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The Young Victoria: an interview with Julian Fellowes
While previously best known for his role as Kilwillie in Monarch of the Glen, Julian Fellowes is now possibly better known as the Oscar-winning writer of Gosford Park. He's dipping another toe into historical waters with the screenplay for The Young Victoria. Neil Davey finds out more
"It's a fabulous double, isn't it?" The charming Julian Fellowes is talking about The Young Victoria's slightly unusual production credit of The Duchess of York and Martin Scorsese. "I'm not sure how it could be more unusual," he speculates. "Boy George and Madam Chiang Kai-Shek…?"
Fellowes, it must be said, is a fantastic interviewee. Witty, entertaining, knowledgeable and polite – "still or sparkling water? We have both" – he's clearly happy to be talking about the new film, not least as "people seem to like it enormously." He laughs. "When they don't like the movie, you just want to row for the shore…"
As the title suggests, The Young Victoria takes a look at the early days of Britain's longest reigning queen – "well, for the time being" – the family wrangling she overcame to take the throne and, particularly, how she and Albert met.
"The Duchess of York had the original idea," explains Julian. "They were looking for a writer and I was a contender on that list. I was rung up and I wanted to take the idea and nudge it forward lightly, so we had the intrigues of the Kensington System, and Conroy, and the unsatisfactory relationship with her mother, because I felt that always informed what came later.
"We know Victoria but most people don't know that story. You'd think Victoria had a soft time of it, not that she was essentially living an abusive childhood."
The film stars Emily Blunt as Victoria and Rupert Friend as the young Albert. Aside from the political wrangling behind Victoria's succession, the main focus of the story is the young couple's passionate romance. While our image today of Victoria involves a large frowning woman in black with a hanky on her head, those early days were very different.
"She loved him. She really, really loved him. And he loved her. I think that sometimes you hear people say that he didn't but that's…" Julian searches for the right word for a second before settling on "cobblers."
"It was an arranged marriage but they were incredibly well suited. She didn't want to marry him because she thought everyone was expecting it of her, but of course she was very attracted to him: he'd been deliberately selected by her uncle because he was gorgeous. What I think she was unprepared for was how much they had in common."
A key scene in the film is where Albert saves Victoria from an assassination attempt: one of five such attempts during her reign. In The Young Victoria, Albert is hit by the bullet and Julian is anticipating some criticism for his use of poetic licence.
"There are two different accounts," explains Julian. "One says the gun went off but the bullet missed him, and another says the gun jammed and we don't know which is true. Albert saw the gunman, she didn't, and he flung her into the well of the carriage and then pushed himself across her and put his back to the gunman.
"Of course this was fantastically brave. His instinct was to cover her with his body. What I felt was, if the gun jammed in the film, there was a danger it would become comic and it would deflate the bravery of the moment. It’s hard to make people appreciate that he was prepared to take a bullet for his wife, if he doesn't take the bullet for her. So that's why I changed that.
"The only other bit I've changed is bringing Albert over for the Coronation. Between his visit in 1836 and the proposal in 1839, they only wrote to each other but there is a limit to the number of scenes you can have of someone opening a letter! Having said that, all the conversation in their scenes is drawn from their letters, so I feel that's kind of truthful. You have to make some concessions, as long as you don't alter the fundamental truth." He grins. "I think you can slightly shave it though."
- The Young Victoria: Saga online talks to its star, Emily Blunt
- Click here for The Young Victoria trailer - Windows Media
- Click here for The Young Victoria trailer - Realplayer
