Gary Oldman is an actor known for his chameleonic performances, but he’s never put in a performance quite like this before. With a new trailer for Winston Churchill drama Darkest Hour arriving today, we spoke to
Director Joe Wright to learn some background on what some critics are already calling Oldman’s finest hour. Watch the trailer. here.
Made-up to see you
00:01
Yes, that man you see before you really is Gary Oldman, as Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The trim, hirsute Oldman had to endure four hours of make-up every morning to portray the rotund, bald Churchill – but according to Wright, “he was incredibly good about it.” There was a long period prior to shooting in finding the right prosthetic, says Wright. “At one point we went too far – he looked identical to Churchill but was incapable of moving his face! It was a long process of trial and error.”
During shooting, Oldman lost himself in the role. “It was very weird,” says Wright, “He'd get to set before me, and he'd still be getting out of make-up after I'd left the set. I didn't actually see Gary as Gary for about three months.”
By George
00:15
Here’s Ben Mendelsohn as King George VI, the reluctant monarch who invites Churchill to form a government (and privately complains that he is not a suitable candidate). His famous lisp been portrayed on screen several times, notably in The King’s Speech by Colin Firth and recently in The Crown by Jared Harris. Wright says Mendelsohn was “undaunted” by the task. "Ben is a very diligent actor, and he worked very hard. I think it was quite an undertaking because obviously there's been a couple of very good portrayals of George before. It helped that he wasn't English, to be honest with you, because it didn't come with English baggage."
Toilet humour
00:27
One of the trailer’s earlier scenes offers a lighter moment, emphasising Churchill’s talent as a wit: when informed that the Lord Privy Seal is waiting for him, the leader quips: “I am sealed in the privy, and can only deal with one shit at a time.” This, Wright reveals, is an original Churchill line. “One of the things I was surprised by as we started researching this movie was how funny he was,” Wright says. “He used humour as an integral tool in his kit to get himself through life. I think a lot of people might be surprised by how funny the movie is, despite the title."
Not buggering it up
00:40
Here, Churchill toasts to his success – but at the time the film is set, around 1940, the odds were very much against him. "He really wasn't the popular choice when he came to power,” Wright explains. “He was the only person that the Labour party would agree to enter into a coalition with. The Conservative party weren't happy about him being Prime Minister at all. In fact they tried to remove him very quickly, which is sort of what the film is about."
Aerial shooting
00:43
This is the first of several bird’s-eye-view shots of the war in progress, which Wright says was a deliberate visual distinction. “It's a kind of motif that goes throughout the film,” he says. “I was interested in the detachment of leadership from the actual human events on the ground – the idea that they pored over these maps and looked at armies almost in the abstract. These aerial shots are a kind of representation of the almost godlike view of events on the ground."
Dun Kirking
01:01
One of the most famous shots in Joe Wright’s career comes with a five-minute unbroken tracking shot on the beach of Dunkirk in his 2007 drama Atonement – and that infamous beach plays a role in Darkest Hour, too. "It's something I return to often,” he says. “I think the Second World War is such an extraordinary crossroads for Western and European civilisation that I can't help but be drawn to the drama of that."
Hangar time
01:07
This striking scene shows Churchill attempting to rouse a resistance with the French premier in an airplane hangar. "It is based on a real event,” Wright says, though it may not be entirely historically accurate. “To be frank, I don't think the meeting took place in an aircraft hangar – I think it took place in Paris. But we couldn't afford to shoot in Paris, to be honest with you! So we used a bit of creative license."
Lord knows
01:13
This is Game Of Thrones’ Stephen Dillane as Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, making the dramatic claim that “Europe is lost”. It might sound perplexing to modern viewers who know the outcome of the war, but at the time, the Allies were in dire straits. “It really did seem like the game was up,” Wright assets. “The extraordinary power and speed of the German invasion of Belgium, Holland and then France – the stakes couldn't have been higher at the time. Churchill got a lot of things wrong in his life but the one thing he did do right was to resist this seemingly unstoppable force."
Secretary of state
01:27
And this is Lily James as Elizabeth Nel, Churchill’s loyal personal secretary, who wrote a memoir of her experiences. "Lily gives us the layman's view of events, and we see a lot of the film's through her eyes,” Wright explains. “Churchill worked his staff incredibly hard, but they became very devoted to him. A lot of the personal details of the story come from that relationship – especially his humour. She talked about this twinkle of humour just behind his eyes which got him through.”
Oh my darling
01:39
The other important woman in Churchill’s life was his wife, Clementine, played here by Kristen Scott Thomas. "It's a very intimate portrait of the man,” says Wright, “and he's someone who there was very little distinction in his life between political, professional and domestic. Clementine was a big force and someone who often held him back from some of his more extreme views. She was probably more liberal than he was. She was extremely important."
Commons decency
02:28
Finally, we see Churchill delivering his famous “We shall never surrender” speech in the House of Commons. Wright describes that day of filming as “"very exciting, and very moving”. Prior to making the speech, Wright explains, Churchill “went to the depths of his own doubt and then rose up at the end in a magnificent expression of resistance.”
This is not the real Palace of Westminster, however – it is in fact a set. “We were told we could shoot in the real House of Commons,” Wright says, “but no-one would be allowed to sit on the seats. Apparently only democratically elected bums were allowed to sit on those seats!”
Darkest Hour is in cinemas from 12 January.