honest, I hadn't read any Jane Austen before this. Strangely enough, after reading Northanger Abbey, I have noticed more and more layers to her writing which I didn't necessarily appreciate before. It's been really nice getting into one of our classic writers as a result of getting a part. Although we don't have a society now where you have to marry for money, the themes in Austen are pretty universal. We are all searching for a partner and love and hoping that we can throw out all of our issues and backgrounds and simply be with the person we love. Whether it's in Austen's time and it's about throwing away your inheritance or it's in modern times and it's about throwing away the baggage we have with our past, it's a very universal thing. That's maybe why people keep going back to Austen.
Andrew Davies brings an awful lot of pace to Jane Austen's writing. Her books were huge with a lot of chapters simply about a dance or a meal. In order to keep it ticking along, you need to pick the right bits and keep it alive and fresh. Andrew is incredible at keeping the emotion and the humour while tightening the pace.
"Owl Song" tells the inspiring and heroic story of the most important woman composer of the twentieth century Peggy Glanville-Hicks - a brilliant, witty, pipe-smoking, suit-wearing dynamic individual; a musical pioneer who forged a formidable career in Europe and North America in the mid-twentieth century.
JJ plays Stanley Bate in this film in 2010
Stanley Bate was born in Plymouth and died in London aged forty-six. He begabn as a pianist, won a scholarship for compositon at the Royal College of Music, where he studied under Ralph Vaughan Williams, and then, with a travelling scholarship, went abroad, taking further lessons from Nadia Boulanger and others including a marriage to Peggy Glanville-Hicks. His varied output includes 4 symphonies, concertos, incidental music, chamber music, and songs. From 1946 to 1950 he was resident in USA.
http://www.musicweb-international.com/bate/index.htm (http://www.musicweb-international.com/bate/index.htm)