I feel like it’s funny because when that became a big part of the conversation,
I was like, I’ve worked with tonnes of women. But I was like, “Oh, it’s all in TV!”
You know, watching that back, it seems… you’d think in a scene that ended up being so emotional,
you think you’d be like reaching for it trying to cry. That’s Saoirse and I trying not to cry the
whole way through. We-- Josie, our director was so clever to not let us ever see each-other ever in
character. And we went the whole film, I never saw her in character and vice versa until that moment,
until the moment where… you know and our wonderful AD team, everyone was like bringing us through the
back so we never crossed paths. And in that moment when they were rolling is the first time we saw
each other and the first time she saw me looking disfigured and you know with the wigs and blah,
blah, blah. And it was, it was like a punch in the guts! Like it was so emotional. And when
Josie called cut we were just like, bawling, I mean, like, bawling our eyes out. Like hanging
on to each other just like crying. It was, it was really moving and it was really one of those
moments where you just lose yourself completely and I forgot I was on a film set. I forgot we
weren’t those characters it felt very real. You talked a little bit about working with
Josie. I think you were like nearly 20 films in and you’d never been directed by a woman?
Well, I’d been-- Oh, in a film? In a feature film.
I was going to say. I feel like it’s funny because when that became a big part of the conversation,
I was like, I’ve worked with tonnes of women. But I was like, “Oh, it’s all in
TV!” That wasn’t such an uncommon, it was never a thing when I was on Neighbours for example,
whether you had a male or female director. It was just your director. But yeah.
But does it make a difference? Did it make a difference?
No, I think look people are… Every single director I work with has a totally different
personality and different process. So I really couldn’t put it down to gender as much as I
just know them specifically as a person so I know their kind of things. But, uh… No,
because what I’d love to say is that Josie has a particular insight as a woman blah, blah, blah,
and for sure she does. But then you do something like Bombshell with a male director
and he’s [Jay Roach] like the most emotionally intuitive person I know. So I couldn’t say that
it didn’t work better because he was a man and you know dealing with those specific topics.
It’s really down to the person I think. And she came from theatre. I mean her main
home is theatre. Did that make any difference, do you think?
Definitely. Definitely in the rehearsal period. The rehearsal period was phenomenal. And I guess
because in film often it’s kind of like, “Nah!” You’ll get there, and then you
start shooting and you don’t get to rehearse, and in most cases you never get to rehearse.
But rehearsal was integral for Josie and built in to the schedule. So we had tonnes of time
to rehearse. The English Court would rehearse and the Scottish Court would rehearse. And you
know she’d do clever things like the English Court we’d always sit in a rectangle, around a
rectangular table, and the Scottish Court sit in a circular table. You know it was all about, she
was subliminally giving us hierarchies before we like noticed. Things like that I just loved.
Do you go back and… are you a big researcher? Yeah. Yeah.
BH: What did you do? I mean how much did you know about the feud between these two I before…
Not that much. The conflict between England and Scotland…
Not much at all. And I spend time, a lot of time actually with the historian,
his name escapes me right now. John? Anyways, and did a lot of research which I loved. It’s
kind of like one of the best gifts about this job is getting to really deep-dive
into something super specific. Like a specific city in a particular year with a particular
person and then you just know that thing inside and out so I loved getting to do something like
this because you know it’s more… a history that other people also know. Like, I could tell you
exactly where Tonya grew up and that won’t be that interesting to some people. But, uh, yeah,
for Queen Elizabeth of course those facts are a little more exciting to the general public.
And you talked about her being a disfigured character. All the press at the time was kind
of going like, ‘Margot Robbie does ugly.’ Yeah, yeah.
Like, was that a big challenge for you? I mean, that’s a really different thing for you to do.
No, I loved it. Look, I love the craft, I love watching every department do what
they do and people are just so talented. And I love prosthetics make-up. I love it,
I find it so fascinating. Um, so, yeah, no, when Jenny Shircore, a very decorated hair
and make-up artist here in England was like, “No, we’re gonna do this and this,” and Josie really
wanted to play up that, it was part of the dynamic for the film. And in real life, yeah Elizabeth,
Queen Elizabeth at this point in her life actually had wooden teeth. So, we didn’t even go all out,
I mean there was more we could have done. But, no, we leant in to it for the sake of
the story. Because it’s Mary, Queen of Scots you know, it’s Saoirse’s character is kind of
the one we’re following and it was appropriate for the dynamic we’re meant to have to kind of
play up Elizabeth’s sickness and how it kind of made her feel inferior in more ways.