In Berlin for the competition screening of The English Patient, Kristin Scott-Thomas had another, equally pressing matter on her mind - namely her son's birthday in two days time. (Moving Pictures presented her with a KinderFilmFest T-shirt to give him when she returned to France.)
“I don't know what my next job will be,” Scott-Thomas admitted. Since The English Patient's US release and her own Oscar nomination (“the pat on the head that we actors all need”), she has been bombarded with scripts, but choosing future projects has become much more complicated. As she waits for schedules to be sorted out and casting crises to be resolved, she is currently, she claims, just another “out-of-work actress”.
Scott-Thomas first read The English Patient on location for another film “in the middle of nowhere in Romania”, and was immediately drawn to it. When she learned that Anthony Minghella was adapting Michael Ondaatje's novel for the screen, she lobbied hard, but initially unsuccessfully, for a part. “We had a disastrous lunch. Then I started writing Anthony letters pleading for an audition, which he eventually gave me.” And no, she doesn't like being stereotyped as the romantic Englishwoman. “I still haven't understood what this English rose thing means. I haven't lived in England for 16 years. I don't know anything about England really, except from what I read in books and screenplays.”
Geoffrey Macnab
[Home ] [Content ] [The Sponsors ] [The Team ] [Comments ] [Help ]
