The Lady in the Van Press Conference in Full - Maggie Smith & Alan Bennett

one of the one of the most striking things about this film is of course that it's it's a true story but watching it again one of the things that spoke to me most was the fact that it's filmed in the actual location in which it took place in it Nick how important was it to be there in Gloucester Crescent well it's it certainly has an element of authenticity who to the film and since we never considered doing it anywhere else I'm not sure I can quite imagine or visualize what it would have been like it was it was entertaining to see the look on all the residents face many of whom were there when all this happened when the van drove down the president again had mixed feelings about that and and it was also very entertaining to talk to them about Miss Shepard and about Alan you could have made a kind of Russia Mon movie about the various different versions they had of her although on the essentials they were all in agreement and and authenticity Alex presumably that's important for you to be in the in the real location yeah huge liam is amazing to be sitting at his desk in his window with the van back in the driveway yeah immense help with your imagination Alan and a question not it really is a writer the more as a householder what was it like to have a film crew coming back into that house which I believe you Stallone well I don't live there I mean if I'd lived that would have been a nightmare I long I've never had a film crew in any place I lived because they I mean with the best food in the world there they always cause chaos but I didn't live there Anthony crawler photographer lives there and and it it's different from when I lived there anyway so I did I didn't have any sort of pounds about it and and I was very good if if we hadn't had the house I don't suppose we'd have been able to make the film so it's a very good thing we did and of course the house is any part of the story Maggie you spend more of the time in the van it helps that well they were in luxury actually in in a real house no the van wasn't the most comfortable place but it was where I spent most of the time I must admit but they were all in comfort so biggest isn't it heaven we've heard the the valid creative reasons for doing all this but you were the man you had to make it make it happen how easy was it and tell us a little bit about Gloucester Crescent itself and the importance in lots of presidents kind of a unique Street really in Camden obviously Alan knows far more than I do but it's kind of sandwiched between you know Regents Park and the railway line and the kind of ever moving stream of urban activity that is this Camden High Street Market so it's this little oasis really and when I would live there and indeed now it it seems to be inhabited by quite creative liberal minded you know quite well-off but but kindly people and therefore they tolerated miss Shepherd for many years and they tolerated us I'm happy to say well let's talk to some other creative well-meaning liberal and well-paid people and gentlemen down at the front hello everybody Simon patan UK freelance question for Maggie how is it revisiting this character that you played on stage I think it's 15 years ago and also how method did you go in terms of immersing yourself in the squalor at all can tell what I met that did you go in terms of immersing yourself in the squalor method were you messing up right well that a nod not a lot of that is required if you are dressed as I was and in a van I mean that was method enough I really didn't go in you mean into DNA what not no I didn't I didn't dare do that I just kept thinking about her sorry I can't hear a word how was it revisiting the part after 15 years oh that was very very different very different because on Sage it was much much broader and but but the film was was much more concentrated you know it was a whole different thing but they were both physically demanding one day I mean the stage as well the stage is walking around him because well yeah but that no it was a long time ago and I could handle it for teachers wasn't very easy the the being constricted by the van but I did go out and about I just wasn't in the house very off I'm so sorry do you think we could possibly have the microphone working but I think we may need to swap call that first one rehearsal all right you can hear me out for this yeah and hello I'm Laura James for Soho picture book em to Maggie and Alan and it's a lovely story which is very much a tale of human compassion that demonstrates the whole live by neighbor proverb set in a time when people didn't know who live next door to them but in a day and age where people aren't quite as kind and don't know their next-door neighbors what do you think it says to you and a modern audience about care of the elderly and and those around you what it seems to sorry you know go on I was just going to say it's extraordinary just this this happen to one person there seem to be thousands and thousands and thousands of people who are looking for somewhere to live this is just one single person and I didn't know whether today it would happen I really don't I don't think it would happen to you again with it I hope no but I don't think compassion isn't the right word I mean I'm always having to say this it wasn't compassion in quite that way if somebody had said to me if you let her into the garden she's going to be there for 15 years I would never have had her in the elderly but the reason why she came into the garden was because I could see her from where I'm where I worked was to say this table and and when she was parked in the street she would be about the second row of the audience and so I could see everything that happened and and people did use to refer up and kids used to persecute her and people in the market did and you always had to have one eye on on the lookout for anything happening to it now I was trying to work and you can't work like that and in the end it was simply a case of self-preservation from my point of view that she came in because I want you to get on with my work and if she was in the garden she wouldn't be out of the way so it's the reverse of compassion from God hello my name is Garth Pierce and I work for whoever pays me goss a personal question of Dame Maggie and Alan your respective ages are a matter of record and yet your energy level is enormous how do you keep that up is it diet is it attitudes it's some secret or just give me some home I I think the only thing that makes me look not look my age is my hair and otherwise you know I've read every every minute of my 81 years what work you've had what but it's it's a blessing to be able to go on working I mean and to also well for both of us for the public still has an appetite for what we do playwrights particularly have a quite a short life that you know they they often have a vogue and then they go out you know people go off them and that's it and I'm very lucky in that people still want to read the stuff I write and put Maggie see the stuff that you do well yes I mean I'm very lucky because there's always this endless thing about there aren't any parts for women over a certain age what I've kind of reached the limit now but I'm sure there are many after the age I am but I think that they're talking about a middle age but I don't know what the energy thing is the energy comes from the people who around you and one's director and a lot of energy came from neck to get us through but it is tough and I can't I can't say it's easy at the age I am I'm not speaking for you because you were okay because he's it was only on a bicycle and things you know well I used to watch you and think of it I couldn't do that and even though you were doing stuff as I would never been able to do yeah I don't I'm not sure I could do it very much not really well the one is it was it was sometimes a tricky call as to whether I could ask you to climb into the van yet again but for yet another tape when it was dry it wasn't too bad yeah it was it was wet most of the time because of the rain but there's a scene where wherever Maggie where Miss Shepherd is at mass and she has to make Shepherd was very devout and and the former devotion took was to actually prostrate herself before she received the host and and I think we did three or four takes on that and you and you did those takes and I couldn't have done one of them I'll tell you one morning when I didn't dare ask you to climb into the van was on a Monday morning the van was parked outside the house through the weekend and you know Camden Town is his party central on Saturday and it turned out to be Sunday night when they turned up first thing Monday morning to reopen the van they found a couple of a couple of people who'd been who who'd been having a good time with each other with whatever substances they in the van they'd apparently been there all weekend and when I arrived they when I arrived a little later they were evacuating the van of all its filthy contents which obviously just kind of fake filthy they they were our department filthy to have them deep clean because they had no idea what these two youngsters who were flat out in the back of the van had been doing through through the weekend and they all had to get deep cleaned and then made filthy again and I had to keep from Maggie why we suddenly was swapping the sheduled for the whole day run because I never dared say but you you'll now be occupying a van that has been occupied by two people who have been indulging in various activities illegal and illegal right through the weekend so that's a much later coward that's a difference or a centerpiece Carla lady of the front hello effective July from check daily 15 I have question for mr. Bennett because this is the fourth version of lady in the van different for different media so is theirs when you revived the story for the script is there always something new did you find out about Miss Shepard or as your opinion or feelings of her kind of evolve your views and opinions of Miss Shepard changed with the different versions of the story that you've written have you found out her about her yeah I don't think so not in the sense that she was as a person she was unreachable so the factor if I'd known that she'd been a very good pianist for instance or she studied with quarto as I find out after she died I couldn't have talked to her about that because she just wouldn't you wouldn't it wouldn't come back you know she'd say I don't want to know or or she would just shut up shopping and stop talking so in that sense she remained unreachable I think but it made major seem and I think I say this I've said this in the original book he may after she died and I found out about her it made her life seemed much more adventurous and much more eventful than my own really which would have pleased her now and I'm quite sure but I do I don't think my attitude towards change people tend to think of her as being a sweet sweet old lady she was not that and she wouldn't have survived had she been you know a much more kindly person and I like solo they the the title of course is the lady in the van and Miss Shepard is at the center of it it's also a story about Alan and the writing but you played Alan before haven't you tell me a little bit about becoming Alan Bennett well I have I played him in two short pieces that Alan wrote one was a kind of concert piece that he wrote with the MIDI string quartets about his sort of musical memories of going to concerts and churches growing up in Leeds and the string quartet I wanted to revive it four or five years ago Alan didn't want to do it again and suggested that I do it so that was the first time that I kind of dusted off my Alan Bennett you know which many of us kind of do around the kitchen and then he wrote a play to accompany that that happened at the National cocktail sticks which was about Alan and his parents and came to all the rehearsals and so I had you know that I had album to sort of watch and be told what to do by and he always wanted me he wants me to be tougher than I perhaps sometimes was and I also for the film for the movie had to kind of butch up because he has he has shoulders and I don't and so they had to kind of make me wider that'll be he I'm to be Alan Bennett and he watch and listen and a lot of the clues are in the words and the rhythm of his writing and so so yeah there's a bit weird the consensus is that in the piece him that Island it first and you did second you were a great deal better as Alan Bennett then Alan Bennett was as well as you're used now to seeing yourself on stage but to see yourself in your house must have been a rather strand when you visited the set when you watch the film now is that a strange sensation occasionally when I was when you know in your me used it as a green room as as well as shooting and sometimes when I was sitting there and so Alex passed the door that seemed quite weird really but you know when you're not thinking about it but he's more much socially adept than I am I think they got my hair right there film which they hadn't done yes no question yes he was a huge bit to Veronica Lake in there on the stage or bit lady there aksinya seen my video true I have a question to make this meet watching their legend when I could remember the your previous character outstanding lady violet Crowley and for you whose life more adventurous and preferable seems to you and in your real life for who you're closer to lady violet Crawley or to miss Shepherd which one I'm not very close to either I think Curie I feel I feel easier with the lady in the van and with that lady with the hat on I it was much easier to I can only talk as an act as it was much easier to to be Miss Shepard because she didn't mind how she looked and it was such a relief because they devour it was forever in those corsets and things that Miss Shepard would never have dreamed of going now so for comfort alone it was nicer to be Miss Shepard that's as much of your question as I managed to hear a question for Alan Bennett's how did miss Shepard get the money to buy so many vans she the first replacement van was a gift from somebody called lady Wiggin who was Miss Shepard was Catholic very Catholic and lady Wiggin was Catholic and I think it was somehow that connection which commanded me Shepherd to her and she lived round the corner in Regent's Park Terrace and she occurs in the film II rather rather slightly libelous Lee but she because lady weekend was very sympathetic to me Shepard was lady winging in the film is rather sort of a keeper at arms thing but she gave me Shepard the ban and I but I did say to her well couldn't you couldn't couldn't the man be left outside your house and actually oh no no no no and regions Park Terrace is rather grander than glossed credence so that was that was the first round the second round I don't know how she she had you see she didn't really have any expenses she didn't have any rent to pay I ran electric out from the house and but she didn't have any bills so so when she had an address which means that she'd get a certain more social security so she actually had some money when she died she had six thousand pounds in in a building society so she would be able to you know afford a bomb but I never asked for that then it wasn't simply a van it was that she also then bought a rather Only Fools and Horses type three wheeler what do they call lions reliant yeah yeah but I mean he she didn't care about money and money was never a problem and when to the extent that when she died and had to go through the ban there was about six hundred pounds trodden into all the muck and filth on the floor of the van and they you've worked with Alan over many projects in many years did you visit the house during this time did you meet Miss Shepard I first visit I first visited to talk to Alan about the first thing we did together about a few months after Miss Shepard died I used to walk past a lot because always lived in that always lived in that area and I used to try and work out who lived where and I didn't know Alan lived at 23 and I had no idea what the van and the old lady were about you know I I I do remember thinking once does he keep his mother in a van I dismissed that thought but when I went finally to talk about The Wind in the Willows which we were boat which Alan was going to adapt and I was going to direct as a children show Christmas show at the National Theatre back in 1990 so it must have been a matter of months after miss Shepard died I would I didn't ask what was that man that was there all those years cause you don't you're English you're polite and then when finally I I found out about it the same time as everybody else did when an island first published his diary about her in the London Review of Books and discovered that even when the van was in the drive Alan writes that people used to visit him and were too polite to say what is that van and who is that old lady who are in your drive so I so I was no different from anybody else at least you manage to keep your shoes clean one of those powerful scenes for me is anyway I've sent one in there hi i'm michael from german film critic and the simmons much about finding a home or having a home and with all these refugees on the run these days what does home mean to you this question goes or to everyone which of all of you and me I'm deep I'm so so glad I've got one kid what it means having had a practice but not having one it means an awful lot I don't know where there is no way you could live in a van I don't think I know people do that here some people live in in cars but that surely not for that length of time I've lived in my home for a very long time and I I tried to think what it would be like without it means everything Kevin you're a British producer and their football be any Ford event but exactly ah I see God for those fans now miss Shepherd certainly wouldn't better buy one now because there they were beautifully restored when we bought them and then we had returned them to this rather terrible state so the poor van enthusiasm he's spent so long it's restoring them it would be heartbroken I think to see what happened to them well I think the film really it's about being part of a community isn't it under however begrudging the community of Gloucester Crescent and indeed Alan himself might from time to time have felt a me you know she did feel she belonged there somehow I think for a large part of her life and that's all lonely any of us could ever want is to feel part of a community Alex home are you as Maggie says you know just eventually immensely lucky unfortunate to live the life that I'm living with family and a house to live in when you're flooded by the kind of pictures that we seeing at the moment um it's unimaginable what some people have to go through very very lucky Alan home well obviously one is very lucky i I see parallels between miss Shepherd and in our own household in the sense that both my partner and I are accumulates to us and it's not you know were the not in the least bit chaotic like like the band was but nevertheless me Shepherd used to accumulate stuff and which he didn't use and this was no different in a way from from from I know our events a normal person from a person leading a normal life for instance one of the things in the van after she died was a one of those panels on which our brushes and kitchen implements and so on which meant for display in a kitchen and I remember my mother having one oh and we never using the actual implements on this and similarly it was with Miss Shepard she brought this there would no way she would be using the brushes and the various kitchen implements the life she died which she somehow saw herself as as leading that kind of life or maybe leading that kind of life one day so in a sense she was not so remote from ordinary life as one thing a nick final thought on on home and the themes of the film well I don't know that this is the theme of the film at all but three of my grandparents were what would now be called with a cold lip migrants and home for me is is underpinned by the knowledge that it could all have been incredibly different and and I I feel very lucky well we must let you get back to those homes filmmakers ladies and gentlemen thank you very much indeed ladies and tough about now you're watching hey you guys hey you guys how you guys up from the Goonies

Channel: HeyUGuys

Views: 120,517

Rating: 4.8507462 out of 5

Keywords: Interview, Alan Bennett (Author), Maggie Smith (Film Actor), The Lady In The Van, Nicholas Hytner, Kevin Loader, Alex Jennings

Id: 0YP1CoaMjNc

Length: 28min 28sec (1708 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2015