Singing songs, writing fairytales and directing movies is almost the same: in each case, you have to tell a story, says Madonna, who has tried it all. In an interview with RIA Novosti’s Olga Grinkrug she talks about W.E., her movie about the abdication of King Edward VIII, which premiered in Russia on February 2. Actors James D'Arcy (King Edward VIII) and Andrea Riseborough (Wallis Simpson) also shared impressions about their work with the pop icon.
- What is it about the Edward and Wallis story that caught your eye? What’s so special about it?
Madonna: Well, when I got married and moved to England, I really didn't have any friends. I didn't know anybody, and I found myself in a strange world, and I just decided I was going to educate myself and find out about the history and culture of this new world that I lived in, so I started studying English history and I started reading about the monarchy starting with Henry the VIII and I worked my way up to the Windsor family and when I got to the story about Edward the VIII. I mean I'd heard about it obviously when I was in school about Edward the VIII abdicating the throne but it was only like a soundbite, this guy gave up the throne for this American woman from Baltimore, but when I got into that story I was kind of transfixed by the idea that a man would give up such a powerful position for love, I felt there was something kind of Shakespearean about it, so I started to investigate, I started reading books about Wallis Simpson and I found a lot of them to be really negative and one-dimensional, she was accused of all sorts of things, from being a Nazi to being a witch or a sorceress with magic powers that put a spell on somebody.
- Was she really a Nazi?
Madonna: No, I don't believe they [Edward and Wallis] were Nazis. I looked as much as I could, I did as much research as possible and I wanted proof that they were Nazis, I was looking for that empirical evidence and I could not find it.
Andrea: If you start looking into it you very quickly understand that no, she was no Nazi. One time she did dine with Hitler, you can find it in the diaries, and she found him absolutely repulsive. And it was a public situation so I don't think she spent a lot of time with him at all.
They needed to shunt Edward and Wallace aside, although he was the king brought up and groomed for the monarchy. It was a time of extreme crisis. And it was really a case of making things as secure as possible. You can't pretend you have an alternative king when you are in the middle of a world war.
James: He met Hitler, that's indisputable. What's interesting about Edward and Wallace is that there are so many books written on that couple, so many people who met them and where part of their lives, and all of them are completely definitive, and my dirty little secret is I didn't really know who they were before this project came into my life. I always hope that the director will direct and sometimes they are a little more laid back and they sort of hope that you do all the work and they will cut it together, and this was a real collaborative experience, and what was beautiful she [Madonna] was three years ahead of me in terms of research, she was surrounded by this stack of books, and if the sentence wasn't underlined it was highlighted or both of it had a post-it note over it saying to reference this book over there.
Madonna: It's kind of an archetypal thing, we don't understand women, we think that we perceive that they have too much power… Queen Elizabeth is a good example. A lot of people say she was a man. Whenever a woman has power and she doesn't have a child, they say she isn't really a woman.
- Are you a feminist?
Madonna: No, I see myself as a humanist. I admired women who were artists, freedom fighters, political activists - Frida Kahlo, Martha Graham, Tina Modotti - women who lived in essentially a man's world and found their way into it.
- Why did you include the modern-day subplot in the movide? The story of Wally, who fetishizes the possessions of Wallis auctioned by Sotheby's in 1998?
Мadonna: I'm trying to be as authentic as possible. The world of Wallis Simpson and the royals and Wally's character – they all live in the world of luxury, Sotheby's etc. And if you live in a world of luxury you have to pay attention to the details.
When Wally is going through the auction and she's picking up everything and she's feeling it, that's what I would do. In a way Wally's character is similar to my journey of discovery about the duchess, through the letters, through the objects, seeing the house, meeting people that met her, touching her clothes, going into the Victoria and Albert museum, going to Cartier's archives to see the real jewelry, the real hearts bracelet, objects have energy. The real bracelet has 7 crosses on it and this has 4 and Cartier gave it to me as a present.
- Did you buy anything at the auction?
Madonna: No. Too expensive.
- Wally visits Sotheby’s exhibition every day and meets two people there.
Madonna: I always say to people, there are three love stories in the movie, there's the love between Wally and Evgeni and there's the love between the two women because in a way they both guide each other and help each other and they are really of service to one another. There is some kind of symbiotic love between the two women. And as much as Wallis Simpson gives her pearls of wisdom about how to deal with men and understanding that all love is a compromise, she also allows Wallis Simpson to see things, and I feel like their parting in the end is something bittersweet, they both have to let go of one another
It's a thin line between being a stalker and a fan, between someone who wants to suck up to your energy and someone who really admires you and wants to share some pearls of wisdom with you.
It was a journey, I started off thinking ‘Oh my God, how incredible, how romantic!’ They gave up so much, and it wasn't what I thought it was gonna be, and then I went to another phase, you know what, they really did love each other. And it wasn't perfect but they did, and in spite of everything they did find their way to love and so in the end I thought it was a very hopeful story. Not a fairytale, but still hopeful.
Andrea: She was a woman from Baltimore, who had one incredibly unsuccessful marriage, and a second supportive, but not romantic marriage. I think very deep inside herself she needed affirmation on many levels, and she absolutely loved Edward, she was devoted to him. But she started riding on a road, and if she could have folded back and taken another road, it would have been so much less tragic for her in many ways, but then she wouldn't have got to the opportunity to live out the greatest romance, and that was the option she was offered. The thing I like about this movie is I think it portrays James [D'Arcy] the way he plays Edward shows all those foibles that man had. The egocentricity, the insecurity, the little boy needing to be nurtured, used to getting what he wanted and being a little bit spoiled… And he felt redundant. Of course I can understand his choice. I feel I have my own understanding, as nubile as it may be, of love. As far as I know, as much as I experienced it, you can get an awful lot out of things you truly love… They were best friends, they had this wonderful complicity, their own language, but the responsibility for the rest of his life terrified her.
James: In all my research there is one indisputable fact, was that Edward was completely besotted with Wallis, that's the one thing, the base note for every single book interview and documentaries, it was pure love.
- Why does Wally fall in love with a Russian guy and not somebody else?
Madonna: Evgeni? 'Cause I love Russians. And I think that Russians are usually unfairly portrayed in films as either gangsters or hedonistic millionaires. All the Russians I know are intellectuals or musicians.
- Did you learn any new things about yourself during the process of filmmaking?
Madonna: Yes, how little sleep one can survive on.
James: When we were shooting I would get an email from her at 2:30 in the morning and then another one at 5, and I would go - wait a minute, when do you sleep in the process of making this film for three months?
- How did you get into filmmaking?
Madonna: When I was growing up I actually didn't watch that many movies, it wasn't until I went to college and I discovered European films. That was the influence in the beginning when I was a dancer, and honestly I was influenced by all filmmaking, and every level of filmmaking, even silent movies, and the great Hollywood classics, with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey, Billy Wilder films, the great movies of the seventies, Francis Ford Coppola. Clue, for instance, is one of my favorites, with Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda, I just watch the conversation, and my god, it's a brilliant filmmaking, and FFC is one of the great figures of film history, and anyway I'm influenced by everyone. I was inspired by the visual style of Wong Kar-wai, Antonioni, Visconti, Ingmar Bergman. I watched closely what both of them [Madonna’s husbands] did. Sean [Penn] comes from directing as an actor I saw the importance of rehearsal, and preparing, doing as much work as you can do ahead of the time when you get to the set. And Guy [Ritchie] is a much more visual director, and he takes a lot of chances and risks when it comes to camera moves and things like that, he breaks the rules and I learned a lot from him in that aspect.
James: Everything that's really a value, you have to work for it. Some of the tasks we were asked to do in the film were hard, in terms of emotionally investing and what have you, and if you don't have someone helping you and inspiring you and cracking the whip sometimes, the truth is I'm gonna stay in bed, I'm not gonna go for that run at 7 am when it's raining. Learning the bagpipes was really hard. It's a single cut from the movie and it was quite rightly cut from the film not because I played it badly but because it wouldn't fit in... I went to see the bagpipe player and he said, I can't teach you the bagpipes in six weeks, it's not possible, I could teach how to look like you're playing the bagpipes. And I wrote that to Madonna and she wrote back saying, “You should try to learn to play the bagpipes, just because somebody says you can't doesn't mean you have to listen to them.” And then she sent me daily emails asking if I'm learning the bagpipes. And it was tough… but one day on the set I played the bagpipes, and filmmaking doesn't happen in one take so it was more than in one occasion, and you feel great about yourself because you did something somebody else said you couldn't, and because of the way she inspired me.
Madonna: I came to the art of filmmaking with great humility, I respect it immensely as an art form and I know that I have a lot to learn… To be honest, when one has put all this hard work and effort in this you can't say you don't care if people see it or like it, I want to influence people. I hope it finds its audience.
