Words by Ian McKellen
When Beeban Kidron asked me to play Dr Kennedy, I looked at her
television film of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, whose leading
character was a young woman dealing with her lesbianism. I was confident
that Dr Kennedy's regard for Yanko in Swept from the Sea would be
sensitively handled, based as it is on a sexual attraction. This is only
confirmed in the climactic scene where the wily Miss Swaffer tells
Kennedy that she knows the basis for his jealousy of Yanko's bride, Amy
Foster. So Willocks' screenplay has a love triangle, although this is
not remarked on in the official publicity notes
which follow.
I had hugely admired Rachel Weisz onstage (in the London
production of Noël Coward's Design for Living) and Vincent Perez
in the film La Reine Margot. With Kathy Bates supporting them, I
should have been a fool not to want to be involved with such a talented
group. It was also fun to work again with Zoe Wanamaker (Othello)
Tom Bell (Bent) and Joss
Ackland (David Copperfield 1966).
I enjoyed, too, filming in Cornwall, whose startling, marine
landscape was so fitting for the Conrad story. Initially Rachel and I
shared a house until I could move into Trevor Nunn's summer house near
our locations in Polzeath on the north coast. There was a remarkable
sense of family amongst cast and crew, stemming mainly from our
director's pregnancy (she delivered the week after shooting ended) and
her caring attitude to everyone involved.
Three years after its release, I am still puzzled by the film's
short life in the cinema, where Dick Pope's photography is gorgeous. But
on the home screen, Conrad's haunting tale of emotional repression works
very well. — Ian McKellen, June 2000
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