First published in Great Britain in 2022

by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

canongate.co.uk

This digital edition first published in 2022 by Canongate Books

Copyright © The Estate of Alan Rickman, 2022

Introduction and selection copyright © Alan Taylor, 2022
Foreword copyright © Emma Thompson, 2022

The right of The Estate of Alan Rickman to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

The right of Alan Taylor to be identified as the editor of this work has been asserted by him
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 83885 479 9

eISBN: 978 1 83885 481 2
 Contents

Foreword by Emma Thompson

Introduction

Diaries 1993–2015

1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
 2012
2013
2014
2015

Appendix: The Early Diaries

Index
 Foreword

The most remarkable thing about the first days after Alan died was the
number of actors, poets, musicians, playwrights and directors who wanted to
express their gratitude for all the help he’d given them.
I don’t think I know anyone in this business who has championed more
aspiring artists nor unerringly perceived so many great ones before they
became great. Quite a number said that, latterly, they had been too shy to
thank him personally. They had found it hard to approach him.
Of all the contradictions in my blissfully contradictory friend, this is
perhaps the greatest – this combination of profoundly nurturing and
imperturbably distant.
He was not, of course, distant. He was alarmingly present at all times. The
inscrutability was partly a protective shield. If anyone did approach him with
anything like gratitude or even just a question, they would be greeted with a
depth of sweetness that no one who didn’t know him could even guess at.
And he was not, of course, unflappable. I could flap him like nobody’s
business and when I did he was fierce with me and it did me no end of
good.
He was generous and challenging. Dangerous and comical. Sexy and
androgynous. Virile and peculiar. Temperamental and languid. Fastidious and
casual.
My list is endless. I am sure you can add to it.
There was something of the sage about him – and had he had more
confidence and been at all corruptible, he could probably have started his
own religion. His taste in all things from sausages to furnishings appeared to
me to be impeccable.
His generosity of spirit was unsurpassed and he had so much time for
people that I used to wonder if he ever slept or ever got time for himself.
 A word not traditionally associated with Alan is gleeful. But when he was
genuinely amused he was absolutely the essence of glee. There would be a
holding back as the moment built and then a sudden leaning forward and
swinging round of the torso as a vast, impish grin flowered, sometimes
accompanied by an inarticulate shout of laughter. It was almost as if he was
surprised by himself. It was my life’s mission to provoke those moments.
I remember Imelda Staunton nearly killing him by telling him a story
about my mother and an unfortunate incident with some hashish. I’ve never
seen him laugh more, before or since. It was a bit like watching someone
tickling the Sphinx.
One Christmas Eve party I had a sprig of mistletoe hanging up at home. I
was loitering under it and turned to find Alan bearing down on me. I lifted
my chin up hopefully. He smiled and approached. I puckered. He leaned in
under the mistletoe and a sudden change came over his face. His eyes started
to glitter and his nostrils quiver. He lifted up a hand, reached in and pulled a
longish hair out of my chin.
‘Ouch!’ I said.
‘That’s an incipient beard,’ he said, handing me the hair and walking off.
That was the thing about Alan. You never knew if you were going to be
kissed or unsettled. But you couldn’t wait to see what would come next.
The trouble with death is that there is no next. There is only what was
and for that I am profoundly and heartbrokenly grateful.
The last thing we did together was change a plug on a standard lamp in
his hospital room. The task went the same way as everything we have ever
done together. I had a go – he told me to try something else – I tried and it
didn’t work so he had a go. I got impatient and took it from him and tried
again and it still wasn’t right. We both got slightly irritable. Then he
patiently took it all apart again and got the right lead into the right hole. I
screwed it in. We complained about how fiddly it was. Then we had a cup
of tea. It took us at least half an hour. He said afterwards: ‘Well, it’s a good
thing I decided not to be an electrician.’
I am still heartbroken that Alan is gone, but these diaries bring back so
much of what I remember of him – there is that sweetness I mentioned, his
generosity, his championing of others, his fierce critical eye, his intelligence,
his humour.
Alan was the ultimate ally. In life, art and politics. I trusted him absolutely.
 He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not
see his like again.

Emma Thompson
 Introduction

Movie-goers caught their first sight of Alan Rickman in 1988 in the action
thriller Die Hard. At the age of 42, antediluvian by Hollywood standards, he
was cast as Hans Gruber, a Teutonic terrorist who has seized control of a Los
Angeles skyscraper and taken hostages. So far, so unremarkable; expectations
for the film were modest and early reviews mixed. This, though, did nothing
to dent its popularity at the box office, which grew by word of mouth.
Starring Bruce Willis as an NYPD detective, Gruber’s nemesis, Die Hard
alerted audiences around the globe to the talented Mr Rickman whose
devil-may-care interpretation of a psychopath stole the show and received a
deluge of plaudits. As a New Yorker critic later noted, Gruber ‘likes nice suits,
reads magazines, misquotes Plutarch. No one ever looked so brilliantly
uninterested while firing a machine gun or executing a civilian. As portrayed
by Rickman, Gruber seems to possess a strange fatalism, as if he expects to
lose, and to die, all along.’
Lord Byron quipped that after the publication of his poem Childe Harold
he awoke one morning and found himself famous. The same might be said
of Alan Rickman and Die Hard. Until then his career had largely been
forged in Britain, most notably at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where,
in 1985, he stood out in plays such as Les Liaisons Dangereuses. But before
then, in 1982, he appeared on BBC television in a series adapted from
Anthony Trollope’s Barchester novels. Perfectly cast as the Reverend
Obadiah Slope, a slimy hypocrite with a toe-curling smile, Alan
demonstrated that he was as at home on screen as he was on the stage.
Global stardom may have taken its time to embrace him but there was surely
never any doubt that it would eventually do so.
Blessed with a voice that could make fluctuations on the stock market
sound seductive and a delivery that was hypnotically unhurried, it was
obvious that Alan had a natural gift for acting. To him, it was more a
vocation than a profession and he was irked by those who sought to
disparage it and in awe of anyone who devoted their life to it. As his diaries
demonstrate, acting is not merely a means of escape – in itself a wondrous
thing – but a portal to a greater understanding of what it means to be
human.
However, it was not how he originally sought to make a living. Born in
1946 in the London working-class suburb of Acton, Alan Sidney Patrick
Rickman was the second of four children – three boys and one girl. His
father, Bernard, was a factory worker who died when Alan was eight. It was
thus left to his mother Margaret, who worked as a telephonist, to bring up
the family. He was educated at a local primary school and Latymer Upper,
which counts among its alumni the actors Hugh Grant and Mel Smith.
He met Rima Horton when she was fifteen and he was a year older; both
were keen on amateur dramatics. Friends for several years, they became a
couple around 1970 and remained together for the rest of Alan’s life,
marrying in 2012.
On leaving school he attended Chelsea College of Art and Design,
graduating in 1968. After a few years working as a graphic designer, he won
a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. It was at RADA,
where he was recognised as one of the top students, that his future life was
defined. As he wrote in 1974: ‘Fine acting always hits an audience with the
force and oneness of the well-aimed bomb – one is only aware of the blast or
series of blasts at the time – afterwards you can study the devastation or think
about how a bomb is made.’
Alan’s apprenticeship was served in repertory theatre, in towns and cities
like Sheffield, Birmingham, Nottingham and Glasgow, where he could hone
his craft and gain experience. It was his equivalent of a Swiss finishing school
and gave him a solid bedrock on which to build. It meant, too, that when he
made the breakthrough as a star he never lost touch with his roots or his
sense of perspective. Following Die Hard, he was in constant demand. First
came Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, in which he was unforgettable as the
Sheriff of Nottingham: ‘That’s it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers
and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas.’
Always wary of being typecast, especially as a villain, his next role was in
the romantic comedy Truly, Madly, Deeply, opposite Juliet Stevenson. She was
one of a number of female actors whom he counted as close friends. In
1995, he appeared in An Awfully Big Adventure, an adaptation of Beryl
Bainbridge’s novel of the same title, and Sense and Sensibility, which Emma
Thompson adapted from Jane Austen’s classic novel. Galaxy Quest, a parody
of Star Trek, which has since acquired cult status, required him to play an
alien, while in Dogma he was an angel who has the voice of God. Alan was
nothing if not versatile. Other roles included Rasputin, Anton Mesmer,
Éamon de Valera and Hilly Kristal, owner of the legendary New York punk
rock club CBGB. The first decade of the new century was devoted largely to
the Harry Potter series of eight films. He played Severus Snape, the famously
grumpy professor with a ready wit, a part with which he became
synonymous, and which reduced considerably the average age of his
burgeoning fan base. On learning that I was editing Alan’s diaries, my eight-
year-old granddaughter was suitably – and unusually – impressed.
As the diaries demonstrate, Alan was ever eager to test himself and rarely
chose an easy option. He set his bar high and if he suffered fools it was
through clenched teeth. He demanded as much of himself as he did of
others. A case in point is the 1998 production at the National Theatre of
Antony and Cleopatra, with Helen Mirren as the voluptuous enchantress of
the Nile and Alan as her befuddled, besotted suitor. In another existence, he
might have devoted himself to directing. His production of Sharman
Macdonald’s play The Winter Guest, in the theatre and as a movie, remained
among his proudest achievements. My Name Is Rachel Corrie was another
such highlight. Based on the journals and letters of the eponymous heroine,
who was killed by an Israeli armoured bulldozer while protesting against the
demolition of Palestinian homes, the show, which he co-wrote with the
journalist Katharine Viner, was ‘postponed’ on the eve of its transfer to New
York because of alleged anti-Israeli bias. It was a charge Alan vehemently
denied. Less controversial was the movie A Little Chaos, about a gardener
(Kate Winslet), who is employed by Louis XIV of France (Alan). Long in
gestation, it finally appeared in 2014.
Given such a catalogue of credits, it might be assumed that Alan’s
dedication to his work eclipsed all else. Nothing could be further from the
truth. He was devoted to his family and friends and was renowned for his
gregariousness, kindness, honesty and generosity. Should anyone attempt to
pay for a meal they were often rebuffed with two words, ‘Harry’ and
‘Potter’. Few were the days he did not dine out. When not in London, he
was often in New York, where he and Rima had an apartment, or the
Tuscan town of Campagnatico, where they restored a house. Favoured
holiday destinations were the Caribbean and South Africa. If not on stage
himself, he was assiduous in attending shows in which his peers were
appearing. It was his habit to take notes and offer advice, which was mostly
received in the manner in which it was given. Brian Cox recalled that, while
they were performing in the 1980 television adaptation of Zola’s Thérèse
Raquin, Alan told him that he was being ‘rather slow in picking up your
cues’. ‘Alan,’ replied Cox, ‘do you realise how long it took you to say that?
You call me slow. You – you are the master.’
Such testimony is legion, as was the love Alan engendered. It is worth
bearing in mind that when in his diaries he is critical of friends it was born
of love. Moreover, we can safely assume that what he wrote he was also
prepared to say face to face.
Why he kept a diary is unclear. Diarists come in all shapes, and their
reasons for recording their lives are similarly diverse. Some people want to
bear witness to earth-shattering events while others are content to detail
what appears to be trivia but which, with the passage of time, acquires
enduring significance. We do not know whether Alan would like to have
seen his diaries published but he did receive invitations to write books which
could have drawn upon the material in them. What we do know is that once
he started writing a diary it became addictive. From 1972, he kept a pocket
diary in which he noted appointments, anniversaries, opening nights and
addresses. Twenty-seven of these remain. In 1992, he started to produce a
much fuller account of his life and work and bought diaries from a local
stationer’s which gave him a page per day to play with. These number 26
volumes, several of which are colourfully and beautifully illustrated. In
addition, there is a notebook, kept from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, to
which he added whenever he felt the urge. He made his last entry on 12
December, 2015, by when he knew he did not have long to live.
Madly, Deeply is a distillation of more than a million words. It tells the
story of what it meant to be one of the most fêted and admired actors in the
decades immediately before and after the dawn of the third millennium.
There are highs and lows, glowing reviews and bad, performances that were
a joy and others when it seemed that everything that could go wrong did.
After the applause and encores Alan would repair to a favoured late-night
haunt where, surrounded by well-wishers and fellow actors, he would
unwind and think about the show just gone and the shows yet to come.
Reading this book is as close as we can get to being there ourselves and to
encountering the real Alan Rickman. What a privilege it is to spend time in
his company.

Alan Taylor
 1993

PATRICK CAULFIELD – RICHARD WILSON – LAKE DISTRICT –

RADIO SUSSEX – BERLIN – RIVERSIDE STUDIOS – MESMER –
PETER SELLARS’ THE PERSIANS, SALZBURG – NEIL KINNOCK –
VIENNA – STEVE REICH – SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE – VIENNA –
MESMER – BERLIN – HUNGARY – PARIS – ARTS RALLY – FELIX
AWARDS – CARIBBEAN

13 June
Quiet pleasure of preparing food for friends.
1pm Michael G., Christopher and Laura Hampton, Danny & Leila Webb,
Jane and Mark and Rima and Lily.
The sun emerged and we spilled into the garden.

20 June
Patrick Caulfield [English painter] who says he hates painting but it’s how he
earns a living. ‘The horror of walking into this small room. Important to do
something. Doesn’t matter what. Just something.’

21 June
Arrive home, switch on BBC2 – Pina Bausch.1 The Real Thing. (After
reading another article in The Face about Hot Young Things.) She has such a
graceful determined truthfulness. And Robert Lepage2 pays homage. Of
course.

23 June
12ish Midland Bank to talk of possible house purchase.
 1ish David Coppard [A.R.’s accountant] – movies, taxes, arrangements,
expenses. How does he retain his charm?
4ish Belinda Lang & [her husband] Hugh Fraser – Lily’s birthday. But she’s
sick. Apparently I upset Elaine Paige on Election Day. My casual cruelty
again.

24 June
Finish Christopher Hampton’s Nostromo script. How do you cram that book
into a movie? Maybe he has . . . I don’t know.
A morning on the phone – How few real conversations there are. Mainly
a desire to present a moving target.
12 Gym. I’m not sure about all this.
4 Take Mum to Goldsborough Apartments. She’s a brave soul. Feel myself
persuading her. It’s probably not the real answer.

25 June
→ The gym.
This is hard work.
pm Talk to Christopher of Nostromo, Sunset Blvd – Andrew Lloyd-Webber
in tears some days ago. ‘I’ll postpone 6 months and bring in Hal Prince.’
Trevor Nunn says I need 30 secs of dialogue in this scene. ‘What about?’ ‘I
don’t mind.’

26 June
6pm Coliseum. Macbeth . . . A strange mixture of Argentinian Fascism & Dr
Finlay’s Casebook.
Peter Jonas,3 David Pountney [opera director] & Mark Elder [conductor]
all saying au revoir [to English National Opera]. A world I know little about,
sitting among fanatical applauding Tories. Jonas made speech about the Arts
& NHS. I wanted to cheer. The audience went a bit quiet. The quiet of
dissent.

28 June
A race against time. Reading scripts before lunch w. Belinda and Hugh –
traumatised because their nanny has given notice, but typically, Belinda puts
a delicious lunch on the table, immaculately, on time, being told at 11.30ish
it’s 12.30 lunch not 1pm. She’s been ill and in the studio and looks $1m.
10.30 Sleepless in Seattle – Halfway through I think ‘I was in this movie.’4

1 July
Dinner with Richard Wilson – wonderful food at L’Accento – Something’s
certain.
Carol Todd calls . . . Delicate stages on Riverside.
Roger5 calls. He’s, shall we say, not hopeful.

2 July
3.40am Awake trying to locate one worthwhile, nameable emotion that
deserves this sleeplessness. The dream was of walking down one’s own
corridor at night, in the dark, trying to work out the geography only with
my hands – finding doors that should have been locked, not.
(NB Hand this to the nearest amateur psychiatrist.)

4 July
am Driving through the Lake District to Ruskin’s house.
5ish – Ferry back across the lake.
6.58 to Euston.
Really good to see Roger & Charlotte Glossop6 again and now their
wonderful, loving children.
They had a real, simple, generous, open attitude to work and life. Not a
single deception or selfishness. They’ve built their dream and are living it.
And giving it to others. Such an antidote to the shenanigans of this week.

5 July
12 Juliet Stevenson arrives – a flurry of lost keys, inability to get men on the
phone etc. – in other words, as ever, late.
But it’s fun to work through the show with two bright lights like these.
Juliet has, of course, been clamped.
6 July
3.30 Interview for Radio Sussex – this is why I don’t want to do them any
more. A man who talks of ‘paddies’ and thinks one-person shows are the
salvation of British theatre.

8 July
3.30 Flight to Berlin.
Lance [W. Reynolds, producer] on the flight, Wieland [Schulz-Keil,
producer] drives me to the hotel and then to the restaurant – I can’t let go
with them; I’m pulling on the reins all the time until they sign.

9 July
Fittings with Birgit [Hutter, costume designer] – instantly an angel full of the
right ideas. Wigs & make-up need to be shown.
5.05 Flight to London.
7ish – script to Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Pat O’Connor7 wants to
party; but for some strange reason they’re off to Ireland for a week (they only
just got here).

14 July
It seems sometimes to be in the stars that some days are peaceful and some
are manic.
9am David comes to deliver a bookcase and mend a cupboard, Steve
comes to fix the stereo, Janet comes to clean, Ruby [Wax] to show some
outtakes and the phone rings and rings and rings.
If it isn’t the Riverside lunch; it’s not a Riverside lunch it’s a dinner; did I
read the Rudkin script?8 Can we go to Stroud? Who can come, who can’t?
8pm Supper with Louise Krakower [film director].
9.50 Groundhog Day.
Nearly. Not quite Capra. But a relief.

15 July
A day which led to Riverside shenanigans. And a 7pm dash with the
proposal. Jane [Hackworth-Young] screwed up or screwed us in a big way.
What’s underneath this? If it turns out to be Jules Wright I shall screw her to
every sticking place I can find.9

16 July
As for Riverside we wait and see. Ditto Mesmer.
I think Deborah Warner10 has the right idea. Only do what you want to,
make yourself a unique entity – then you get invited to Salzburg & Bruno
Ganz. 200 extras and five horses to do Coriolanus.

18 July
Home to phone message saying Jules Wright has been given Riverside and
then a call from Roger Spottiswoode telling me the latest Mesmer horror
stories. Is this a big test? What sense can one make of the Riverside
situation? I am writing this not angry (yet – that will arrive in a big way if
we discover anything untoward) just numb from the endless pursuit and
advancement of the mediocre in this country.

19 July
Most of today picking up the telephone receiver.
Mesmer seems to be breathing again. A cheque has been sent – was it
signed? Misspelt? Something must delay it, surely.
Jules Wright has Riverside, no she doesn’t, yes she does, were we read?
Maybe not. Is [ Jane] H.-Y. a traitor or innocent stroke power-mad? At all
events it’s not coming to us although we don’t know if there’s any money to
run the place.

20 July
Maybe today a corner was turned and for that I guess I’m grateful in the
middle of all this shite.
Malcolm & Sweet Pea [assistants to Thelma Holt] were so practical and
focused – it was very moving – they’d laugh if I said so to their faces.
Somehow we got through it all – all those letters without mentioning
Jules Wright by name – as yet. Then Thelma returned and the room is filled
with humanity and good humour.
 Returning home I discover that J.W.’s proposal is all of 4 pages. ‘Put-up
job’ says Rima without a pause. Her certainty is often hilarious.
10.30ish – Billboard Cafe. Juliet [Stevenson], Mary McGowan, Lindsay
Duncan & [her husband] Hilton McRae. Acquainting them of the day’s facts
creates focus, strength & purpose. We’ll see, we’ll see, we’ll see.
Somewhere in here Mesmer careers crazily on. Faxes, phone calls,
entreaties, promises, demands. Questions. Somehow no answers. Plus I’m
offered £50,000 a week to do Slice of Sat Night11 in West End. MAD MAD
MAD.

21 July
More phone calls.
Letters being answered.
Thelma got tough.
Time Out continues to ferret.
Michael Owen12 backs off.
Andreas [A.R.’s personal trainer] shows me a daunting new regime for the
gym.

22 July
To the gym and then take Arwen to lunch – Café Tempo, King’s Road.
Can’t really begin to deal with how easy it is for me and how hard for her to
walk up a flight of stairs. The image of her flat on her face on the floor of
the taxi will stay with both of us. Thank God she, me and the taxi driver
could laugh.

23 July
Diaries – funny things. Having to record people as a collection of initials.
For the record J.W. = Jules Wright; a dangerous, manipulative person.

26 July
And Riverside brews on . . .
A letter from a friend of J.W. in the Standard. Write the reply on the
plane. Just shows how quickly it can be done. The prospect of seeing Peter
Sellars’13 production of The Persians, a sudden ‘yes’, some phone calls and
I’m out the door with a hold-all and on the way. To Salzburg.
The journey to Heathrow really is the best.
Then to Munich, and cool hi-tech airport. 100 miles of corridor later and
there is a driver. £100 later and I’m in Salzburg for the last ½ hour of The
Persians. Now I’m mentally photographing every second to make it count.
Fifi [Fiona Shaw] is there at the end. It’s always good to see her. She’s one
great Yes to life.

27 July
To Festspielhaus for Coriolan. Staggering venue. Hildegard’s14 model now
full, unbelievable size. A sudden strange desire to be in it. And we almost are,
in the 3rd row. 200 extras, horses, flames; epic but ambiguous too. Bruno
Ganz is the one for me. Seems not to be an actor at all. At the party I meet
him. Shy, courteous, quiet, slight. Of course. Peter Stein15 – a whole ball
game of his own. As Deborah found. Brave show. Cowardly audience.

28 July
Deborah and Fiona Shaw have certainly found their power. But there’s a
sense of panic somewhere – what do they do with it? Stories of Stein’s
abrasiveness when confronted by Deborah’s self-sufficiency.
Sod the diet – Bratwurst, potatoes & sauerkraut for lunch. Mozart
museum – the girl playing the instruments pretends to speak French badly in
order to surprise us how well she speaks it. And English.
Find Fifi & Deborah at the theatre. Have tea. F. worrying about her
production of Hamlet, her film career, our agent, the play she’s due to do at
the National Theatre. I can see reasons for all the concerns but what a waste
of her extraordinary energy. Talk of this and more with Catherine Bailey on
the plane. A remarkable woman. Hits the ball smack in the middle of the
bat, but all heart too. Home. Did that all happen?

29 July
Back home to articles in Time Out and the Evening Standard. All very
energising and focusing. If all the energy and focus can shift to the other side
of the river then, great. Keep talking.
Jurassic Park – what the hell is the plot? Great dinosaurs.
→ 8pm Lust w. Denis Lawson. Reminded me a lot of Lock Up Your
Daughters in 1974. Even less direction here.

30 July
Spoke with Stephen Tate – Observer. Talking with journalists always leaves
me feeling uneasy and a little like those tribes who don’t like having photos
taken because they’re giving away their souls. But today there is a strong
sense of colliding with one’s destiny.

31 July
Woke up from a dream where Rima and I are going for a week’s holiday in a
remote country cottage. To get there first we have to tramp through a
muddy field to a farmhouse – on the right there is a kind of hen coop. Our
instructions are to shoo the hens off the mattress they are running around
on, shake it & take it off to the cottage. As we approach, we can hear après-
sex giggling. We peer in. There in the straw are a pair of 75-year-olds,
dressed, but lying amongst the eggs and hens, grinning.
Work with Tara Hugo [American singer and actor] for her New York
opening. I do love transforming things like this – or maybe it’s just pointing
a spotlight on a fine talent with more accuracy. At all events the process is a
mystery to me. Where does the insight come from? Part of it is cumulative,
but most of it is a gift still shrouded in mist.

1 August
Riverside report in Observer – lazy journalism so the points are more bluntly
made than they should have been.

3 August
10.30 To ICM [talent agency] to sign deal memo. I wish these things were
more about common sense – it’s embarrassing to think that discussions have
to take place about the size of one’s name, whether they’ll pay for the
laundry, how many bottles of Evian water etbloodycetra. Of course, if they
try to rip me off . . .
 Then Rima and I go shopping for her Jamaica trip. Keep feeding her and
obtaining regular cups of coffee and it’s fun in Knightsbridge.

5 August
Kristin Milward [old friend of A.R.’s from RADA] comes for lunch. Now I
think it’s time for something drastic. If there’s no magic pill, then maybe she
should work in another country. England does not recognise or reward her
qualities.

8 August
At home watch last part of Kinnock. Neil is wrong to feel such failure. With
the same instinct which told me too that he would lose the April 9th
election I also know that this country had developed such a meanness of
spirit – a refusal, however unspoken, to think of others’ problems, that the
balance was tipped and he could have done nothing more. He has made it
possible for others to win by the hugest personal sacrifice.
Livingstone,16 Skinner17 et al. are wrong because they spend their lives so
consumed by politics they cannot put their fingers truly to the wind. Their
professionalism makes them lose touch with their innocence.

9 August
4pm to Thelma’s office for preliminary chat about Riverside before N.N.
arrives. Present – Thelma, me, Claire, Margaret Heffernan,18 and after a
while Catherine Bailey. We discuss avenues of approach and Margaret is her
always blindingly clear self. Doorbells ring, people enter and leave without
seeing each other, which is clearly the object, if not the plan. N.N. is
basically saying – take Riverside off our hands and it’s yours – if you can
manage without funding and at a peppercorn rent. He’s an accountant.
Theatre stories (Thelma!) don’t resonate. At one point we are sitting plotting
around an invisible cauldron as Ian McKellen stops at the door. Thelma
immediately enlists him and nearly says too much too soon.

10 August
To Vienna for costume fittings and I didn’t even argue. I should have.
Coffee and lemon cake in famous Austrian or Viennese coffee house.
 Back to London.

12 August
Damning and fairly unprecedented report in Standard re Riverside. Talk
about things fadging.
3 Roger & Gillian19 to talk of the movie script. [Dennis] Potter reluctant
to rewrite.

15 August
All afternoon – the simple but back-breaking pleasure of creating a flower-
bed.

16 August
7.45 Gormenghast – Lyric Theatre.
Wonderful things, but no wonder I never read the book. For fans.

17 August
3pm Doctor for film insurance check-up. Ironic, with this streaming cold.
He throws me by asking which character I would choose above all others to
play. There’s no answer, because as ever, it all depends on the script.

19 August
A phone call from Peter James [theatre director] wanting some assurances for
the Riverside board meeting tomorrow. Strange not being able to say
everything to an old friend.

20 August
9.30 Royal Festival Hall with Belinda Lang and Mary Elizabeth
Mastrantonio for Steve Reich concert. Almost dreading some esoteric wank
– it turns out to be real food for thought on many levels. Of how many
pieces of music can it be said ‘it has genuinely clarified the Middle East
conflict for me’?
Belinda had come prepared with a mental list of things to think about if it
had been dreadful.
21 August
8 → Lindsay Duncan & Hilton McRae with R. & Robin Ellis20 & Caroline
Holdaway [designer] & Fatima[h Namdar, photographer]. I guess we must
have had a wonderful evening – because when we left after eating great
food, talking, talking and standing round the piano singing Dylan etc.
together it was 3am.

22 August
Walking out of the Caprice to find a cab, cat and mouse with a
photographer who clearly wants a ‘pissed off ’ picture. He certainly has a
‘pissed off ’ back of my head.

23 August
am – and now it’s William Burdett-Coutts for Riverside. He wants to talk.
OK, but at this point – about what, whilst that board is still in place . . .
Pat O’Connor comes over – I’ve spoken with Christopher Hampton
again about Carrington and I really don’t know whether or not to do it.
8pm to Hampstead for Marvin’s Room with Allan Corduner21 and Dalia.22
Another of those American plays which insist that you feel something. I
don’t think anger & frustration is what they had in mind. My mind feels
totally shut down by the experience. Alison [Steadman] & other fine actors
compromised by atrocious direction.

24 August
1pm Patio, lunch with Diana Hawkins & Sue D’Arcy re press for Mesmer.
This side of it, I’m told, is necessary. It is also, finally, humiliating. Not their
fault – actors as product.

30 August
10am-ish because of the [Notting Hill] carnival barricades and no taxis →
Kensington Hilton and first rehearsal of Mesmer .  .  . Script obstacles to be
overcome but encouraging to see how often Potter is on the button.

1 September
9.30 Rehearse.
At least Roger is completely transparent – if there’s a problem it inhabits
his entire frame – and with Mayfair23 etc. there are problems . . .

2 September
8.15 To Laura Hampton’s apartment. Champagne & stories of family
skulduggery and on to –
9pm Norma Heyman [film producer] – Sleepless in Seattle party. Names,
names – Meg Ryan, Nora Ephron, Neil Jordan, Andrew Birkin,24 Michael
Caine, Alan Bates, Edna O’Brien, Stephen Frears, Lindsay & Hilton, Jon
Robin Baitz.25

5 September
2.30 To Mum.
She’s tired and needs a holiday. But always levelling. I’m off to Austria –
she needs a new adaptor for the sewing machine.
6.10 Fly to Vienna. One of those flights. Baby crying = tense mother.
Drunk English businessman = resentful stewardess etc., etc.

6 September
1pm Auditions for character sensitively known as ‘Bosom’ – 2 out of 3
actresses turn up with ‘Bosom’ well to the fore. Humiliating for all
concerned.
2.30 Find Simon McBurney26 & Gillian Barge and Richard O’Brien.
Simon’s friend Johannes takes me on a whizz-tour of Vienna & its coffee
houses. Also tells me of time when seven friends committed suicide (3 of
them at one funeral after another).

8 September
First day’s shooting Mesmer27.
There are Slovaks from Bratislava and Hungarians. The crew is German-
Hungarian. I miss not being able to barter rudenesses. Am reduced to being
an observer. Apart from continuing script negotiations.

11 September
Rehearse with actors for ‘Afflicted’ scene. Austrians, Germans and
Hungarians. The scene is, thankfully, moved to a more helpful location.
Lunch with Johannes and Simon and on to the Annie Leibowitz
exhibition – she’s a very good graphic designer with an even better address
book; her earlier pictures of parents, grandmother are infinitely more
interesting. Hundertwasser,28 however, is an architect of delight. The
museum & the apartment block are extraordinary  .  .  .  He creates uneven
floors to give a ‘melody of the feet’.

12 September
Major ‘Afflicted’ day. A spat with the producers who, of course, want
something for nothing – in this case the Austrian actors (although the
Hungarians are paid a pittance because their standard of living is so much
lower). Interestingly, I am accused of blackmail – I pointed out that a ton
load of moral blackmail would descend on my head to perform (not to
mention the fact that so far I am working unpaid).
This makes the atmosphere sound blacker than it is – no, just boys will be
boys.
The work is exhausting but pretty good. I suspect that one of the
Hungarians is better than most if not all of us. He certainly solved the
opening of the scene.
Lunchtime meeting with Roger brings uncomfortable déjà vus. – ‘Alan is
undirectable’ – Howard Davies.29
Dinner at MAK – Roger Spottiswoode and Amanda Ooms30 are clearly
having a fling – I hope the old keel is kept even.

13 September
Kissing scene.
Too much like a commercial – no danger.
More Afflicted. There are some terrific actors in this group – particularly
amongst the Hungarians. English actors just don’t look like that. It makes me
want to hand over the costume and say ‘Let me watch you.’
An interesting discussion w. R.S. & W.S.-K. They say ‘Great! We got this,
that & the other’; I say, ‘Yes but totally on the level of actors’ – not with our
‘concentration and command’ (it’s in the text for fuck’s sake, don’t they ever
read it?).

14 September
No process in the afternoon and so – the spatzing is unavoidable. I want to
be directed not whinged at. (But I think I must be a bit of a nightmare with
my ‘certainties’.)
Rima phones to tell me Harold Innocent31 died at the weekend. A piece
of my life – and in a way it’s selfish to at least be sure we had met and talked
recently.

15 September
Called in from day off . . . Argument I still don’t understand with R.S. The
scene plays as I had imagined (more or less). Does that mean he didn’t get
what he wanted or that I was right anyway and hadn’t explained myself
properly?

16 September
Long scene – major concentration required. Someone is watching over us
meteorologically if not financially. The sun shines, the wind blows – on cut.
A bit frightening really. Mesmer – is he monitoring this? The battle goes on
for me not to.

17 September
Last day in Vienna for the time being.
A request to write about Jules [Wright] for Vogue. I don’t know about
that. What does it smack of? Having to be more than honest in print. Why?
Birgit’s party – she is a genuinely beautiful person in every way. Looks,
spirit, the whole shebang. Amazing food. Some good talk. A bit of a sense of
being circled by descending wasps, mosquitoes, feathers, brick walls etc. But
it was 2.45 when I got back so it must have been good.
Chris [set designer] thought I was 36. I did not disillusion him.

19 September
Fly to Berlin 7pm. Walk around town . . . Get lost . . . Time stands tapping
its feet on days like this. Waiting to go somewhere else and when you get
there, not know where you are.

21 September
To . . . breakfast with Amanda, Gillian and Wallace Shawn32 who we found
in the lobby. He’s doing a show tonight at the Berliner Ensemble. He talks in
his haltingly carefully phrased way of Eastern Europe, of people coming up
to him in the streets of Manhattan and offering him film parts in
Amsterdam, or asking him to read a script. He talks of his office suffusing
him with guilt whenever he enters it – some scripts have lain there since ’86
– and of going out to buy a piece of paper when he has to write [a] letter –
and he talks of never making an unplanned move.

22 September
One of those days – a bit too tiring – vaguely stressful – I’m always surprised
at how easily I can buy into that instead of working against it. It’s the dog
with a slipper syndrome. Difficult scenes in the morning because of an actor
with no real process and R.S. with no notion of teaching him.
Roger tells me Wieland called him from his meeting in London – there
were 23 lawyers present, all on our payroll. Wingate33 liked the footage – are
we supposed to be pleased or is it OK for me to feel insulted that he wished
& was allowed to see it?
Dinner with Gillian Barge – one of the greatest pleasures of this film is
working with her (finally) and getting to know her.

23 September
The devil was crawling around today making me antsy. Tiredness is a factor
along with a lack of real discussion which is why it was well- motored by
Simon this afternoon.
The madness has to be located and shown.
Meanwhile the dreaded press and even in the unit publicist the
unstoppable desire to compare one job with another – was X more difficult
than Y? No, X=X and Y=Y. Don’t be lazy.
 Tonight I was fuming. The co-star34 is tired from something or other, so
rehearsals are curtailed. No discussions.

24 September
And a continuation today. Extraordinary how the set picks up and absorbs
and dances lightly round an atmosphere especially between two actors.
Difficult scene, fury with the director not abated. So – a decision to remain
apart as much as possible = chill factor on set all day.
It’s wrong when an actress is treated like a piece of Dresden rather than a
professional.
But we finish one scene and rehearse another. With difficulty. But we get
there. Onward.

27 September
A day at the top of a flight of stairs – throwing Simon [McBurney] down, or
sliding down the bannisters (and ripping my pants).
10ish Gillian finished so late and is being called early – I have to talk to
someone. This is slavery (exploitation). Supper with her and Jan Rubes,35
Czechoslovakian, charming and likes dirty jokes.

28 September
A day almost entirely on my own. Walking along Kurfurstendamm to buy
shoes (the wrong ones) and then Savignyplatz for some more (the right
ones). Finding a new part for the electric razor and speaking German to do
it. Photographing the bag lady who was sitting by a ton of rubbish (not hers)
in plastic bags . . .
Gillian called when she came back from the set – we had room service in
my room & talked of Stratford & Stratfordites (and of her not being able to
spell Oedipus in a P. Brook rehearsal).

29 September
I think it’s called a relatively jolly day on the set.
A letter from Amanda – heartfelt words. A rushed but honest response.
Paris Bar after work. Gillian, Tom, Roger, Amanda, Simon.
 (1) There are difficult days ahead on this script. (2) There are cross-
currents amongst these people that would confound a mini-series. Or a
Feydeau farce.

1 October
In the end some very good work is on film, but blood is on the carpet. I
fought, kicked and screamed – or rather some mesmeric force did the
kicking and screaming – I hope in protest at the way we were being asked to
‘make an effect work’. I don’t know who is right or wrong. I am difficult,
temperamental, uncommunicative; others are sentimental, effect-driven,
undisciplined. But in the end something that is OK.

2 October
Long, difficult day. The scene is designed around a lighting effect. I rest my
case.
On arriving, I announced that today I was a marionette – I would be very
well-behaved. Ironic laughter.

3 October
A day off.
To the Xenon and The Piano w. Gillian & Tom.
For half of it I thought it was a slightly coldly accurate rendition of the
script. But somehow it kicked in. Holly Hunter was wonderful. They all
were. An inspiration and (currently) a vindication. I envy Tom the
innocence of crying in the street afterwards.

4 October
7pm pick up tickets for 7.30 show of Clockwork Orange at the Volksbühne. I
can see what the cavils might be but they are so impressive. The atmosphere
in the theatre is very charged – the actors are in physical danger quite often;
buckets of blood, flour, water, whatever descend at regular intervals – and
the anger at the East German sellout is transparent. What the hell do they do
with Lear and Othello?

5 October
Shenanigans is the alternative title to this film. Who the fuck is telling the
truth???
Good work goes on. But so does the skulduggery. And I’m so tired of it.
An interview with Cinema tests one’s responses more than somewhat . . .

6 October
Sitting in front of a mirror all day. However much I look at my face under
such circumstances I never see the full horror that photographers manage to
capture. How do we edit that out? I rake my features looking for all the
bumps, cavities and lines that litter the contact sheets . . .
Tantrums at the end of the day – pushed into a way of playing a scene by
not rehearsing it first, and then having an instinct sat on rather than
explored.

7 October
The sound stage next to us is shooting The Neverending Story – how ironic.
6pm Wrap Berlin party.
– Good to dance again.
I seem to be functioning in short sentences today.

9 October
Talk to Rima, bless her, she always can make me laugh.

10 October
8.15 Last Action Hero.
I went with no axes grinding but it’s a very bad movie . . .

11 October
Sometimes the emotional commitment to a piece of work keeps itself
invisible, often for a long time, until it is threatened – and then complete
immobility happens – a kind of nervous exhaustion descends.
I walked to a shop, had a coffee and a sauna, listened to some people on
the phone – all so defensive, all hiding their own untruths.

13 October
8.15 pick-up for 9.50 flight to Vienna and car to Sopron – Hungary.
Pleasure at pastures new is very much tempered by the tensions and
insecurities attached to this job – every day there’s some new financial drama
– will I ever know the truth underneath all this? However the town has a
great, impersonal beauty – it knows it has been here forever, it tolerates the
twentieth century with its teenagers in backpacks and jeans. After all it knew
satins and bows.
The snooker was fun. On every level Miss O swims in selfishness. What
price freedom and personality when there’s little curiosity?
No sound in the street. Odd moments of plumbing in the hotel. A dog
barks. The wind blows. 2am wide wide awake. Why am I having to fight
idiotic battles about hotel rooms?

14 October
Sitting in a carriage in the wrong order in the wrong environment, and a
scene which should be unbroken is done in two parts.
Still no answers, still no certainty. And today, no food. The town remains
beautiful, the hotel – especially the bathroom – makes me think of visits to
my grandmother. No matching towels in those days. Other crew members
are not so lucky – they’ve gone out to buy shoes to wear in their showers.
What the hell has this year been about? The push to direct? The
punishment is beginning to feel a little unrelated to the crime.

15 October
A carriage ride with a coachman who learnt today how to drive . . .
Some hilarious moments. Pizza Bar lunch in full 18th C. costume.

16 October
Splat! Most of the day face down in the mud. Refreshing in an odd kind of
way.

17 October
Today was a real Sunday in Sopron. Quiet streets, church bells. I didn’t go on
a driving trip – I was v. well-behaved and worked. And walked – to the
cemetery. A very moving place – here family is everything. The poor graves
with simple home-made wooden crosses as powerful as the granite slabs.
Every corner were the women. Cleaning, planting, looking after their
memories.

18 October
Wet. Wet. Wet.
Cold. Cold. Cold.
Carriages, freezing hands, crane shots.
Cold banana soup for lunch.
Shorter days, earlier darkness. Home by 6.30.

19 October
Caroline Holdaway and I play out Ball Scene. Having woken at 3am and
stayed awake until the 5.30am pick-up – the brain and the mouth were not
on the best of terms. And it rained. And cars honked and people talked. But
we did it – Caroline at all times impeccable manners and good humour. I
did not.
Catherine [Bailey] & the BBC [Late Show] crew arrive. Odd mixing
friends and work like this. It means extra control but extra requests.
To the Forum with a whole bunch and then the Billiard Club. Talking
with Roger – my selfishness when working takes my breath away – Elemér36
has his own story this week. Others have their vulnerable points. Where on
earth do I get this appalling certainty?

20 October
Thinking of what I might say to Omnibus/Whatever – British theatre
(Establishment) is marooned behind the proscenium. For the most part in
the hands of untrained, smartass young directors who have ambitions but no
heart or politics and whether they realise it or not are being steered to
success by their actors and designers. They cast only from preconceptions so
that there is no real challenge to the actor whose performance has been
predicted from the outset. This applies everywhere – I would be happy to
pick up the gauntlet if only someone would fling it. Few people are prepared
to ask any really big questions of us (actors) without the security of thinking
they already know the answer.
21 October
The day is like a media circus –
1. David Nicholson from The Times – seductive questioner – his pupils
have different sizes – really, he wanted the dirt on religious mania.
2. Murray H. – took photographs. (Boring ones.) NB Snowdon.
3. Someone from Sight and Sound ferreting.
4. The Crew on the Hunt.
We play the scene.
We also have a screaming match about the fact that the extras are given
rolls as a midday meal. Food was duly served in the evening.

22 October
A let’s-get-it-done day threaded with Amanda’s unhappiness and tiredness –
Blanche DuBois is in a hazy distance.
The BBC2 crew films on and on. Till 2am when we went back to the
Billiard Hall.

23 October
To the Hilton and the Film Ball.
Ghastly. These things always are except on the people watching level.
Found David Thewlis, met Julie Brown37 (Raining Stones). Oases in a very
noisy desert.
Playing hard-to-get = a practised innocence. I suppose it’s better than a
complicated involvement. Certainly with nightmare woman.

24 October
My back is killing me. Seven weeks of accumulated tension is finally
expressing itself.

25 October
Why was I dreaming about having got myself a Saturday job at
Woolworth’s??

26 October
The Diva quotient is stepped up. Not however the Hungarian actresses.
Thank you once again the west. The Hungarians first commit. However
inorganic and time-wasting the process may be.
Later at the Forum we all start to relax – wonderful goulash supper and
then at a strange nightclub (six customers and a girl in UV bikini) it all
comes out. They really were never talked to (they did, however, put up huge
barriers and stamped a bit – not the Hungarian thing). But basically it is all
about trusting actors and allowing being open – all the old things. Somehow,
Roger takes it all smack on the chin. And then says ‘I have learned
something tonight.’ Infuriating, but extraordinary in his openness.

27 October
And then you discover that he remembers nothing of last night.
We part in a flurry of flowers as I throw them into the back of their
minivan. Lots of hugs and blown kisses – they were great, those women, and
impossible. One moment inspired – the next, screaming for makeup. ‘Das ist
immoglich!!’38

5 November
Shooting the last scene became something of a nightmare. Again – no
process.
Some reserves of toughness and concentration groped for.
This crew is amazing. Such quietness and support. By 6.30am we were a
small band and the room was filled with unnameable feelings. ‘CUT’ and
Mesmer speaks no more.

8 November
The last day of shooting. Happy, sad.
I sat, breathing it all back in. I spoke a bit, forgot to stand up, forgot to
have it interpreted – probably it was too short.
Monumentally moving was the flower given by every member of crew to
Amanda and I standing at the top of a flight of white marble stairs as they
fanned out below. At times I feel so close to that girl.
Goodbyes. Kisses. Hugs. People coiling wires. Unscrewing lamps.
Loading. Kisses. Slamming doors.
9 November
6.40[pm] Flight to London. This time it feels like I’ve been away forever.

10 November
. . . to Chelsea & Westminster Hospital to see the newest child and Ruby’s
third. It is so hard to believe but she has done it. And this time (the child she
was thinking of auctioning) there she is, breast feeding. The room is filled
with flowers – something very grotesque from the orchid world from Joan
Collins looms in a corner. I took her a ready-cooked chicken. She fell upon
it.

11 November
PARIS.
The most beautiful day. Blue, clear skies and clean hard sunshine. Out to
Versailles – a scene I fought to keep in the film. Strange to see Beatie39 walk
towards us as Marie Antoinette in full sail. Roger is furious/sulking. He
never wanted a French actor for Louis – Serge [Ridoux] really does have a
strong accent. Roger breaks the lens cap on the BBC’s camera . . . The scene
is done for a crowd of tourists and to a backing of gunfire . . . A burst of late
sun gives us an extraordinary last show and we move to L’Abbaye Hotel in
Paris . . . Go to collect Roni40 & Isabelle H[uppert] for dinner with the rest
of us . . . A pleasant evening. Roger and I fittingly finish with a row about
my character, my work methods, did they have sex etc., etc.

12 November
Another glorious day. Slightly messy, unfocused walking around. Buy some
clothes for Rima . . . Grab a sandwich. Back to the hotel for a long, ghastly
drive to the airport – nearly miss the plane.

17 November
3ish Royal Court Theatre Production meeting. Educative to hear people talk
this way. Actors as meat on a West End slab. Main topic of respect – the
investors (largely same people as in the room), the project, the risk. Hmm.
The Royal Court.
18 November
6.45 Planet Hollywood for Juliet’s David Bailey film [Who Dealt?]. Bailey is
truly endearing even when the film breaks down. I would like to work with
him. He’s bonkers.

19 November
11ish Waldorf Tea Room w. William Burdett-Coutts, Thelma and Catherine
[Bailey]. I felt particularly inarticulate because I felt I was staring at a
completely unacceptable position. Everything negative – nothing to offer,
just waiting for our input. Why should we?

21 November
3ish An attempt to see Remains of the Day. Sold out. A pleasant hour’s
mooching around Waterstone’s instead.

23 November
We go to Victoria Palace for an Arts Rally and then to the Houses of P to
lobby MPs. Standing in the cold with Ken Cranham,41 Sylvestra Le
Touzel,42 Stephen Daldry, Harriet Walter. Cameras poke around – the Sun
pretends to be the Guardian. Gordon Brown comes out and says hello. Go in
– why have I never visited before? Someone in a white bow tie gives you a
green card to fill in. But now we’re off to a committee room. Dennis
Skinner speaks to us – brilliantly. My MP is not available.
7pm National for Machinal . . . Extraordinary staging of fitfully interesting
and boring play with Fifi as Ringmaster. Some moments of her most
brilliant work – some when a forklift could not have shovelled it off the
page.
11 → Sandra & Michael Kamen.43 Star spotting – Annie Lennox, George
Harrison, Eric Clapton. Some live music. Left Ruby getting the info from
Pattie Boyd . . .

28 November
To the Royal Court for 7.30 Max Stafford-Clark leaving show. Very well
organised, brilliantly MC’d by Richard Wilson and Pam Ferris, full of good
things especially Lesley Sharp’s44 piece from Road. Nice to see Gary Oldman
on stage.
Afterwards the inevitable encounter with Jules Wright who seems,
perhaps understandably, a touch crazed.

29 November
I go to Savoy – cameras, bucks fizz, Tim Spall (thank God). Eat bits of the
meal, daringly drink a little white wine, watch the dessert melt. The
generator blows. Waiting waiting. Miriam Margolyes tells Jewish jokes. Make
speech – though so quiet you feel the criticism every second. Escape.

3 December
12.45 → To Berlin for Felix Awards.
David Puttnam and Jeremy Thomas [film producer] on the plane. David
shows me a speech he is to deliver. Being awake to opportunities = people
went to Jurassic Park because they wanted to = don’t make art films with no
reference to audience. My protests re allowing an artist to have their voice
fell on very deaf ears. I said he should get ready for the boos.
9pm Messages left – don’t understand. Dinner at Florian with Wieland –
he has a nimble tongue and a good heart. We move on to the Mirror Tent –
very funny trio is performing. On leaving bump into Denis Staunton &
friends including Michael Radcliffe. We tumble into a boys’ own bar across
the road for tequila. Talk of Burgess, Vidal, Volksbühne, Stein, Faust,
Schiller, Baal and, at one point, Doris Day.

4 December
The ceremony was its usual interminable self. The more one goes [to such
events] the more ridiculous it all is. Except for the winners I guess – a base
instinct that always responds when encouraged.
As do others, of course, in the face of all common sense. A considered
‘no’ should be controlling one but this devilish urgent ‘yes’ propels one
forward – Food, Drink, Sex.
4am Florian with it all swimming around me as earlier were Antonioni,
Wim Wenders, Louis Malle, J.-J. Armand, [Volker] Schlöndorff, Frears, etc.,
etc . . . Otto Sander45 is a new friend.
6 December
6.45 Taxi brings Mum, Pat and Michael to take us to Prince Edward Theatre
for Crazy for You. Birthday outing, stupid plot, wonderful choreography,
endlessly inventive and not at all corny. Of course it’s all a bit of a Chinese
meal.

9 December
Who could write the script for today?
11.30 Graham Wood comes to take photographs for The Times – I’m not
sure what I feel about these pictures. Sometimes you trust the process,
sometimes not.
Ruby arrives – in a bad way. I can only keep talking, hoping to put up
some skittles she can’t knock down.
Emma Thompson phones – would I take part in a charity performance?
R[obert] Lindsay is ill. Prince of Wales. OK.
8 St James’s Palace in a tie. Rehearse in the taxi. A run-through – sort of.
Do it. With panache. Prince of Wales is a good guy, I think. An awful lot of
‘ushering’ went on and I was steered in to meet HRH. Loathsome.
Savoy Grill with Emma. A very easy, enjoyable meal with an easy
enjoyable person. She says ‘fuck’ a lot. Much laughter.

11 December
1.30 [Ruby’s daughter] Madeleine’s party. Smarties ground into the carpet.
Paper hats being snatched off little heads. Fights to blow out the candles.
Grown-ups standing around a very low table watching the children at their
first party, remembering theirs. As many tears and tantrums as smiles.

13 December
And now the Fascists are in Russia.
While Rome burns – I go Xmas shopping with Ruby – she’s on the
mobile phone, looking at exhibits in the V&A, picking up earrings, putting
them back, buying a Noddy toy for John Simpson, worrying about the
service charge, window shopping while driving & over lunch the arrows of
perception come shafting out. We talk, too, of the depression the world is in.
 pm – writing Christmas cards – a strange exercise when there are about
150 of them and there’s no time for a real message.

17 December
8am Special delivery from Buckingham Palace. OK. But why at 8am?
(Prince of Wales saying thank you.)

25 December
Christmas morning is always a favourite time. The calm, coffee, orange
juice, presents, quiet streets.
Around 12 Mum, Michael, Sheila, John, Sarah & Amy46 come over and
the turkey panic has already begun. The temperature goes up and down and
eventually the bird is cooked in 3½ hours rather than the 5 hours we had
expected. Turkey panic is replaced by potato panic. Vegetable panic lurks in
waiting.
Somehow, it all (except the completely forgotten stuffing) arrives on the
table and is scoffed. Now for present panic. Does it fit? Do they like it? It
does. They do.
Pictionary. Noise. Morecambe & Wise wind down.

27 December
The central heating completely fucked. Yellow Pages brings rescue.

30 December
3 hours’ sleep. A sluggish taxi to Gatwick. An extremely welcome up-grade
to first class to Antigua. I might have known we’d be punished.
I’m writing this in the restaurant at Antigua airport. Our flight was
overbooked with a party of West Indian OAPs who were sitting very tight in
their seats. So it’s off with our luggage amidst a lot of ‘This is completely
unacceptable’ and ‘No, I don’t want to stay in Antigua tonight.’ Eventually
we fly to St Kitts on the 7pm . . . and then we scramble on to a 6-seater for
the 10 min ride to Nevis. Dinner pool-side at the hotel.47 Lots of Americans
surrounded by bamboo.
On the plane watched In the Line of Fire – unbelievable Die Hard rip-off.
Adversaries on the phone to each other, falling from a skyscraper etc., etc.
31 December
Discovering Nevis. Drove round the island. Afternoon on a lounger. Script.
Snooze. Coke. 7.30 Champagne in the Great House . . . At the end of this
year, the feeling is of being a silent sandwich filling.

1
German dancer and choreographer (1940–2009)
2
Canadian playwright (1957–)
3
British arts administrator and opera company director (1946–2020)
4
He wasn’t.
5
Roger Spottiswoode, British film director (1945–)
6
Husband and wife Roger Glossop and Charlotte Scott, owners of the Old Laundry Theatre,
Bowness
7
Irish theatre director (1943–)
8
David Rudkin, English playwright and screenwriter (1936–)
9
In the summer of 1993, Alan, together with theatre producer Thelma Holt and Catherine Bailey, a
film producer whom he had known since RADA, attempted to take over the running of Riverside
Studios in West London, which was in financial difficulties. Alan, as the most high-profile of the three,
bore the brunt of the media coverage. Jules Wright, an Australian theatre entrepreneur who ran the
Women’s Playhouse Trust and had been a member of the Riverside board, made a rival proposal.
According to Time Out, London’s listing magazine, she had been offered the role of artistic director.
What became known, inevitably, as ‘Rivergate’ grew increasingly contentious, culminating in a feisty
encounter between Alan and Wright (28 November 1993). In the end, the ambitious bid by Alan and
associates was rejected, Wright withdrew hers, and William Burdett-Coutts, who made his name
running the Assembly Rooms at the Edinburgh Fringe, was appointed director of Riverside Studios, a
position he held for twenty-seven years.
10
British theatre director (1959–)
11
A Slice of Saturday Night, musical by the Heather Brothers
12
Arts Editor, Evening Standard
13
American theatre director (1957–)
14
Hildegard Bechtler, German set and costume designer (1951–), wife of Bill Paterson
15
German theatre director (1937–)
16
Ken Livingstone, British politician (1945–)
17
Dennis Skinner, Member of Parliament for nearly half a century (1932–)
18
American entrepreneur (1955–)
19
English actor Gillian Barge (1940–2003), playing Frau Mesmer
20
British actor (1942–)
21
British actor (1950–)
22
Dalia Ibelhauptaitė, Lithuanian film and opera director (1967–)
23
Production company
24
English screenwriter (1945–)
25
American playwright (1961–)
26
English actor (1957–)
27
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode, with a script by Dennis Potter and a score by Michael Nyman,
Mesmer tells the story of the eighteenth-century maverick physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who used
unorthodox healing practices based on animal magnetism.
28
Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Austrian visual artist and architect (1928–2000)
29
British theatre director (1945–2016). He worked with A.R. early in his career at the RSC.
30
Swedish actor (1964–)
31
English actor (1933–1993)
32
American actor and writer (1943–)
33
Roger Wingate from Mayfair Entertainment, one of the film’s backers
34
Amanda Ooms
35
Czech-Canadian opera singer and actor (1920–2009)
36
Elemér Ragályi, Hungarian cinematographer (1939–)
37
American actor (1958–)
38
‘That is impossible!’
39
Beatie Edney, English actor (1962–)
40
Lebanese director Ronald Chammah (1951–), married to Isabelle Huppert
41
Scottish actor (1944–)
42
British actor (1958–)
43
American composer Michael Kamen (1948–2003) and his wife, Sandra Keenan-Kamen
44
English actor (1960–)
45
German actor (1941–2013)
46
Michael is A.R.’s younger brother. Sheila is their sister and John her husband. Sarah is their brother
David’s eldest daughter. Amy is one of Sheila and John’s two daughters.
47
Nisbet Plantation Beach Club
 1994

CARIBBEAN – MESMER – LOS ANGELES EARTHQUAKE –

GOLDEN GLOBES – YUKIO NINAGAWA – ANTHONY SHER –
HAROLD INNOCENT’S MEMORIAL SERVICE – LOS ANGELES –
DUBLIN – AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE – RADA – EDDIE
IZZARD – MICHAEL NYMAN – NELSON MANDELA – JOHN
SMITH – PARIS – THE WINTER GUEST – WIMBLEDON – PARIS –
BETTINA JONIC – TUSCANY – MESMER IN MONTREAL –
DUBLIN – VIENNA – DENNIS POTTER’S MEMORIAL SERVICE –
EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW

1 January
Nevis Island, Caribbean.
Properly blustery for a New Year’s Day. When it got too windy on the
beach we set off to look for some lunch. Charlestown shut, locked, deserted.
On to the race track picking up a couple of totally incurious hitchhikers. At
the track, a huge rickety old grandstand, chicken being fried in what looked
like old buckets, an announcer saying ‘I hope it’ll be a good clean race.’ A
13-year-old jockey from Antigua wins the second race. Rima wanted to
back Linda. She didn’t. It won. Hilary the taxi driver buys us a couple of
beers, a guy realising I’ll never reverse the car out of its gap does it for me.
Coffee and cake back at the hotel and a chat with Patterson the maître d’,
who’s a sharp cookie, and tells us restaurant and beach gossip. Dinner is
Claus’ West Indian night . . . A good chat with the flute/saxophone player
in the bar. He plays some sweet jazz and gets a request for ‘My Way’.

2 January
Time to explore after the faxed copy of the NY Times with its somewhat
idiosyncratic crossword has been dealt with . . . The Beachcomber Bar with
its handpainted sign right next to the nightmarish 4 Seasons. America
swallows up another culture and turns it (literally) into a golf course with
pedalos and lounge bars and grills and happy hours. Coffee at the Fort Ashby
– just about standing up amidst the swamp vegetation – is a humanising
experience afterwards. Watch the sunset. Rum punch, palm fronds, leaves &
sailing boats in silhouette, peach-coloured clouds. A sight that never
disappoints. Lobster and steak Bar B-Q. Talk to the Rhodesian mother and
daughter. Rima wonders dreamily if we will meet anyone of a left-wing
persuasion. Forced to converse with ‘The Fascists’ again over dinner. She
likes Rima’s voice, tells us of English people who admire Rommel. She’s
German and bemoans today’s rain, though it means she’s had ‘a very good
day’ (nudge, nudge). He manages to look lascivious and coy at the same
time, and says (as he did previously when socialism was mentioned) ‘Sorry, I
don’t seem to be able to hear you – heh! heh.’

3 January
All day the push pull of sinking into the hotel life or kicking on and
discovering the real island, the people, the surprises. I prefer a world that
contains Sylvia’s Fashions and Muriel’s Giftique to one with a 4 Seasons and
a Benetton at almost every stop sign.

4 January
A day spent chasing the sun and running from the rain. After that scariness
with ignition key. The car wouldn’t start, we’re on a dirt track. Thank
goodness for the man at Fort Ashby who just said (rightly) ‘turn the handle a
little’.
Alexander Hamilton Museum. I learnt a bit about soil erosion and why
we plant trees, not much about AH.
1ish. Unello’s on the Waterfront. Patterson spoke of the fabled slow
service. Actually it was quite speedy, but the waitress did have to spit out a
lump of ice before she could take our order.
Tonight the tree frogs were silent. What do they know?
8 January
7.15 Montpelier – excellent dinner. Would have been perfect if only I’d had
a handgun for the other guests: ‘Of course communism was always bound to
fail.’

9 January
Packing. Tea in the Great House. Down to the airport. Faff around. Bucks
are passed. An innocent chaos. Finally Carib Air takes Rima off for a 3 hour
wait at Antigua airport. Poolside Bar-B-Q for one. An odd experience,
eating alone. Doesn’t bear too much repetition. Say some farewells to this
extraordinary staff. They are all such individuals. Not cowed. Nisbet can
pride itself on that if not on our bathroom.

10 January
The freedom and emptiness of waking alone in a king-sized bed.
Breakfast and a solo-completed crossword. Amazing. Pay the bill. A
philosophical moment as one’s life flashes before one – when was the
moment crossed over into this territory of signing over this kind of cash. (For
a holiday.)
Swim/walk along the beach. To the airport again  .  .  .  Man with
impossible toupee under sky-blue cap. Group of sexy Dutch with impossible
tans. Tightrope walking with delays – a calm lack of announcements . . . A
rush to the Miami plane. Is the luggage on board? Meet Leonard Nimoy &
his wife. Marcia Firesten1 arrives in a pick-up truck. A moment to
remember and heave the case out at the Sunset Marquis.

11 January
LA – and a morning with the remote control. The Lorena Bobbitt2 trial is
fairly compulsive viewing. Jaw dropping in its content and the coverage –
the world is as it is and this trial fills the TV screens. Eventually a car is
delivered and Marcia comes – we go for some lunch – the car is all
automatic locks and windows and push buttons – and too big. One of those
cars that drives you.
 A wander round clothes and shoe shops – everything; roads, lights, noise,
clothes is weird after 10 days in Nevis.

12 January
1pm Cousin Ian picks me up and takes me on a tour of his life in LA. His
new coffee shop in the Valley, his house, his new interior design shop in
Beverly Hills. They’re a great couple he and Wilma and they deserve the
best – there is a simple gutsiness and clarity about them that was a tonic
today.
8pm Dinner at the Grill with Judy [Hoflund, A.R.’s manager] and Roger.
He’ll show the film tomorrow, is clearly concerned that I’ll misjudge
everything but he’s full of tiny smiles and Judy is encouraged. But it’s so hard
to discuss anything with someone so defensive.

13 January
Marcia comes over with a copy of Ruby’s Hello magazine – she gets away
with it.3
Big Time screening room to see rough cut of Mesmer. So hard to watch.
Everyone else seems to be very positive – I think there is a lot of work to do
to find its rhythm, to reclaim its wit and craziness and also to make the story
clearer. What I look and sound like is too late to import. I am in shock,
really.

14 January
More sleeplessness thinking about the film. I need to spend time with Roger
in the editing room. Talking with him, it seems at least a possibility.
11.30 To UTA [United Talent Agency] and talk with Judy. I’m feeling
vulnerable which doesn’t help, but we did try not to bullshit – and really
land on what we think and feel about the film, and other projects around.
They want me to stay in LA at the moment. I want to run to the bus stop.
Talk about ‘show business thins the mind’.
Tea and sympathy with Ant Minghella at the Hotel. He is doing similar
mental spring cleaning.

16 January
6 To Francine’s4 to watch the ACE awards – a platform, people in black with
their fucking red ribbons come on, go off, come on, go off, nominate,
announce, present, say thank-yous. Same as all the others.
9ish. More people in black at the restaurant party given by HBO. Michael
Fuchs5 – rudeness to remember. Kiefer Sutherland says hello as does Brian
Dennehy. K.S. seems to have a truly sweet nature.

17 January
Just before 9am – although time has lost all meaning since 4.30am when the
world seemed to come off its hinges. The bed, the walls, the hotel, the street
shook for what seemed like forever. I was filled with a strange mixture of
total panic and total calm – holding on to the bed (stupidly) which was like a
plant in a thunderstorm. When it all went quiet, some sort of rational
thought returned, at the same time as the realisation that there was total
blackness. I started to think of standing in doorways and then of finding
some shoes. The shoes came first then the thought that I would look pretty
stupid naked plus sneakers. I found (somehow groping around) some
underpants – focusing bizarrely on whether or not I had them on back to
front (who gives a shit!) – jeans & T-shirt. Then my brain kicked in and I
thought maybe I should get the hell out of there. Scrabbled around for keys,
money, Filofax. People outside in nightwear, blankets, gathering in the hotel
lobby. Eventually groped in basement to car and drove in black streets to see
if Francine was OK. Came back down the hill to a hotel now producing
coffee. The rest of the day was surreal. The staff somehow carried on
serving, cleaning, hoovering. At lunchtime I drank cappuccino in the
sunshine all the time not knowing what next? Continued all day as people
approached the evening with a quiet tension.

18 January
Woke just in time for 3 or 4 major aftershocks. Whoopee. The irony of
watching all this on TV is that the scenes of homelessness generally involve
Spanish Americans and working people whereas at the hotel room service
lives on . . .

19 January
Here was an odd LA day. Some kind of total exhaustion set in – probably
from being held in a suspended animation like everyone else in this city.
Watched ’quake broadcasts most of the day – eventually managed to turn my
mind to a script. In the meantime a couple of 5.0 aftershocks focus the brain
in half a second.
9.15 Le Dome – coffee and wine with Pam & Mel Smith. D.P. racy as
ever.
LA is depressing me.

21 January
9.30 Talk through the film with Roger. I’m still scared he’ll knock the
corners off . . .
1pm To the Bel Air Hotel (I wonder if it’s too nice) for lunch with
Christopher Hampton. Dan Day-Lewis jogs by, sweating. We chat about
Jack & Pat O’Connor. Leave a rude note for Emma Thompson. Look at
Christopher’s room – the voyeur’s lunch. My relationship with this town is
an ever-changing thing . . .

22 January
Table tennis by the pool with Jon Amici (I can’t keep up with the roller
coaster of his amours) and then a swim.
Trip to the clothes shops (somewhat deserted) to buy something to wear
tonight. Found and bought something to wear not tonight.
So it’s off to the Golden Globes. An award show and all that that suggests.
Genuinely funny speeches from the Seinfeld crew . . .

23 January
Too many rumours flying around about further earthquakes; too many
nights alone to make the rumours dissolve. Somehow I’ve arrived at the
decision to get on the plane to London. Emma’s on the plane and gets me
upgraded. So more nattering (the perfect word and she’s easy, warm and
lovable with it) and some fitful sleep.

24 January
The smallest bump or sound makes me jump. I’ve never known such delayed
action. The wheels going down, the scrape of a chair. Emma and I have
plotted some future work together. It has to be the right play at the right
time and maybe we’ll produce it ourselves. Which sounds like a sentence
from Swish of the Curtain6 but I’m jet-lagged.
Phone calls, unpacking. London makes me lethargic – jet lag aside.
(Except when the scrape of a chair upstairs makes me reach for the nearest
support. How long will this last?)

26 January
The phone call with [Roman] Polanski only confirms his charisma and
intelligence – charisma on the phone! I don’t know . . .
I hate it when my head, heart and aspirations are filled to the brim only
with career. The rest of me hangs around like a jacket on the back of a
doorknob.

27 January
The builders are here this week, plastering, repairing cracks, dust
everywhere.
Desultory days. Can’t think properly. A strange reluctance to make phone
calls. Talking to friends feels like a duty.
Indecision is, as ever, at the root of it all.
And so many No’s – Bee Holm’s film Awfully Big Adventure, the Rankin
film, Jack and Sarah, directing The Tin Soldier,7 running Nottingham
Playhouse. Fate is running around throwing hands in the air.

28 January
8pm Dead Funny at Hampstead.
More actors in search of a director. Authors should not direct their own
work in the theatre. This could be wonderful if it put its Reeboks on.
Supper with Beatie and Zoë [Wanamaker] afterwards. Treading carefully is
OK, but things can still be hugely improved so I risk some fairly strong
suggestions.

29 January
pm To Harvey Nichols to look for Rima’s birthday gift. Too late, too
rushed, too hungry.
6ish To visit Mum whose eye is daily improving. Then home for Rima’s
fave rave Casualty . . .
And then watch Remains of the Day – a gloriously crafted film with
[Anthony] Hopkins quite wonderful. A lesson. Emma needs to work with
someone who will ask her to dig rather than skim.

30 January
9am And the painters are banging about upstairs. I know they want to finish
but . . .

31 January
Funnily enough, when the pressure’s on I can either knuckle down in a
major way, or pull the sheets over my head am, and pm hit the shops. Today
– the latter. And scripts remain unread.

1 February
Builders, dust, dishwasher – repair, tiling, replastering, dust, dust, visitors.

2 February
And the jet lag goes on – this weird displacement of mind and body, the
sudden sleeps, the 5am waking and know that it lasts for another couple of
weeks. This body wreaks its proud revenge.
Paola Dionisotti8 calls. A real conversation with a friend as opposed to the
empty automated words that mostly drift down the telephone wires.

3 February
10.30 Paola picks me up and we trek out to Clapham and the Peer Gynt
rehearsal room. Great to see Ninagawa’s9 smiling face and all the others with
Thelma. Many a pang as I stand in the rehearsal room thinking what
if . . . Ninagawa and I both say, ‘Next time.’
4pm Stephen Poliakoff brings a new draft of his next film – walking up
and down, throwing an orange in the air and completely unaware of either.
 8ish Louise, Ruby, Ed, Stephen join Rima and I for one of our
Henrietta’s ‘Quick Cuisines’.10 Brilliant fast food. And a fast evening. Ruby
very much on form – achingly funny.

5 February
5pm to Oxford with Allan C. [Corduner] and Judy Parish to see Rowan
Joffé’s play. Jokingly, we say we are hitching ourselves to his coattails while
we can – it may not be such a joke; the play is more of a movie script (his
future?) but its underpinning is brave and original and Rowan himself hangs
on to his charm.

6 February
More paint, dust, tea making.
Rima phoned. She was in a car crash. Instant fears. She’s OK.

7 February
Rima comes by with a limp but she’s in one piece! ‘Thank God’ are the only
words that flow naturally.
6ish to Beach Blanket Babylon with Mike Newell to talk about Awfully
Big Adventure – basically fine words can be found to justify the casting that
satisfies the financiers. I dunno . . .
Supper amidst dust and furniture that’s crammed and out of place.
Unsettling.

9 February
11.30 Kristin Milward comes by – to Cherries [local café] to escape dust and
drilling and fumes. She brings some Stollen or ‘v. moreish cake’. She’s still
planning her Bosnia trip. We talk of maverick spirits.
Talk with Stephen Poliakoff to tell him I don’t want to do his new film. I
am so tired of saying no. He won’t take no for an answer.

12 February
This space is filled with mops, buckets, cleaning fluids, dusters, vacuum
cleaners and sweat.
13 February
8.30 Rik and Barbara Mayall’s housewarming. A big Victorian novel of a
house with nooks and crannies for days. Red balloons and hearts hanging
everywhere – at one point, in a corner, is almost all of TV comedy. Rik,
Ade Edmondson, Ben Elton, Ruby, Jennifer Saunders (Dawn & Lenny
having left). They all have such focus (or seem to).

14 February
A layer of snow and England grinds to a halt. ‘I won’t be able to take any of
the side roads,’ says the cab driver, daring me to get in at all. ‘Just take me to
Knightsbridge,’ is final enough for him to discover sheepishness and me –
piss elegance.
Over there, England strikes again. Tara [Hugo]’s second opening at Pizza
on the Park. No lights, no sound is the norm but NO pianist? We rehearse a
cappella (in some ways simpler . . .).
Lunch at Harvey Nichols (avoid the vegetarian menu).
Some pm shop wandering.
8.30pm Back to P on the P. Tara takes 2 Beta Blockers and is just behind
the beat all evening but the vowels are thrillingly relaxed.
Otherwise  .  .  .  brilliant. Back to chez moi for cheese, gherkins, pickled
onions and assorted fridge remains.

16 February
Last knocking from the builders. Could we finally say ‘The dust has settled’?
Read Tony Sher’s screenplay – it could make an amazing film but it’s his
film and does it have enough money & the right people attached?
Talk to Juliet – always the easiest thing . . . from Morocco to Death and the
Maiden – would be easy to talk for hours (which of course she does).
Hanging pictures at 2am – a welter of indecision and small holes all over the
walls.

17 February
Spoke with Tony Sher. We’ll meet next week sometime which means [I
must] find some time to read it again. When I think of the yeses and nos and
the maybes of this last year the mind boggles. All I have are my instincts but
they are appallingly diluted and redirected by second guessing other people’s
opinions.
Today is the 6pm meeting with Stephen P. about his new film. I’m trying
to be [as] honest and direct as possible but I’m not quite sure what it is I
want to say. There’s a big hole in my perceptions just now.

18 February
Ivy 12.30 – lunch with Irene, Paul Lyon-Maris [A.R.’s agent], Mark Shivas
[TV producer], talk of directing, producing; restaurant full of industry faces
as London apes LA. Sometimes one could wish for an earthquake to hit the
odd specially chosen table.

24 February
Flying by the seat of my pants.
A 10am rehearsal and already I’m watching the clock. At 11.15 get a taxi
to Covent Garden for Harold [Innocent]’s memorial service in St Paul’s.
David G has organised it brilliantly. Sit down in the shivering cold with
Barbara Leigh-Hunt,11 Noel Davis12 and Derek Jacobi. The church is full
(thank goodness) and the service was perfect – funny, beautiful singing, lots
of applause. Harold would have loved it. I read John Donne and Christy
Brown – Harold might have wanted the Donne louder.

25 February
6pm 47 Park Street to meet Sydney Pollack. True warmth, intelligence,
charm. I could happily sign on the dotted line.

26 February
12.30 Flight to Los Angeles. Arrive 3.30 – Take Amanda [Ooms] to Polka
Dots and Moonbeam for swift shopping blast – she has only sweaters. She, of
course, could drop the proverbial sack over her head and make it sing.
To the Sunset Marquis – I’m now on a stay awake jag. Shower, whisky
sour. Picked up for 8pm screening. Familiar faces, strange faces. Mesmer is
now a love story and I seem to have one rhythm, one voice pitch, one
expression. Truly disturbing what can be done in an editing room . . . And
ultimately very depressing. And at 3.30am it keeps you awake.
27 February
Breakfast with Amanda – much mulling over the night before. As she says,
you can make small critical noises but afterwards there’s just a kind of
emptiness.

28 February
10am Walk the eggshell-strewn path and talk about the film with Roger
who is, understandably, defensive but open as ever. If he could bottle it, etc.,
etc.

1 March
11.30 To UTA office to be filmed with Judy Hoflund – take 3 of walking in
and saying Hi sort of stuff. Somewhere on tape there however is some
actionable stuff about Mesmer.

2 March
A hopeless phone-call with Roger who thinks I’m a crazed actor. His
openness is matched by his stubbornness.

4 March
9am To Greg Gorman [photographer] for a day of photos with Amanda and
Frances and Diana & Greg’s crew. Everything so professional; people
working together to find something. And we did . . . The irony is the way
the day was suffused by my growing anger at my work being compromised.
Putting the clothes on again was strange enough.
Back to the hotel for a drink – stories of people telephoning to find I had
checked out . . . Question marks to Judy . . . A stretch limo to the airport.
9pm Flight to London.

5 March
4pm-ish Arrive home and start getting ready to go out, plus putting laundry
in the machines and reading mail . . .
Taxi to Barbican for Ninagawa’s Peer Gynt. How can I judge on this kind
of jet lag? But some beautiful moments inside a general lack of resonance.
6 March
1pm Belvedere with Rima, Ruby, Ed, Mr & Mrs Wax & the children. The
full picture of Wax en famille is something no film script could dream up.
Ruby sits laughing amidst it all – a great advert for Prozac.
Back to their house for tea and furniture-rearranging.
Belinda rings & offers Chinese food. Perfect. Horror stories of her play
reduce me (along with jet lag) to silence. Rima makes up for it with brilliant
defence of family benefits. I love her for that. Things balance out.

7 March
9am Drive to Heathrow for 10.50 flight to Dublin. Waste £200 in
upgrading my seat.

8 March
First day on Awfully Big Adventure.
One of the hardest scenes comes first. Maybe not such a bad thing.
Remember to keep a forward energy. Too much time means too much
thinking. Alun Armstrong and Rita Tushingham already looking settled in.
Not so wardrobe. Some frightful last minutery going on.

9 March
Afternoon and evening we planned tomorrow’s bed scenes and shot the first
kiss. Georgina13 brave and focused as ever. I constantly forget she is 17. No
allowances at all are necessary. A phenomenal luxury.
Back to the hotel for a yawning supper. So tired I am sure I answered the
phone in my sleep. Halfway through the call I came to, realising that I was
talking to Gillian Barge and arranging lunch on Saturday. I must ask her for
her recollections of speaking to a lunatic.

10 March
All morning bonking (screen type), humping, exhausting. Life definitely not
mirroring art – if anybody had sex in that position they would break their
wrists second time out.

12 March
Hangover.
3pm Motorbike lesson. 20 minutes to discover clutch control on
something that reminds me of a big dangerous horse.

13 March
7.40 pick-up. And off to the docks. A wonderful stormy day is perfect for
the scene. Life only gets difficult when it’s a question of the double not
being a double. My attempt to save the day meant skidding off the
motorbike and a swollen knee. Later face down twice in the water – freezing
and, strangely enough, very wet. Plus much running & intenseness means
writing this at 9.30pm and tired through to the bones.
Later – the back pains, the knee pain, the sneezing . . .

15 March
Back to the docks to face a new devil – that fucking motorbike. It has a
brain or certainly a will. It got fed up with my increasing confidence and
started to rev itself with a higher gear completely unaided. But it’s like a
horse that wants to go.
4.45 Flight to London. Roger comes by with Mesmer tape. I watch on fast
forward for an hour. We go for dinner to L’Accento. What was I eating? I
was concentrating only on trying to explain myself. But this is a brick shit-
house wall.

17 March
9.30 Goldcrest [Studios].
Work the afternoon on an even keel and then an explosion as the end of
the film descends towards Mills and Boon.
Finish at 6.45 and go to the Riverside for 3 Lives of Lucie Cabrol.

18 March
11am Marcia Firesten and Allan Corduner’s wedding.
I managed not to laugh, mainly because it made me very reflective. Thank
goodness religion didn’t come into it, because that would have made me v.
uneasy.
 Back to Allan’s for some champagne – I think he’s almost believing it all –
or enjoying the dress up, maybe.

20 March
Dublin.
The day passes in the trailer. ‘Oh well that’s filming’ is said all day. Called
at 10.15am. Not used. Released at 9pm. Not enough to read. Trying not to
overeat – all trousers are currently too tight. On a trip back from the food
van with another black coffee there’s Alan Devlin14 coming towards me.
Alun Armstrong joins us. 3 Alans. Devlin fights a constant battle with the
bottle. Wonderful aggressive wit, vulnerability pouring from his eyes. ‘Look
at you two! Wearing dodgy coats and you’re winning.’
Dinner later at the Trocadero with Roger. Easy & warm. What’s the point
of arguing? Should have asked to see all the cut material.

22 March
All day in the Gaiety Theatre bar which is pretending to be a Xmas party
venue. Balloons, streamers, turkey dinners, heat, dancing, playbacks, mimed
fun. A good intimate chatty atmosphere as actors got to know each other,
sitting ironically enough in the seats of the dress circle. Only our profession
would put itself so mercilessly under the public microscope.
9.30 Watching the Oscars . . . Funny and serious by turn. We are our own
worst enemies when we take ourselves that seriously. But then the world
wants to film it. Apes picking fleas from each other.

25 March
Captain Hook day. As I said to Mike Newell, there are 3 people operating
here – me, Captain Hook & O’Hara all with different centres and mine (the
one pulling the other two’s strings) is definitely the shakiest. So, haltingly we
move towards something that looks vaguely confident. Amazing to feel the
‘audience’s’ confidence grow with you.

27 March
. . . to work or to hang around for 5 hours is the question. Sometimes the
silence of producers goes beyond bad manners and enters the realm of
cowardice. Finishing a compromised scene at 10pm and being called at
7.15am should not go unremarked. Irritations fade by going to La Stampa.
Bob Geldof is there who is all the things one thought – impassioned,
articulate, attractive and (as you start thinking what could you be .  .  .?)
wasted.

29 March
The BBC films all day. Beryl Bainbridge arrives. Caught napping with her.
Competition has seriously reared its ugly little head. The character [of
Captain Hook] distances me somewhat, but oh boy some of these young
actors only have ambition to fall back on. A spiky, unsprung cushion.
pm Rima arrives and a big lump of me settles. Thank God we laugh
together. She’s here in time to see Patti Love15 fly on as Peter Pan.
Unmissable.

31 March
Captain Hooking all afternoon and into the evening. It’s a bit like bursting a
balloon. Finally at 9.30 → Gate Theatre for second half of The Seagull –
directing at its dangerous worst – good and wonderful actors floating,
floating in nowhere land  .  .  .  Patti, Rima & I end up drinking tea at the
hotel & discussing The Diva [Georgina Cates].

1 April
The bug bites – a sore throat to win prizes.
Time to hang around in dressing gowns with room service.
Or sit in a corner in the lounge with some tea & chicken sandwiches.
Or watch TV and answer mail.
Or have dinner in the downstairs restaurant – ‘as a concession we are
allowing 2 guests to share ½ bottle of wine’ – Good Friday in Dublin.
The Diva bounds in – she’s ‘gone with Judy’ . . .16

6 April
The alarm earns its keep at 5.30am and Rima’s off to London. An hour or so
of fitfulness and get in the taxi for Cork Airport and Dublin  .  .  .  To the
hotel. To coffee with Conor McDermottroe.17 To buy some Irish music
tapes. To the Olympia. Hello to Prunella Scales – detailed, complicated
actress and the person is slow to reveal herself, too. Like persuading some
petals to open a bit more. There is a great deal of self-containment on this
set. Ms Scales, Mike N., The Diva, me . . .

7 April
Well here was a strange day – when a growing mood becomes a dangerous
corner. Do the reverse shot with Prunella – walking into a close up flirts
with awful self-consciousness.

8 April
My shot of the day. Walk up a few steps. Stop. Turn. Look. Look away. The
simplest tasks can make you feel like an unoiled robot.

16 April
Some more [motor]bike-riding.
4.30 Tea at the Shelbourne with Carolyn Choa18 and, eventually,
Anthony Minghella. Talk of Wisdom of Crocodiles, and 4W19 which is now
No 1 in the States . . .
Later, Fiona Shaw and Denis and the 3 of us go to Café en Seine (Cafe
Insane as Denis calls it). Very good time had by all. Fiona thinks I’m mad not
to do the Rudkin film. Heigh ho. To the set . . . Everyone’s in a nearby pub
getting plastered. Dick Pope [cinematographer] is getting furious at the
wasting of his time and talents.

17 April
On standby all day. Which means room service, packing, wrapping gifts until
5pm → to the set for the unit photograph. Slightly joyless occasion. There’s
a feeling of frustration now. Too much good work, too little time – scenes
are having to be lost or curtailed. Goodbye to some of the actors – there are
people who inspire articulacy, wit, humour, warmth. There are people who
freeze all those qualities in the mind pyre.

18 April
On standby till 1pm. Buy some brandy for Tony Hopkins. NB My driver is
not Sir A. Baggot Street is not so far away . . . why have I not wandered up
and down it before? Lunch on the set. A last-dayish atmosphere. Quiet and
caring. Bang my head against some rubber and then to the Aquarium.
Freezing water; a frogman; grabbing my ankles; eyes open; blood on the
forehead; staring. It takes a while.
9pm Olivier Awards. How far away it all seems. On to Trocadero – silly
ideas are shall we say not tolerated.
Diva Junior is in the hotel bar with her aunt. She’s chatty but with
pointed eyes.
On to Trocadero . . . There with Joan Bergin [costume designer], Fifi and
Conor. I think we eventually had a real conversation but Fi is not about to
accept any criticism – maybe she’s right, but can any of us be that sure?

19 April
10.45 → flight to London.
An overall ache is developing, not emotional, just a reaction to the
Aquarium dunking.

20 April
The photos from Diana for Dennis Potter arrive.
In amongst the customary evasion of focus, I went to see Judy Daish
[agent] for her to deliver the pictures. She talks of Potter, he’s finished his
current work, is very weak. I would like to be proud of my connection with
him – I can only hope that his strengths and darkness comes through
subliminally. Maybe when the music is there. I wrote thank you for giving
me more than a ‘faint sense of perfection’.

22 April
8 Ruby’s birthday party.
She arrives so happily amidst apparent chaos with Ed’s perfectly balanced
calm at her side. The children are opening up – is it just because they feel
more secure? Jennifer Saunders, Ade Edmondson, Zoë Wanamaker, Joanna
Lumley, Suzanne Bertish,20 Tira, Henrietta, John Sessions. And the
inevitable late night row . . .
24 April
12.30 To Ruby’s for bagels and smoked salmon. Many children underfoot, in
arms and on shoulders. Or playing Nintendo games – mere oblivion!
Carrie Fisher is there, funny and fast. Steve asks Jennifer S. what she does.
Ruby doesn’t know what to wear for the BAFTA awards tonight. Something
that works in a close-up, I suggest.

25 April
2.30 Picasso.
Mind-blowing exhibition. Fiona Shaw & I wander around ashamed of our
little lives and minute aspirations. It’s like Picasso was permanently plugged in
and the socket switched on. Endless invention, humanity, passion. On the
page those are just words – in the exhibition rooms they are all tangible.

27 April
7am Watching South Africa put up new flags and crawl over the trip wires
and out of the tunnel.
1pm To RADA for the first programme of the evening. Young actors trot
through their paces for an assortment of people with paper and biros. Tick,
cross, tick. Back in the building after 20 years. How can it have been that
long? . . . The Vanbrugh, hideously altered, now presents a cliff-face to the
action where once was a theatre. Maybe my role as council member will be
more reactionary than I thought.

28 April
Have been asked to do Mamet’s new play The Cryptogram. Have said no. The
part seems wrong. Suggest Eddie Izzard. This meets with general approval.
But he will need persuading – talk to him & suggest reading the play
together. He says OK. I feel like a producer – it’s a good feeling.
4pm Stephen Poliakoff comes over to discuss the screenplay. With himself.
I know my place. Sit quietly and wait for the odd space, jagged though it
may be, to present itself. He has a new scene in mind to hook me back in.

29 April
4pm Peter Barnes21 and Dilys Laye22 come by. Peter’s wife Charlotte died on
Wednesday. She had a unique spirit – electric, shining, fiercely protective. In
the end it fought itself in schizophrenia. Peter says she willed herself to die.
Peter is clearly shaken by it all. I’m reminded to value all the strong
friendships in my life.
6 Amanda [Ooms] comes by to look at the Greg Gorman pictures. She, of
course, is so beautiful in all of them that she can afford to just glance.

30 April
12ish → Abbey Road to hear some of Michael Nyman’s score for Mesmer.
Roger & Wieland there. No one introduces anyone  .  .  .  but the music
sounds like a motor, an engine.
1.30 Lindsay & Hilton’s to read The Cryptogram with Eddie Izzard. Bob
Crowley [theatre designer] there too.
10.30 Abbey Road. Watch Eurovision with Nyman. The juxtaposition is
very enjoyable. I should have put money on the Irish song23 a month ago.

1 May
Call Mum and a Feydeau [farce] is commenced with taxis. Eventually she
gets here and we spend a peaceful afternoon as she does crosswords, fills in
competition forms, watches TV. She’s looking very good and makes her own
amusement in such an easy, self-contained way. I brood with equal ease.
Rima gets back from canvassing. I make some supper. Mum tells stories of
her children and shows photos.

3 May
Talk to Liz. She saw Mesmer in Paris with James Ivory & the actor [Daniel
Mesguich] who is to play Mesmer in his movie.24 I am genuinely shocked at
another lack of courtesy.

4 May
Lindsay calls and Eddie Izzard got the job!! I feel a real sense of achievement.
Now keep all fingers crossed for the next few weeks.
5 May
Local elections. St Mary’s School; bright-eyed & bushy tailed.
12.30 for 1pm → The Ivy for lunch held by the Evening Standard for Peter
Brook. Very starry: left to right, me, Michael Owen, Felicity Kendall, Peter
Ustinov, Editor [Stewart Steven], Mrs Steven, Tom Stoppard, Deborah
Warner, Oliver Sacks, one of his patients, Vanessa Redgrave, Sir John
Gielgud, Peter Brook, Trevor Nunn, Fiona Shaw. Ustinov effortlessly funny
– stories he remembers in gruesome detail of watching Tonight We Improvise.

6 May
The British electorate today announce their dissatisfaction with the Tory
Party for they vote for someone else. The days of voting FOR anything long
gone. Labour now basically in charge of the country’s councils as the
government staggers about.

7 May
3.30 Royal Court with Rima & Pauline Moran25 for Howard Barker’s Hotel
Nightfall. Totally impenetrable as far as I was concerned but (of course) not
boring and heavy with irony. Why do I not know what was going on? Am I
getting stupider?

9 May
Dreaming vividly again. Pure sex. No weirdness, just unadulterated. Should
be a video.
9pm Watching Mandela walk into Parliament!

10 May
South Africa has a Black president and is a free country. It was like watching
a film.
6pm A drink with Greg Mosher [theatre director] and Eddie Izzard. Eddie
seems to be glowing with the challenge.

11 May
5 Home, change for Labour Party European Gala Dinner. John Smith,
Robin Cook, Tony Blair all say hello, pass Barbara Castle on the stairs. ‘If I
win the raffle, let me know.’ I did win a prize at the raffle. 2 books. Many an
encounter, many a speech. The whole thing seemed pleasant and
perfunctory. Gordon Brown looking sooo bored. John Prescott bid £3,500
for some Orwell first editions. Any mention of Neil gets huge applause.
(Glenys’ mum had died during the evening.) Smith’s speech the best I’ve
heard him make. Ben Elton fast and funny.

12 May
John Smith is dead. Last night I spoke with him. He talked of feelings of the
impossibility of taking on the leadership of a country but then he sees (as I
did) Mandela and thinks his own problems or insecurities are minute. His
speech was excellent. We all know how he would have been a great leader.
Looking along the platform and amongst the audience at the complexities of
Beckett, Prescott, Brown, Blair all I see now is his clarity, intelligence &
warmth.

13 May
It occurs to me watching breakfast TV and most tributes, prophecies and
analyses that the sense of ‘What is John Smith doing?’ was very much
connected with the British media’s love affair with negativity. The more
John Major screws up the more the banner headlines scream. John Smith’s
competence and humour and quiet strength didn’t sell newspapers until they
became his epitaph.
Tea with Ruby. Or rather ‘would you read these scripts?’

14 May
Reading scripts. More No’s.
Phone calls.
Answering mail. And still the requests for money pile up. People don’t
know what else to do now.
To the dry cleaners in the rain.
Watching the cup final.
Reading.
 Making supper.
Watching TV. Roger calls back. He’s finished the film. Doesn’t know
about the screening in Paris. Is, understandably, pissed off. And now what?
with this saga.

19 May
3.30 Stephen Poliakoff. Hard to be objective with a terrier’s teeth sunk into
your trouser leg.

20 May
Watching John Smith’s funeral on TV, as I get ready to be photographed –
this life stuffed with weird juxtapositions. The solemn and the frivolous.
Maybe it infected my mood because Andreas Neubauer, the photographer,
had to wait quite a while to get anything alive. He’d worked hard, too. The
hotel was a good location – orange bedspread and poppy wallpaper and
various Ortonesque corridors.
2.30 To Tower Bridge and Wharfland. Peeling doors, rusting railings –
even a dead rat in one spot. Gradually I could feel my face muscles yield and
I think towards the end of a long day he got some photographs.

21 May
12.30 Flight to Paris. Straight out to find Irié’s shop. Rima chooses clothes
and I. is there, too. Charming and shy as ever. Fortunately, given the armful
of items, he also comes armed with a discount.
Then some Paris wandering. Shoe shops, coffee bars – chairs pointing
outwards at the world – it is a city where you need never be embarrassed by
being alone in a café.

22 May
Breakfast – always more fun in hotels  .  .  .  Watch Margaret Beckett being
very impressive on the Frost show. Rima thinks she shouldn’t be dumped as
Deputy.

23 May
1pm The French House dining room – lunch with Terry Hands.26 I used to
find him so alarming – for his part he describes my big failing while at the
RSC as due to my ‘diffidence, lack of anger’ – there’s a connection there
somewhere  .  .  .  Whatever I may think of some of his past work – visual
ornateness, too much leather – he loves actors and understands them.

24 May
8pm Dinner with Ruby, Shere Hite and Kirsty Lang27 at the Neal Street
Restaurant. Incredibly snotty receptionist and over-attentive staff. Very good
food. Great conversation – Europe, Feminism, the names of SH’s brothel
(Hite Site – mine; SH Gives Blow Jobs Here – Ruby’s).

30 May
8 To the Thai restaurant with Dexter28 and Dalia. I must try not to be
sucked into other people’s problems when all it does is drain my energy.

1 June
11am Dexter F. comes by to collect money for mortgage. We organise it via
telegraphic transfer – this, however, is England so it’s not possible without
encountering Mr and Mrs Jobsworth at occasional turns.
Sharman Macd.29 and Robin Don [theatre designer] come by & we go to
192 to talk of Winter Guest and its possible mounting at the Tramway in
Glasgow. Must avoid the temptation to talk this play into the ground – it’s a
fragile, enigmatic creature.

2 June
11ish Ruby comes by.
1pm Dentist. When was bleach this expensive? Not to say stinging. Or I
was stung.
7.30 Happy Days [by Samuel Beckett] at the French Institute.
Angela Pleasence30 & Peter Bayliss. She’s had a rough ride with Simone
Benmussa31 but whatever the rights and wrongs you cannot have a situation
where an actress this talented is so scared that she is this inaudible. Afterwards
Pasta Restaurant SW7 we talk of it all. She’ll pitch it up tomorrow.
Otherwise who are we doing it for? What a great play, though.

3 June
The poetry of ordinary speech – Justin Webb interviewing two WW2 (June
6 is D-Day 50 years) veterans on Breakfast News asks them ‘Is it always with
you, can you ever put it out of your mind?’ Ernest says it’s hard when you go
to cemeteries with all your mates around you. Ron says ‘I like it in the
graveyards. I want to go to where my best mate is buried. He was killed
right in front of me. He turned to me and said “What a day, Blanco!” Bang.
Gone. Just like that.’

6 June
8ish To Ruby – we cook some pasta. She gives me her point of view or not
– which basically is that I procrastinate to an awesome degree – true but not
as negatively as she suggests. She who casts out people weaker than she. I
know what she means but can she be right (to live like that)?

7 June
Write to Brian Friel – say no to his play.
pm – in the local hardware shop looking for spray for black fly when I
hear the radio announcement of Dennis Potter’s death. I assume he might
have approved of the juxtaposition.

9 June
7.30 A Month in the Country Helen Mirren a beacon amidst the fog. So
unselfish, so unaffected by the quicksand she is standing in.

12 June
A peaceful, sunny quiet day. Rima marking exams in the garden. Me
pottering about.
Eventually reading scripts of Persuasion and Madness of George. Both no.
Eventually watch the Euro Election results. Labour pulling seats now. The
ironic sight of Glenys K. winning her seat with Neil on her arm. 15 years of
telling people it’s OK to be selfish shites. Now a little common sense is
winnowing upwards as we realise it’s no way to live a life, but meanwhile
Glenys & Neil are in the wake. I ought to feel jubilant. I feel resentful.

14 June
Phone call from Roger Sp. in LA. The Mesmer saga runs and runs. Clearly
Mayfair are philistines – the Louis & Maria A. scene is to their minds
‘disgusting’. Where’s the love story? Did they not notice the name Dennis
Potter on the script?

15 June
→ to 192 for some lunch and to send flowers to Juliet who’s had a girl after
days in labour – 9lbs of agony.

20 June
Desultory days.
Some phone calls arranging future plans.
Listening to the answering machine and not picking up.
The first day of Wimbledon.
Eventually – not going to the Red Fort (Indian restaurant). Feeling
somewhat used.
A day like this is no way to live one’s life but may be necessary breathing
space, an opportunity to create some focus.

25 June
From the nasty little man in the tailor’s – ‘This is rather difficult why do you
buy jackets like this if they are impossible to alter – please could you stand
over there, no not there you are in my light – would you like to do the
alteration?’ Answer – no, but (gathering everything up) I’ll ask someone else.
Thank you.

29 June
If a day can be schizophrenic then this was it. Margaret32 rings to say Mum is
being taken into hospital. It is like suddenly finding yourself in the freezer.
And then practicality kicks in. A few phone calls, taxi to the house. Taxi to
Hammersmith Hospital. Michael is in the waiting room of Casualty. Mum in
a cubicle with an oxygen mask. Breathing is hard but otherwise OK. A lot of
questions, a lot of waiting. The woman in the cubicle opposite in response
to her daughter’s ‘Can I get you anything, Mum?’ says ‘A dose of poison.’
Good old emotional blackmail lives on. Eventually to the ward. Nurses
incredibly caring and gentle. More questions. Yes she looks after herself. Yes
she gets her own meals. A piece of toast for breakfast, a ham sandwich for
lunch, yes a cooked meal in the evening, maybe chicken and chips. All
pretty levelling. So appropriate that I leave to go to a First Night. The
Cryptogram . . . Afterwards we escape the crush and go to Orso.

1 July
1pm Orso lunch for Thelma CBE. Thelma’s diary would be compulsive
reading. ‘Going to the theatre with Gore Vidal. After 10 mins he wanted to
leave. I said, “You can’t leave you’re famous and everyone will notice.” “Oh,”
he said. In the interval I said, “Look everyone’s staring at you,” they weren’t
of course, but he stood there nodding and smiling . . .’
To the hospital where my mother’s stories are echoing up the ward as I
arrive . . .

2 July
Decide against the 1pm matinée of Millennium Approaches33 in favour of
watching Martina Navratilova. I should have known. She lost. I’d like to
meet her – in the interview afterwards she talks of finding out what she may
do as a ‘productive human being’. She’s not just a serve and volley person.

3 July
Yesterday’s whim is now fact. 7am Marcy Kahan [playwright] arrives. 7.15
the taxi and off for the 8.30 flight to Paris.
Lunch at La Closerie des Lilas w. Susanna S., Isabelle DuBar & Laurent.
Really wonderful – duck with lime & figs. Pinch some of Rima’s lamb –
also worth flying over for.
And on to L’Odeon for the 3pm performance of Orlando with Isabelle
Huppert directed by Robert Wilson.34 Truly one of the most extraordinary
acting feats I’ve ever seen – freedom of spirit and technical mastery in
complete harmony.
 In the dressing room after Isabelle as open, charming, clear-sighted &
unsentimental as ever.
A slightly dazed wander in Luxembourg Gardens afterwards, a coffee,
citron pressé, ice cream. Airport. Fly home.

4 July
1.30 Car picks me up to take me to Beaconsfield. National Film School.
Watch Hudsucker Proxy. Coen Bros’ supposed homage to It’s a Wonderful Life,
His Girl Friday etc. In the end, it’s a sluggish & directionless pastiche – Tim
Robbins warm and friendly at the centre, Jennifer Jason Leigh being brilliant
and cold on the outskirts. Talk of this and much else with a roomful of
screenwriting course applicants afterwards. It’s an exercise in keeping on the
subject, not letting it be ‘And what do you eat for breakfast?’ Mostly it
succeeds but on leaving one of them asks me how he can get a script to
Bruce Willis.

6 July
3pm RADA – 30-odd students about to step out of the womb. Can’t think
too much about being in Room 14 with boot firmly on the other foot.
Everything in their faces from open and charmed to reluctant and sceptical.
Somehow, as always, we get on to politics. And Hollywood. And the theatre.
I liked them on the whole, and shaped a few thoughts that were previously
v. muddled.

7 July
9.30 To Belinda and Hugh for their Northumberland Place street party.
England at its weirdest. Bring your table out into the street and have a dinner
party with dozens of others but don’t introduce anyone.

9 July
8pm (After finding gifts at Waterstone’s) Glenys Kinnock’s birthday party at
the Viceroy of India – great as I’m starving. Dancing Indian girls. Around
and about – Ian McKellen, Michael Foot, Folletts K. & B.,35 Harriet
Harman, Gordon Brown etc., etc. At one point I saw Michael Foot with his
stick walking past the very uptight Tony Blair in a beige suit. Labour Party
bookends.

14 July
Taxi to RADA for 2.30 council meeting. First one – Lord A.36 is chairman.
I sit between Sir Anthony H. & Sylvia Syms.
Move on to the 4.30 AGM – a nightmare with the American witch
woman – who is she? – her first associates meeting but she dictates, bosses
and just plain talks. People bail out. At the end I go with Paul to look at the
props room. Impressive man & organisation. On the way out I encounter the
Stepford wife. A hideous scene on the pavement. She invokes the spirit of
Thatcher, Reagan, Churchill. So why bother? Why get angry? What can
you say to ‘Students should pay their own way – Communism is dead etc.,
etc’. It finishes with her saying ‘Grow up’ & me saying ‘Wake up’ as she
misses a taxi. Ha ha ha.

15 July
7–7.30 To the hospitality room at the BBC & then to the gallery for Ruby’s
taping.
Some inspired madness between her and Tony Slattery and some of the
old less welcome bullying [of] your guest.
To the Patio for supper – tiredness and too much bad wine must have
meant I was talking total gibberish to the ever-patient Peter Richardson.37

16 July
← and also means waking up with a hangover – still dizzy, keep the head
facing forward . . .

17 July
The World Cup final looks all wrong from the beginning – the stands in the
Pasadena Rose Bowl are not high enough for drama, we are reminded of a
game in the park. It all comes down to a penalty shootout so the drama
makes a comeback but how to live with it if it was you who missed?38

20 July
Sometimes phone calls should be taped – speaking to Bettina Jonic39 this
morning, in 45 minutes a whistlestop tour of Helen Weigel,40 Lotte Lenya41
(Weigel stopped the first performance of Happy Days by reading a treatise
instead of singing), Samuel Beckett, separate rooms, then separate entrances
for Suzanne his wife but she it was who banged on doors with Godot.
Ionescu talking of slicing his wife up to be sure she died before him (she’s
still alive).
These are stories to listen to on hot, desultory days which are otherwise
filled with picking up registered mail (photographs by Andreas Neubauer – I
remember this session, who is this person?) being home for Gerry the
plumber to fix the water pressure, eating too many sweet things.

21 July
The life mind and times of a Piscean. While half of me is saying – no, don’t
go, it’s a mistake, the other half is ironing the shirt and ordering a taxi. To
Museum of the Moving Image for the Cinema 100 launch and a line-up for
Prince Charles. Juliet, Jeremy Irons, Richard E. Grant, Joan Plowright, Rita
Tushingham, Dickie A., Sir John Mills. Chit chat and mineral water
beforehand. Then Charles arrives – does the semi circle with, incredibly,
something relevant to say to everyone; a cinema show & speeches, then
lunch and talk with A. Yentob & Colin McCabe.42 David Puttnam comes
from the ‘coronation’ of Tony Blair and tells me my name is down to speak
at a debate at the party conference.
To the hospital to steer Mum to some safe harbour. Ruby arrives and
makes everyone laugh; we go to the River Cafe with Ed, Alan Wanzenberg
[old friend of Ruby’s] & Jed [his partner]. And suddenly from nowhere there
is Irène Jacob. With Rufus Sewell. And a movie team. Much laughing from
our table – Ruby’s stories never fail. Talk to Judy Hoflund later – she’s
pregnant. ‘Don’t worry – I was back at work after 10 days last time.’
Worry? Me?? Today has been stuffed with after images. Jeremy’s doing Die
Hard 3. Irène didn’t do Mesmer. Richard E. did do Jack & Sarah. Rufus is
doing Carrington.

1 August
A morning of sudden, ferocious energy. Watching myself make things
happen. In a few phone calls appointments with architects, tickets at the
National, wheelchairs ordered and delivered and finally a trip to
Glyndebourne is arranged – for today – get ready in an hour & a half and
get to Victoria Station (in black tie).
Meet Fiona & Deborah – one of the major terrible twos in the art world.
Hildegard joins and we’re on the train to Glyndebourne. When you get
there – there it all is – a bit of little Olde England still determinedly putting
out its collapsible chairs, sandwiches, champagne (one guy all alone with his
Fortnum hamper, another group with a fucking flower arrangement). I kept
thinking ‘someone with a machine gun will appear any minute’. The cows
ambled around trying different groups.
Don Giovanni – of course full of wonderful challenging ideas but the
singers so far from fulfilling those ideas as actors that I worry for Deborah’s
non-ability to self-criticise. And Fiona’s. And probably mine if caught in a
situation like this. Some of it was just embarrassing – the chorus doing the
Twist in clothes from La Dolce Vita.
Chase home. Speed bath.

10 August
4 hours’ sleep before the 7.45 pick-up drive to Heathrow and the 10.10
flight to Pisa → train to Pisa Central → train to Grosseto. Beautiful walled
town, public holiday, everything’s shut, walk around the shuttered windows,
snooze at the hotel, go out for some dinner (if anything’s open) find the
obviously annual relay race around the old town going on (the blue team
won), the whole town watching, families everywhere, little children running
around or sitting on laps in cafés (even at midnight) totally included. A
practised sixth sense leads us to the big open-air pizzeria, red wine, salad,
coffee, perfect.
Family of four at one table – Mama blowing on forkful of pizza before
putting it in younger daughter’s mouth. All around tables of 6, 8, 10 people
– no muzak, just chatter. And a clean white tablecloth for every new set of
customers.

11 August
Breakfast in the room before wandering to Café Canducci to meet Dalia
who runs up looking tanned and wearing a straw hat. We go find Harriet
Cruickshank [film producer] & Duncan MacAskill [artist] and take a rip off
taxi ride to Talamone (by sea) for beer and lunch. Taxi back, get out before
Polizei spot that 5 of us are on board. Back to hotel for snooze, Dalia to take
shower and arrange 7pm pick-up to go to Castiglione. The taxi driver has a
friend with a boat and there the magic begins . . .
We sail right into the sunset towards Elba. As the sun disappeared –
throwing the rocks and tower into the blackest against pinkest relief – the
crescent moon sharpened and a flock of birds seemed suddenly released to
say hello. We thudded back to the Darsena Ristorante for wondrous fish,
salad, salmon carpaccio, french fries, lemon sorbet, espresso, local wine. An
extraordinary evening is completed with 100mph dash back with Giofreddo
the cab driver and dancing in the square. Old, young, blondes, bald heads all
smiling and moving to the music at midnight. Very, very special hours.

12 August
11.45 – Bus to Siena. Peaceful, empty air-conditioned motorway trip
through postcard Tuscany to this glorious town. The first view of Piazza del
Campo vies with Piazza Navona or rounding the bay to Sydney Harbour. Sit
under brown umbrellas as the sand for the horses blows about – crostini,
spaghetti pomodoro, salad, happiness . . . Total harmony of window against
brick, roof against wall, doorway against bleachers (there for the horse races
– July 2, August 16; one can only imagine the pulse rates). Climb the tower
of the town hall – dizzy-making in every respect. On to the Duomo – like
being in a vast Licorice Allsort – and San Domenico, rush, rush for the bus
which is 25 mins late but never mind because the drive home is everything
Van Gogh waded through. Breathtaking is a word that gets slung about, but
here it’s apt. And in the middle of it all people just go about their lives in the
most direct uncomplicated way, it seems. And talking, talking, talking.

14 August
To Saul Zaentz43 and Annette [his wife] for lunch with them, Anthony M.,
Barbara, Carolyn, Max [the Minghellas’ son], Michael Ondaatje, Judy Daish,
Angy, Dalia, Maria B.44 More idyll, more food, more swimming, much
laughter. Saul & Angy real wits. We all set out for Batignano and Don
Giovanni. Dexter is there with Steve & little Jack (after we have failed to get
into the local restaurant). We all sit under the stars . . . We’ve had the tour of
the convent – now we’re sitting in the audience. This production is of course
so different from Glyndebourne – the name Maria Bjornson would tell you
that – but really rich and enjoyable in its own way. Sue Blane [costume
designer] was there (and Leon Brittan .  .  .). It was all another neon-lit
element in a great week. Holidays . . . Saul and Annette drive us back to the
Bastiani at 1.30am. Tired but happy but full of English Patient thoughts.
Timing, timing. ‘Night and day, I slave away . . .’

16 August
Get up and out by 9am and down to Grosseto Station to discover that the
9.35 to Pisa is actually 9.25. Maria Bjornson & Rachel at another ticket
window so we wander back to Café Carducci. Maria talks of disillusion,
maybe temporarily relieved by working with Dalia, and for once being
included in the process. The old story . . .
Some meandering – buy a teapot from a great old shop in a side street and
eventually get back to the station for the 12.38. Dalia’s there with armfuls of
luggage I had vowed to have nothing to do with. Stagger on to the train,
stagger off at Pisa, leave it all in left luggage, go look at
Tower/Duomo/Baptistry. Pisa is a very haphazard, resentful sort of place.
Any old fencing will do, very ordinary food, lots of horrible souvenirs. The
inside of the cathedral however is staggering (word du jour). How many
gobsmacking churches are there? Pisa Airport → London → a pile of mail.

19 August
4pm Catherine [Bailey] and Rosie come to talk about the Mesmer
documentary which I just watched. It’s good, but at the moment one scene
has to be removed to save my blushes and other people’s feelings. Never say
this is off the record, someone will use it anyway. The film needs more facts
and a more definite point of view.

20 August
Sometimes the sensation of being a personal launderette service – friendship
must not become a space for indulgence. Listening to casting problems,
rehearsal problems, photograph problems. There is a point at which they
walk away stronger and you are exhausted. This cannot be right . . .

21 August
→ to the Odeon Kensington. Long queue. Rescued by Alice Pollock45 and
we’re in to see The Last Seduction – great reviews, Linda Fiorentino, etc., etc.
Bodes well. But a deeply cynical, joyless, diminishing piece of work and we
decide to leave. An espresso is more rewarding.

25 August
To Toronto 1pm.
What with packing, telephone calls (including one with the carbonated
Hilary Heath . . .46), I managed to leave jackets and trousers behind. Now,
either some nimble use of jeans and T shirts is required or the even nimbler
use of the Amex card.

28 August
Montreal.
11 First screening of Mesmer. A full house in the Imperial – a beautiful
theatre – tiered and red-plushed. Speaking in French turns out to be less
alarming than the prospect was.
Then a day of interviews begins and with it the battle to be honest,
informative, but guarded . . .
9.30 Second screening of Mesmer .  .  . Watch some of it from the circle.
Immediately depressing sense of what it could have been.

29 August
A wander to the Musée des Beaux Arts – Lichtenstein and de Lempicka –
it’s Monday, the museum is closed. As a comfort sweet, I toy with the idea of
spending $1200 on a jacket. The temptation is resisted. I really haven’t seen
Montreal on this trip and anyway junkets tend to dull your curiosity – you
might get excited and the guard would drop and that would never do.
 Mesmer has been received extraordinarily well. Seconds out. Round 2.
5.30 Montreal airport. Charles Dance there – a genuinely nice man.

1 September
One of these really lousy days when you think ‘what have I done?’
Today also brings an invitation to appear on Question Time. The very
definition of ‘you must be joking’ . . .

4 September
Sweeping up leaves is good therapy for almost everything. Dalia calls – she
comes over to supper. Duck, roast potatoes. One forgets that one duck just
about feeds two people.

5 September
8pm Elizabeth & Alessandro Lunardi47 come over and when Rima
(eventually) gets back from the town hall we go to the Ivy. A fine feast. Talk
of Italy and Italians. Walk on Waterloo Bridge. Home.

6 September
Early morning letter-writing as a result of a 5am wake-up as a result of
brooding over builders’ bills, tax, etc., etc. (Oh for a Tuscan farmhouse, a
glass of wine and a piece of cheese.)
The phone rings and Andras [co-producer on Mesmer] brings news of a
Best Actor Award from Montreal. This is heart-warming as it makes Mayfair
look more and more, shall we say, misguided.
Il Gallo D’Oro lunch with Hilary Heath – still a girl really, with a big
heart and conversation like a jack-knife.
Later to 12 Upper A.48 More details with Peter [Mishcon, architect] &
Brian D. [builder]. Now we have to slow these spiralling thousands.

7 September
The walls we are surrounded by – the objects we fill the spaces with – the
lives they all describe.
 Taking my mother from a house stuffed with collected bits of furniture,
pieces of paper, magazines, old biros neatly lined up with emery boards and
a teaspoon – off to Chartwell House; purpose built for the elderly genteel.
It’s all on one level and the staff are terrific. It keeps me reassured and guilty
– a rare combination. We’ll see.
12 Upper Addison is another phenomenon. Vast sums being spent on
fastidious details – a millimetre here, a maple strip there.
My own home (it’s Wednesday and Janet has been) looks like a film set.
Abandoned for the night. Waiting for a story. And then a letter from Rima’s
dad, living in a home. Calling it an asylum – being caught naked on the
lavatory. Lights out at 9pm.

8 September
Most of the day spent at Chartwell House. My life is in such clear-cut
strands at the moment. Career, Architect, Subsidence, Other People’s
Careers, Relationships. Seemingly in that order. Today was almost
exclusively about my mother. Just spending time in this new environment,
calling the doctor, testing her hearing, wrapping her up and taking her and
her wheelchair for a walk to get the prescription, looking on helplessly at
today’s pain and her fury at it. I don’t know what I become under these
circumstances – a kind of amorphous bundle of past and present. I have to
kick myself towards the phone to attend to some of the other members of
the above list. The strands. Later Eileen [A.R.’s cousin] and boyfriend and 2
daughters come by. Some of my childhood, cousins, aunts & uncles, swim
before me. Then Rima arrives and reduces me to silence for the rest of the
evening. Is this control, depression or exhaustion?

9 September
10.30 De Lane Lea [Studios] (in not the best mental state) for a screening of
Awfully Big Adventure. Just Mike Newell, the sound engineer and me. It’s a
mosaic, or an attic of a movie. Jumbled and intense, full of dark corners and
sudden hilarious surprises. God knows what America will make of it – or if
they will know how to watch it. You can’t be passive – the audience has to
work a bit. Maybe its kaleidoscopic quality is a little too hard to watch and it
could linger a little more often. At all events it has a bundle of good
performances – I can’t tell about Hugh [Grant], Georgina or me. Too much
sense of competition, or the memory still hangs in the air. But Ms Cates
suffers from only functioning from her sense of the story. She listens to
nothing, responds to nothing. She’s a butterfly inside her own glass case,
watching herself bat around.
A car to Heathrow and then, appropriately enough, to Dublin. Conor’s at
the Davenport Hotel. We eat something, then I bump into Shelagh
Stephenson49 – a Guinness at Davy B’s50 then to the Peacock for Asylum
Asylum by David O’Kerry – really good writing, direction, acting.

10 September
Sleep late then go into town to meet Conor . . . Background information
from last night’s play fills out the whole experience. The neurotic actor, the
mean actor, the actress who always goes straight home.
To the airport – bliss, I’m in the back seat and can spread across three
seats. Taxi to Chartwell House, find Rima and Mum. Home to get ready for
Lady Windermere’s Fan. Me, Rima, and Belinda and along the row Raine
Spencer51. All I could think about was poor sod in the seat behind all that
hair.

12 September
3.30 to 12UA. Something sheepish in the air – as well there might be when
I finally discover where the bill is going, that is into the stratosphere.

13 September
Take Mum home from Chartwell House, leaving her to think about all the
options.
Home to find Gilly working in the garden  .  .  .  we won a Residents’
Association award for the front garden . . .
Marcia arrives. Rima arrives. We go to the Lyric Hammersmith to The
Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s Neil Bartlett’s first show of his tenure and we speak
at the top of a flight of steps, so I’m all in favour, wishing it well and all that
but try as I might, it either stays resolutely on the stage or flies straight over
my head. No contact is made.
21 September
Andreas comes over. My function is to listen, challenge and supply possible
leads as to an escape from his current hell. So easy to slip into bullshit when
talking to someone who is bereaved. The English are well-trained. Years
of . . . rehearsing platitudes. At least we talked about Briny and about how
he was feeling – and laughed. In the end, having been over the
spiritual/philosophical sand dunes, he went off to audition for a vodka
commercial.

25 September
Lunch at the Connaught with Rima and ever-generous Richard Wilson. A
day of shifting sands with old friends. Lunch involves wearing a tie and
paying £35 for a piece of fish (plus, I suppose, silverware, French waiters,
flowers on the table and oak panelling). Nearby a table-full of Wodehouse
refugees – in fact a room full of regulars. Except us. The thing I really hate
about wine waiters is their insistence on refilling the glass after one’s every
mouthful.

29 September
am 12UA. To discuss skirting boards.

1 October
11ish To Books Etc., to find a gift for Denis Lawson. Robert Evans’
autobiography52 fits the bill.

2 October
The Sunday papers carry previews of tomorrow’s Late Show Special (already
rubbished by yesterday’s Guardian)53 and the sensation increases during the
day of having been silently mugged. I have to recognise the dangers of actors
talking about themselves (unless you have an American accent – an hour’s
profile tonight of Dennis Hopper produces no sharpened claws – if you are
English get the Elastoplast ready) but are we always to be so patronised, can
we never talk about our work without being forced to trivialise it?

4 October
7.30am and the phone rings, clearing my head . . .
As a result of which the day has a lightness that is mostly energising, a
little dizzy-making. Mostly, people responded well to last night’s programme
– I swerved away from the newsprint.
6pm Groucho Club to meet with Peter Richardson and Stephen Fry to
talk of the film project. Stephen looks ashen – he’s been experiencing the
Rottweiler element in the press. A kind of blooding.

6 October
Last night and today thinking of yesterday’s delivery of the 2 inch thick file
of Mayfair’s objections. Looming large is their complaint that at one point
‘Tears did not spring to my eyes’ – how do you take this nonsense seriously?
54

Watched the Imagine film and wept a bit with all the others at the end. As
one girl was saying ‘We grew up with them.’ And Lennon was so articulate
esp in the face of Al Capp & the NY Times woman. Not a lazy answer
anywhere. An enviable grown-up man.

10 October
Difficult days. Judy says Winter Guest can go into rehearsal December 16.
Everyone is thrilled. What is this I feel. Hijacked?
1.15 RADA Council meeting. Attenborough is an extra special man.
Courteous to a fault, aware of every nuance in the room, and open enough
to be excited by the idea of staying with Nelson Mandela. On an obsessive
day like this he is an object lesson in how to live your life in all directions at
once.

12 October
6.30 20th C. Fox screening room. An Awfully Big Adventure shown to British
Screen Investors. I am surrounded by people nervous of their own opinions.
The film is too long and the opening is difficult & at the moment I don’t
know if there is an audience who knows how to watch it.

13 October
1pm Lunch at La Fenice with Judy Daish. The maître d’ is as rude as ever.
We talk through a running order for Dennis Potter’s memorial service. It
comes together fairly easily – on the page. Such ironies . . .

14 October
Ladybird, Ladybird at the Lumière. About 5 mins in I was folding my arms
and starting to raise an eyebrow. What is this film about?? It’s too easy to
attack the social services and I don’t think we are given all the facts. Crissy
Rock55 engages sympathy and never loses it, really. But of course it makes
almost everything else ultimately look foolish.

15 October
8 To Ruby and Ed for a brief glimpse of Ruby’s interview with Madonna.
But who’s doing all the talking? Guess. Finally, some very funny moments.

16 October
To Mum who is immovable and vulnerable.
This is not a great day to be sure of what-it’s-all-about. I can see
obligations, old patterns and not sinking in superficiality but where, exactly,
is the nourishment?

17 October
8.20 Forrest Gump. I had sworn I wouldn’t go. I went and it was as horrific as
I had thought but in a totally different way. A clear attempt had been made
to dilute the sentimentality, but along the way the film has its cake, eats it
and spits it out with Vietnam, ‘unnamed viruses’ etc.
Late – Malabar – where Ruby’s waters once broke.

18 October
4ish 12UA. The bill is soaring. I should be getting angry now – what is the
point? A major school of buck passing is going on and still the job has to be
finished.

20 October
1pm Joyce Nettles for lunch at L’Accento. The first time I’ve worked with a
casting director like this. I don’t quite feel the ground beneath my feet.
And on to the Carrington screening – just what the doctor might not have
chosen to order. This is like a sustained mugging.

21 October
pm 12UA, Paint colours . . . Blood red springs to mind . . .

23 October
To 12UA. An attempt to get some lower estimates.
To the Odeon West End – cast and crew screening of Awfully Big
Adventure. Tapping on windows to be let in; Mike N. & Philip H[inchcliffe,
producer] oblige, Hilary [Heath]’s on a landing with Ms Cates. I find it
impossible to be other than cool. The film looks beautiful on a big screen.

24 October
To 12UA. A tiling crisis. Who? How much? When? With a bit of affronted
dignity threading through it. Colours are starting to go on now and starting
to look great.

25 October
VIENNA.
To the cinema for the [Mesmer] screening. I can’t watch. Roger and I find
a bar – he depressed the life out of me with stories of Mayfair and their
philistinism.

29 October
8.45 Pulp Fiction – Brilliant and empty. Original and repetitious. Like reading
a v.v. classy comic – if you’re going to be a gangster, that is . . .

31 October
am Spent poring over Mayfair’s legal statements. Bullshit is the horse-blanket
shroud – safety instead of discovery.
 8 → Go to the Ivy. Dinner with Malcolm McLaren & Michelle Guish
[casting director]. VV entertaining. And NO BULLSHIT!!

1 November
9am Dennis Potter’s memorial service at St James’s, Piccadilly. At the
beginning the Rev. Donald Reeves seems like he’s without any trace of
humour – dangerous. But no, eventually his true colours show and by the
time the service starts his full colours are flying and we are told to sing ‘Roll
Along Prairie Moon’ again because we could do better. The hour passes full
of the most wonderful words and music from Potter to Hazlitt, from Imelda
Staunton singing ‘Roses Of Picardy’ to Mozart’s ‘Kyrie’. [Michael] Grade,
[Alan] Yentob & Trodd56 were wonderfully funny, Grade knowing we might
break down at any moment from the rehearsal, Trodd recalling Potter’s
mournful statement that one thing preoccupied him about death. That
Trodd might speak at his memorial service.

2 November
And another 9am. This time lawyers, tables, water, papers, thin smiles. The
thinnest from me to Scorer57 as I went into the room.
A tremendously nerve wracking experience – justifying my right to
interpret a script – what decade is this? In the end I found a speech from
somewhere near my gut and with no erms and aahs. I can only hope it was
Potter, pausing briefly from laughter to lend a bit of a helping hand. Spent
the rest of the day feeling demeaned and soiled, and terribly, terribly sad. I
can only assume the utter symmetry of these two days has some greater
purpose.

3 November
To ICM. Whip through some transparencies. Present myself with my
Montreal award while eating half a sandwich.
Home to get things up on Winter Guest – casting, meetings etc.

4 November
Middayish – to 12UA. The bedroom is the wrong colour again. Not my
fault, this time.
10 November
Boot on the other foot day – interviewing young actors for The Winter
Guest. Trying to be open to them – not difficult since Joyce Nettles has
arranged a great selection – all so different. At this point only ½ an idea who
to cast.

11 November
3pm Ruby – of course I should have known. She wanted help to sharpen a
new show.

12 November
7.15 Camden Grand.
With my newly crafted speech to introduce Tony Blair to a full house. I’m
nervous, he’s last-minute adjusting. Ben Elton does a brilliant set about
‘garnish’ – which is exactly what we are it occurs to me now. Blair’s off the
minute his speech is over to talk to Indian businessmen at the House of
Commons – ‘same speech?’ I wittily enquire. ‘You need a mental lap-top.’
‘I’ve got one,’ he says. His speech is a touch lazy, not truly geared to the
audience and woolly round the edges. Kinnock, however, is dazzling –
received like a hero. ‘Bless them,’ says Glenys, who at the end looks into the
audience with such a private loving admiration as Neil is in the wings
singing ‘Happy Days’ with the gospel choir. Maybe Blair’s detachment will
make him a successful leader. But Neil remembers to bring his heart like his
front door keys.

15 November
5.30 Plane to Edinburgh. Collected by Scott [Thomas, film editor]. Taken to
the Youth Theatre (W. Lothian) workshop. Have to be very animal in
picking kids but there are a definite trio . . . Drinks with Scott in hotel bar
& → Caledonian Hotel. Luxury and a club sandwich.

16 November
Train to Glasgow and . . . on to RSAMD for a day of hello, sorry, come in,
this is the story, what did you think about, would you mind reading . . . The
building is a disgrace – who came up with this echoing hospital as
somewhere to study voice, music, movement?
Writing this, I have subliminal memories of people who seemed righter,
more talented than others. The boot very much on the other foot. Even
more so at the end of the day when going in to talk to maybe 100 students.
Train back to Edinburgh. Completely knackered. All that politeness.

17 November
10.30 Royal Lyceum.
At least they had made a pot of coffee. I discover these things matter. And
courtesy, and openness. And no bullshit. More talent – more questions. It
could go in several directions.
Lunchtime at the Traverse café with Elizabeth Millbank who introduces
herself. A much-admired actress – she reminds me I suggested her to
Howard Davies a few years ago. She’s certainly open – like meeting an old
friend. And she introduces me to Philip Howard [then Associate Director]
who shows me around this stunning new theatre – Lyceum, Usher Hall,
Traverse, a curve of culture.
6.45 Another W. Lothian Youth Theatre workshop – less successful but
Scott’s enthusiasm is a plus, as is dinner in a Thai restaurant with his
girlfriend & friend of. People at an adjacent table stare a lot and eventually
get a friend to phone the restaurant to check if I am me. At this point
tiredness makes me wonder . . .

18 November
Edinburgh.
Phone call from LA is from such another world – can they cannibalise me
even more from Die Hard for DH3?

20 November
Thank you to the middle-of-the-night pissed joker who rewrote my
breakfast order so that I had fish and pineapple juice delivered at 7.20am
instead of toast and coffee at 8.30 . . .

21 November
11.45 To the Almeida to talk with Joyce and Sharman about the Scotland
trip. This bit is hard – playing a sort of God with people’s lives. Just deciding
is difficult enough.
Watching the annual Evening Standard Drama Awards on TV. Grace and
disgrace so close together. Disgraceful, really, this need to back slap but if it
has to happen accept with the grace of Peter Brook.

23 November
Arwen Holm phones to tell me of a nasty little piece in the Telegraph saying
how unsmiling I was in the local deli.

25 November
Thanksgiving party at Sandra & Michael Kamen’s. All I wanted was an
autograph book – Kate Bush, Bryan Adams, David Bowie, Stevie Winwood.

26 November
9.15 Joyce and a taxi to go to Heathrow for the 11am flight to Glasgow and
on to the Athenaeum for the workshop at the Scottish Youth Theatre. A two
hour whip around Sean, Douglas, Anthony, Andrew, Brian, David, John-
Ross and John.58 All wonderful, all different. I’m a little too tired to be
inspired but thank God for Joyce who fills the parents with confidence.
After, Christian Zanone59 and family come in to talk it all through.
One of those days that has no rules – time passes too quickly, a lot of it
one would like to rewind or re-do. But there it was – a great sprawling,
hopeful splurge of a day.

27 November
Royal Albert Hall – Elton John and Ray Cooper. Elton really fills that great
space, helped, it turns out, by Ray Cooper who plays drums like a dancer
might. But the secret with both of them is relaxation.

2 December
Supper at home for Lindsay, Hilton, Jane, Mark, Allan and Fifi. I am feeling
so distracted but manage to tap dance here and there. And anyway it’s a
room full of people you could have a breakdown in front of, which is always
reassuring.
Later – a bottle of champagne or a port – midnight visit to 12UA. Fifi
sitting in the bath.

4 December
7.45 Curzon West End for the Almeida Fund Raiser of Vanya on 42 Street.
No one, sadly, told me it was a Mayfair film. Scorer walks towards me, hand
sort of outstretched. ‘Some day, we must sit down and talk.’ ‘About what?’ I
manage. ‘The truth,’ he replies.

7 December
8pm Sandra & Michael Kamen – impossible, really, to believe – violins,
cello, flute, oboe, harp and eventually Nigel Kennedy in the Kamen front
room playing Bach and Brahms for maybe 10 of us. A wonderful guilty treat.

9 December
2.30 Michael Kamen – who has the shortest attention span. He’s so gifted he’s
finished before he’s started and bored with it before we got properly
interested. Hard to infiltrate that rhythm. But melodies pour out of him.

11 December
To 12UA with Dalia, vacuum, mops and buckets. Honest toil to add to the
dishonest expense. It could hardly redress the balance but a bit . . .

12 December
Taxi to St George’s Theatre for first day rehearsals of The Winter Guest.
Fiddling with text, cuts, gathering of information for John and Anthony60
(who turns out over lunch to be a big fan of Frank Capra & Orson Welles as
well as Tarantino . . .). So they can write their essays and diaries.
pm John-Ross and David arrive. Certainly 4 temperaments which is great
– but they seem to feed into each other really well.
And why don’t we all go to the theatre together. And, why not
(eventually) make it Les Miserables – a show, I thought, I would never see.
Surprisingly it is played with 100% high octane energy and commitment.
Bully for them. But still – watching the Red Flag waving at all these £30 a
head multi-national audience members is a weird sight.

13 December
St George’s Theatre.
Alternating boys all day – four very different personalities emerging.
John-Ross – Nirvana, Guns & Roses, Science Fiction, Baseball cap. Great
at immediacy.
John W. – Wise and kind beyond his 12 years – almost seems the oldest at
times. Very talented. A born actor. Quiet and complete concentration.
Anthony – His school says he’s trouble. When? He’s complex – he likes
Capra, Welles, and doesn’t concentrate easily but only because we got there
hours ago. Does a great Alan Partridge impression.
David – The one to open up. A bit walled in. Brave soul. Cursed with
weak heart. Growth deficiencies. Great talent, too much technique. Will
hold it all together.
Good hearts all of them.

18 December
3ish to Mum. She’s now sitting at her command centre – phone, letters,
Mills & Boon (though not just love stories . . .), crosswords, compilations all
within easy reach in a semi-circle of diversions. A still fierce instinct to keep
her mind going – ‘I’m not going to that club over the road – all old people,
effing and blinding.’

19 December
10.30 First day of rehearsals for grown-ups. A test when finally you have to
say something – fortunately Robin’s set speaks volumes and inspires
confidence. And so, we trawl through the day, looking for clues, a shape,
ambiguities. Christian and Arlene61 – their first day in London, in a play,
knowing no one. Arlene is rescued from her B&B by Sharman.
6pm Almeida wine bar for interview with Duncan Fallowell of the
Observer. He’s intelligent and comes in from all angles but of course it’s the
negative standpoint – difficult, rebellious, maverick. Heigh ho.
 Later and Rima at the drop of a crossword tells me in detail the plot of
Richard III.

23 December
Said no to Richard III. What strange days these are.
Christmas shopping.

24 December
Michael comes around at 8.30 and we eat something before going (with
Dalia who comes at 11.45) to All Saints for the Midnight Mass – carols,
candles, a crib, somebody drunk crying on a shoulder by the door, all the
hymns, as usual, way too high, and this organist clearly on 33⅓ rpm. But it
formalises the day, and that’s good – I want something to come at me not to
be always looking, probing, hoping, reaching.

25 December
Getting to bed at 2am meant a bit of a scrabble for baths, breakfast and
unwrapping before David arrived at 12. But it’s my favourite part of
Christmas Day – just two of us enjoying things in the same way,
complementary rhythms. And it’s fine up to and during lunch – Chris62 a
phenomenon of organisation. The more alcohol that’s consumed, however,
the more the tensions appear, the greater the sense of hideous impending
temperament about to explode on the suburban scene. The accident of
families  .  .  .  which takes people, makes siblings of them, staples on some
relationships and children and gathers them into a room for one day to enjoy
themselves. And we do – there’s a lot of uncomplicated love around all mixed
up with other emotional luggage. Finally – the two of us home again and a
cup of tea. All’s well . . .

31 December
A year has passed . . . which has included the earthquake, Mesmeritus, Potter’s
memorial, Awfully Big Adventure, nudging Tara Hugo and Eddie Izzard into
other places, the rebirth of Upper Addison, growing pains but growing of
Wisdom of Crocodiles and the Richardson/Fry script, Don Giovanni, Paris,
Italy, RADA Council. And The Winter Guest bridges the years. Bigger marks
on other graphs, of course – Mandela, Rwanda, Smith, Blair. But good to
be looking forward.

1
American actor (1955–)
2
She cut off her husband’s penis while he was asleep.
3
8 January 1994 edition, cover with Ruby Wax and baby: ‘First Photos of Zany Comedienne at
Home with Her Family and New Baby Marina’
4
Francine LeFrak (1948–), American theatre producer and philanthropist
5
Then chairman of HBO, which – according to the LA Times – he ran ‘like a Marine boot camp’.
He was fired in 1995.
6
Children’s book (1941) by Pamela Brown
7
Stage adaptation of The Steadfast Tin Soldier fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen
8
Italian-British actor (1946–)
9
Japanese theatre director Yukio Ninagawa (1935–2016)
10
Quick Cuisine by Lewis Esson, Henrietta Green and Marie-Pierre Moine (1991)
11
British actor (1935–)
12
British actor (1927–2002)
13
Georgina Cates, English actor (1975–)
14
Irish actor (1948–2011)
15
British actor (1947–)
16
She signed with A.R.’s manager, Judy Hoflund
17
Co-producer of An Awfully Big Adventure
18
Married to Anthony Minghella
19
Four Weddings and a Funeral
20
English actor (1951–)
21
English playwright (1931–2004)
22
English actor (1934–2009)
23
‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Kids’ by Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan
24
Jefferson in Paris
25
English actor (1947–)
26
English theatre director (1941–2020)
27
British journalist (1962–)
28
British artist and theatre designer Dexter Fletcher (1966–)
29
Scottish writer and actor Sharman Macdonald (1951–)
30
English actor (1941–)
31
Algerian-born writer and theatre director (1931–2001)
32
A.R.’s mum’s neighbour
33
Angels in America: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner
34
American director (1941–)
35
British novelist Ken Follett (1949–) and his wife, British Labour politician Barbara Follett (1942–)
36
Richard Attenborough (1923–2014)
37
British director (1951–)
38
Brazil beat Italy on penalties, 3–2.
39
Croatian-born singer (1938–2021)
40
German actor (1900–1971)
41
Austrian singer (1898–1981)
42
English academic and film producer (1949–)
43
American film producer (1921–2014)
44
French theatre designer Maria Bjornson (1949–2002)
45
Casting director Patsy Pollock’s daughter
46
English actor (1945–2020)
47
Italian-American architect and designer
48
12 Upper Addison Gardens, a flat A.R. had bought in Holland Park
49
English playwright and actor (1955–)
50
Davy Byrne’s pub
51
Daughter of Barbara Cartland and stepmother of Princess Diana (1929–2015)
52
The Fat Lady Sang
53
BBC documentary (Truly, Madly, Alan Rickman) focusing on the making of Mesmer and A.R.’s career
to date
54
Alan seemed ideally suited to the role but as filming progressed discord grew as representatives of
Mayfair Entertainment International, one of its principal backers, voiced their dismay, claiming among
other things that the star was not sufficiently erotic. Others disagreed: Alan won the Best Actor award
at the 1994 Montreal Film Festival, and the Atlantic’s critic said, ‘He’s not just brilliant; he’s great, bold
to the point of folly.’ Arbitration followed and thereafter Mayfair withdrew funding.
55
Christine Rock, English actor (1958–)
56
British television producer Kenith Trodd (1936–)
57
Ian Scorer, founder of Mayfair Entertainment International
58
Auditioning for parts in The Winter Guest
59
Scottish actor who played Alex
60
The cast of the stage version of The Winter Guest included several young Scottish actors, among
them Christian Zanone, John-Ross Morland, Anthony O’Donnell, David Evans and John Wark.
61
Arlene Cockburn, Scottish actor who played Nita
62
Christine, David’s wife
 1995

LEEDS, THE WINTER GUEST – SALT LAKE CITY, AN AWFULLY

BIG ADVENTURE – DONALD PLEASENCE – LORD SNOWDON –
MESMER – EMMA THOMPSON – STEPHEN FRY – BERNARDO
BERTOLUCCI – ANG LEE – TONY BLAIR – DAVID BAILEY –
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY – DUBLIN, MICHAEL COLLINS – DIE
HARD WITH A VENGEANCE – ST PETERSBURG/BUDAPEST,
RASPUTIN – A FAMILY CHRISTMAS – NEW YORK

2 January
Breakfast with the Richardson household, a quick visit to the archetypal
country kitchen next door and then everyone bundled into the car to
Newton Abbott and the 12.02 to Paddington.
The stretch of coast at Dawlish where the railway line runs right along the
beach is really magnificent. As I was saying tonight (see below), my head is
filled with Famous Five-ish images of rockpools and starfish, short trousers
and sticks.
Back home a wander around area. A bit of final (!) Christmas shopping.
Maybe tonight will be quietly preparing to go away. Maybe not. Dalia is
followed by Julian Sands and Evgenia [his wife] and then the four of us have
a happy, chatty evening over brilliant Malaysian takeaway (or rather bring
to).
Far too late to bed. There will be a price to pay.

3 January
There was.
7am car to King’s Cross, 7.50 train to Leeds. Pullman trains now like a
Forte’s hotel corridor.
 The theatre is filled with friendliness and it’s good to see the boys again.
John and David, watchful as ever, John-Ross and Anthony both on another
planet. They have retained a lot in the gap but there’s certainly work to do.
pm with Christian and Arlene, whose faces light up as they make
discoveries about energy, tension, playing together. And some wonderful
work from Sheila and Sandra1 in the evening. Now there’s time, space and
light to work in this kind of detail.

4 January
10.30 for the tour of the building.
11.30–12 Finally the company is together and we read the play for the
first time. Some of it wonderful – the boys, so open, unaffected. Other areas
so closed and complicated. But that’s the stuff of this & next week.
5pm production meetings & wardrobe talks. Easy to be decisive in these
situations – colours, shapes.
7pm Into the rehearsal room with Phyllida [Law] and Siân Thomas2 and
the best kind of detailed character building.
Sharman and I go to Pizza Express for red wine & no cheese. Sharman
trawling for resonances, reconciliations – things to end a play with.

5 January
This was a wonderful day’s work. Starting with the boys – first moving
through the scenes and watching particularly John-Ross finding new life
away from the script and David leaving his old safety nets behind.
Then working gradually through the play, putting scenes together for the
first time – and it works. Still some fingers crossed about music, lights, sound
but the play opens up all day long.
7pm Arlene, so still and gifted beginning to enjoy the work. Christian
beginning to enjoy it a little less – which is good.

7 January
Scrabble through some scenes this morning (this is how not to work)
Sharman behind me in a flap as we approach taxi time. But we make the
train – Siân, Sharman & me chit chat & read our way back to Kings
X . . . Letters, cheques, take down the Xmas cards, phone calls, washing.
8 January
To Ruby & Ed with Christmas gifts. Esp. Madeleine’s jewel box, which she
was last seen kissing, before taking it to bed. As Rima said, apart from
anything else, maybe it’s one of the few things she got not made of plastic.

9 January
7.50 train to Leeds. The man opposite with a stomach dented by the table 2
feet in front of him, tucking into sausages, eggs, the lot. ‘Could I have more
potato, please?’
10am with the boys – all excited by their weekend purchases. Sunglasses,
things to scare me, and for John a big fat copy of Les Miserables – ‘It was only
three quid.’

10 January
First major run-through produces all the pluses and minuses.
Sharman has written a play filled with complex resonances, ironies, jokes,
sadnesses which the actors illuminate and inhabit miraculously most of the
time. The danger is of it falling for its own beat and the added problem is
that some of its darker passages are in the mouths of 12-year-olds and the
writing is (technically) beyond them. The question is how to teach them to
lie???

12 January
Press conference – 20-odd journalists. The clever ones sit quietly taking
notes while the idiots ask questions.

14 January
The run has its now usual quota of wonderful things and places where the
pace threatens towards slow motion. But they are heroes and if the boys can
hold it together and Arlene & Christian can find some joy then I can just
direct and not be a social worker.

19 January
2.45 Dress rehearsal.
 First preview – which went so well all things considered. David and John-
Ross enjoying themselves hugely. Everyone else putting it all together. What
a business this is.

20 January
Next morning – and I’ve gone right off changing anything.
And the news is – the press are coming on Monday  .  .  .  I hope they
remember to pack their full quota – brain cells, antennae, hearts.
2.45 Dress rehearsal. Which at this stage feels a bit unnecessary. But not
for John & Anthony. Hard to strike the balance at this stage – either lots of
notes and extra rehearsals or just push the boat out and let it be.
Second preview – As ever the gremlins poking about seeing where they
can get a toehold  .  .  .  Something in the general air seems to capsize on
second nights. But the audience loved it and John and Anthony were full of
wonders. As long as confidence doesn’t turn to something overblown.

23 January
I watched the show from the box. But mostly quietly. No notes. It’s all going
down there – the audience is cool but not cold. A bit of first-night judging.
They’re too aware of the event. David does a brilliant bit of rescue work,
John-Ross nearly brings the kittens on ½hr too soon but basically all is well.
All also piled into Pizza Express for a happy couple of hours. Four kids
completely part of an adult group – wonderful to watch.

24 January
Up at 8.30 for the 10.15 flight to Dallas. Streaming with a cold – main
preoccupation being to get a large box of tissues for the flight.
3.45 Dallas → Salt Lake City
7pm An Awfully Big Adventure. Showered and changed in 8 minutes. A
drive into town to a 200 seater cinema . . .
Later, a fairly embarrassing Q&A – by now I’m so tired I don’t recognise
words any more and then on to the Barking Frog for Mexican food . . . It’s
like a crazy children’s party without the hats and balloons. Also paranoid.
The film. My place in it all. Heigh ho.
25 January
The good news is the faxed reviews from the London papers. They are
wonderful which is wonderful.
9pm The Usual Suspects – 10 mins in realised it was a script that had been
chasing me. I slept through a lot of it. Seemed like a director’s calling card.3
Gabriel Byrne has the warmest smile. Tim Roth hangs like a snake over his
chair.

26 January
10am Farcical press call. Begins to be clear that America will be fascinated by
the Diva. Once again the Telegraph shows its tawdry little fangs.
Find Danny Boyle – his face shining with the acclaim, promise and arrival
of it all.4

30 January
Los Angeles.
7pm Drive to LAX. Of course, find the Observer review – is this paranoia
but why? Do we have to be over the page, without a picture but definitely
with Michael Ratcliffe’s prejudices? It can’t be right to focus ⅓ of a review on
the boys’ diction and West Yorkshire Playhouse’s snowbound service . . .
9.10 Flight to London.

2 February
12 Longish notes session but the train needs to be picked up and put back
on the tracks.
Lunch. Rehearse. 4.05 train. I felt like a carrot in a tin of sardines. They’re
all mobile – phoning, laptopping, looking through the balance sheets. I read
a script.
Evening at home  .  .  .  Write to Angela – Donald Pleasence [her father]
died today. He taught me my first big lesson in how to upstage on camera –
wait till the other actor in a two-person scene has a big speech, then move
during it – they have to cover you. Wicked man. But vulnerable and gentle.
And brilliant.
4 February
Got to get down to the gym.
Later With Jools Holland on TV and a real treat with Johnny Cash, June
Carter, Carleen Anderson, Pops Staples and Mazzy Star.

5 February
8 L’Accento with Rima, Dexter & Dalia. Dinner as therapy session. Hoping
that if things are said often, clearly & loudly enough you can hack past
defences and conditioning if only because underneath it he knows the truth
of ‘I’ve been there too.’

7 February

1.10 train to Leeds . . . At the theatre all is well – apart from John-Ross’s
cold. But he is uncomplaining, Sheila has dyed her hair red, ‘I had to do
something – coming off stage as Lily every night.’ They give a beautiful
performance – this piece of work is dead right for now. A kind of nostalgic
celebration of the seven ages.

8 February
A curious melancholy is descending. I feel with the play as if the job is over,
really. All I can do is get out the dustpan and brush from time to time –
anything more radical hits barriers of youth or habit. This at the same time
to saying no to work offers is not too good for peace of mind.
Emma Thompson phones. OK I’m [going to] meet him.5

9 February
Snowdon calls to invite me to the Dorchester lunch he gives each year for
Oliver Messel.6

10 February
Answer machine says Mail on Sunday about to print something actionable.
Lawyers alerted. Everything passes through the brainbox.
11 February
10am Paul Lyon-Maris phones. Of course, it was Mesmer. It is alleged I was
aloof. It is alleged I made 57 changes. It is alleged Roger talked of ‘brilliant,
argumentative, hubris’. May they try.
John Lewis to buy interesting things like a kettle, a toaster, an ironing
board. Take things to UA. Some day this flat will be finished. Furnished.
Fun-ish.

12 February
The Mesmer piece in the Mail on Sunday colours the day plus lunch talk of
other films. This cannot be the sum of my life. And I cannot stoop to the
Mayfair level of verbal foot-stamping.

13 February
Talk to Emma. ‘Her people’ and ‘my people’ now. Lawyers loom in
yesterday’s press. As Sharman writes – I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t
know.
4ish To Mum. Monstrous piece of machinery called mobile staircase now
dominates the hall.
This morning Ruby rang to do her I’m-back-from-my-travels-and-wait-
til-you-hear-this monologue. It included telling of inviting Carrie Fisher to
view her trailer (like Ms F. had never seen one). WHO, incidentally is on the
cover of the Sunday Times Magazine, WHO incidentally wants to do a
feature (yes? no?) AND which contains a wonderful piece of writing by Zoë
Heller about her mother. Ruby, Carrie F. & Zoë H. – sometimes it is too
weird that one’s life is splayed endlessly across a double page spread.

14 February
11am To Lord Snowdon to look at Mesmer negatives. A man of total charm
and a touching need to show his latest work in this month’s Vanity Fair. He
also talks of his annoyance with the BBC over the Sellers7 documentary &
using private film footage of him & ‘Princess Margaret’ & the general
invasions that go on (he had seen Sunday’s paper). His pictures from the film
were good, too. Not, however, of Amanda – you can see how pissed off she
was. Sometimes you just have to do as you’re told (‘move your little finger
up – too much – now down – that’s it’).

18 February
Most of today broodingly affected by the Yorkshire press clippings which
were sent from West Yorkshire Playhouse. What I took to be directness, they
call rude, intimidating etc., etc. – so the headlines are all Truly Madly Badly
etc., etc., etc. God forbid they shouldn’t have an angle . . . But maybe I’ve
learned a lesson. Just smile and deflect.
Watching the Sellers Arena programme later, you realise that it is now
necessary to rationalise and reduce him down to ‘nutter’ rather than really
focus on what was clearly (watching some Strangelove) genius, and how it is
nurtured . . .

21 February
A birthday arrives again. But I’m not counting any more. Other people are,
though. My brother’s card arrives amongst the others like a folded couple of
pages from the Sun – full of yearly warnings of fading powers . . . in dayglo
and exclamation marks.

24 February
Watching news of Stephen Fry’s Great Escape.8 Ian McK. writes a well-
worded letter to one of the broadsheets. In many ways what Stephen has
done took great courage. I remember crawling on stage with the knives still
in me – I don’t recall any great sense of the honour and dignity of it all – just
pain. And as time goes on, a real bewilderment that critics and journalists
can take such seeming pleasure in such cruelty . . . It occurs to me that if
faced with an end-of-the-world choice of companion, Stephen Fry or
certain drama critics – no contest.

28 February
A week after the cold – flu strikes. People say ‘I’ve got flu’ – mostly they
haven’t. This is flu. The legs ache, eyes hurt, head pounds. Bed is the best
place. Whenever you get up, the legs totter.
And it spreads itself through the body.
 A talk with Duncan Heath.9
A chat with Catherine Olim.10
I can’t work it out at all. What message am I being given?

1 March
Early am – vomiting in the dark. And the morning rushing to the
toilet . . . A day in bed is what the body craves and gets. Janet comes and
hoovers around me.

8 March
First thing an inventive cab driver brings me to the Almeida 15 mins late for
the rest of the technical.
1pm another series of red lights and jams before meeting Bernardo
Bertolucci & [casting director] Celestia Fox for what? His Tuscany film.11
He’s nice enough but I can see all sorts of little judgements being made
every 5 seconds.

10 March
12.30 Meet Christian to listen to his RADA audition pieces. One of which
is Angelo [Measure for Measure]. Here he is, 17 years old doing the speech I
left RADA with.
Preview 2.
A slowish audience turns out to have been listening carefully.

11 March
4pm – matinée. With it all the way. Some notes afterwards and then the bar
starts filling up with Geraldine McEwan, Catherine, Dalia, Dexter, Saffron
Burrows,12 Alan Cumming, Lindsay Duncan, Hilton. They all loved it,
tough audience that they were. Full of ice-cream-carton-scrapers, foot re-
arrangers, cough experts. Except by the end you realise that everyone else
has been listening hard.

14 March
7pm – press night.
 No one in their wildest imaginings could have wished for anything better.
Everything came together in some very special way. Every single actor was in
the middle of the racquet. We had even nearly sorted out the lighting and the
audience was filled with friends.
Supper for 95 (it seemed) afterwards – and I was told that someone had
felt the play & the audience become one unit tonight. Which will do.

18 March
3pm To Ang Lee. He gets the Sensibility, what’s the Sense? How to play,
how to shoot Brandon ‘the only strong man in the story’. I said ‘I’ll be doing
it, you’ll just have to shoot it.’ On the way out, there’s Imogen Stubbs on the
way in.

19 March
2 more good reviews for Winter Guest. We press on.
At home later watching Martin Amis – I hope he laughs sometimes, is
easy sometimes. Rima says he writes ‘Men’s Books’.

23 March
Things in a bag and the car comes to take me to Heathrow for the 6.55
flight to Berlin. I wish these lounges weren’t so devoted to the bored &
boring. Perhaps there could be a door marked Eccentrics and Weirdos Only.

24 March
am – Goes very fast. Print and radio interviews [for Mesmer]. I’m not sure I
gain anything by fighting the labels, but fight I have to.
On the whole, though, the day is filled with more or less intelligent
questioning. And, amazingly enough, no question about age or private life.
3pm Back for TV interviews. ‘What is an actor?’ . . . ‘I don’t think this
film will be a great success’ (!?!!)

25 March
Quiet sleepy trip home.
8.30 to the Almeida, to watch the company sounding a bit tired. Good
work but corner-cutting and David, dangerously, starting to ‘act’ again. The
theatre is packed but way too hot from the matinée. This fragile,
unpredictable piece . . . like my life at the moment. →

26 March
→ And the row goes on. I am a bully. But it’s only a noise I make to get rid
of the silence.
8.30 John and Nina Darnton’s [American journalists]. Dinner with Tony
& Cherie Blair, Jon Snow & his wife, Helena Kennedy & Iain Hutchison,
Hugo Young & [his wife] Lucy Waring, Arthur Sulzberger13 & Gail.
Like high-altitude oxygen I imagine – hearing Tony Blair ask Hugo
Young ‘what should we be doing?’ Jon Snow desperate to banish
titles . . . Tony Blair v. impressive and committed when relaxed (not to say
informal – he was upset to find himself the only man without a tie). I had
similar agonies about wearing one – he had assumed I would be an ally. I
would like to talk more to Cherie Blair – intelligent but not pushy. Blair and
I talk of the misuse of celebrities. He obviously has respect for Major – but
then he’s not remotely vindictive.

28 March
3am–6.30am Madness. Watching the Oscars. Some of the most tasteless,
graceless moments on recent television. Forrest Gump elevated. Pulp Fiction
dumped. What does it all mean? That the Academy voters have an average
age of 95 says Judy Hoflund.
Later .  .  . Sense and Sensibility deal now more or less done. With some
relief.

30 March
Oliver Messel suite at the Dorchester for Lord Snowdon’s lunch. Glorious
day, glorious room and balcony, champagne before, good chat around the
table with Polly Devlin,14 Joan Juliet Buck,15 John Wells16 (Bird & Fortune
improvist on The [Rory] Bremner Show). One of life’s treats.
3.30 To Shepperton for make-up and costume tests. Emma, Imelda
[Staunton], Imogen in the trailer – and Kate Winslet – first impression
sweetness and steel.
31 March
2pm David Bailey – he’s such an open, kind, funny, vulnerable soul. Maybe
these will be some of the most honest pictures of late. Although he says ‘I
don’t like taking pictures of people I like . . .’

1 April
10ish Walking up Portobello Market in the sunshine with Isabelle [Huppert]
– I feel like a tourist. She bought earrings then on to Conran – I bought a
gift item, she bought cups and saucers.

6 April
Dublin.
8pm Irish Premiere.
Why was it so dark? So late starting?
Feel like an elder statesman reading the letter from Mike [Newell].
10.30 Dublin Castle. In the retiring room (H[ugh] G[rant] perkier).
Late → Lillie’s Bordello.17 Dark, noisy and restful.

7 April
10am Wandering the Dublin streets before getting back to the Shelbourne
for 11am to find –! – Neil Jordan and Stephen Woolley re The Big Fella. Will
I do it? Lose weight? What other commitments?
11.25 → airport and the plane home.
Later pm – The Almeida.
John-Ross – the full pyromaniac – lights a match, it catches – before long
the contents of the fire basket are ablaze. But David carries on (almost)
regardless – apart from a ‘Jesus’ when the flames are 3’ high . . . Eventually
Rebecca and team come on with extinguisher.

10 April
1pm Lunch at the Pelican with Peter Barnes [playwright]. It’s like taking the
plug out and letting the bile all dribble down to some low-down space.
Before he flies off to LA and ‘meetings’.

12 April
11 To James Roose-Evans18 who is recording interviews for the book he has
been commissioned to do on Richard Wilson. A happy morning talking
about someone I love, admire and have a huge debt of gratitude to, with
James R.-E. – grace, wit, intelligence.
2.15 To RADA. Council gathered for the Lottery Assessment. More wit
and intelligence although not from some members of council who have
crawled out of the dark ages.

16 April
10 Watching Persuasion. Roger Michell [director] has done a fine job of
demystifying, but has allowed some of his actors to perform as if they were
in Portobello Market. The clothes don’t allow it – her sentences don’t allow
it. She writes irony – love stories of the middle classes, not social realism. I
want to know what’s happening to these people’s hearts and minds not
whether they had dirt under their nails. But he’s a fine director in spite of all
of that, because his eye and mind certainly live.

20 April
(Somewhere in here the deal is done for Michael Collins or The Big Fella. So
– back to Dublin.)

22 April
At the show tonight – Richard Wilson, Neil Pearson, Bob Crowley, Ros
March,19 Sophie Thompson,20 Fatimah & Caroline Holdaway. Audience a
bit like a football crowd, dropped coins, a rolling bottle, whistling at the end.
But they loved it.
To the Mercury. All of the above plus cast. The worst service – so bad the
waitress was laughing. What else could she do?

23 April
11.30 To Anthony & Carolyn Minghella to talk with them and Irène Jacob
of Wisdom of Crocodiles. She’s off to the BAFTA awards tonight with the most
wonderful, clear, comme ci attitude. She has the same reservations about the
part in WOC. It just needs nursing now. Anthony also treading through
early minefields with The English Patient. People in offices with opinions.

25 April
Collected [at Plymouth station]. 20 mins drive to the location. At lunchtime
the trailer fills up with Imogen Stubbs, Gemma Jones, Emma Thompson –
Imogen & Emma all Austened-up. Gemma in hiking boots . . . Spend the
pm doing hair and make up. Writing this at 7.20pm. Still no sign of the
make-up test I’ve come to do . . . Somewhere around 8 we do the required
stand up, sit down, look left, look right in a somewhat tight atmosphere not
to mention coat. Gently humiliating. Back to the hotel. A drink with Hugh
G., Imogen & Kate W.

26 April
9.35 Train back to London.
Still feeling faintly depressed by yesterday. So much attention to ‘The
Look’. What about ‘The Content’?
And what about creating a working environment with Ang – who,
reading between the already apparent lines, is used to ‘conducting’ his actors,
rather than nurturing.
Hugh G. says they are having ‘worst notes’ competitions. Fairly typical
Grant-Activity. However ‘that was dull’ does not sound too helpful.

29 April
Last matinée. All four boys are here. And quite right too. The play is handed
over beautifully. Why is it that matinées often produce the best work?
Afternoon ease, I suppose.
8pm and a truly glorious last performance, full of freedom and new
thinking. Sometimes I watch this and cannot think how it came together. At
the curtain call all 7 boys came on to much cheering.

2 May
A 6.15 wake up for my first actual day on Sense and Sensibility.
Make-up and hair becomes a gentle negotiation – hair, especially. Heated
rollers eventually wins.
 And the day is spent walking out of this beautiful church towards Luciana
Arrighi’s21 thatched barn and hayricks in green, green fields. Tea in the small
hotel nearby . . . Kate W. looking so beautiful in her gilded wedding gown.
Emma T. with her eyes everywhere. Harriet W. & I uncool enough to admit
just enjoying being here.
Drinks in the bar at 8pm – Emma, Imelda, Hugh L[aurie], Hugh G.,
Gemma Jones, Harriet, Kate W. Hugh G. his usual snappy, sharp, acid self.
In to dinner with 2 x Hugh, Harriet & me. Fortunately the conversation
moves away from gossip and we talk of British & US film production. Too
much irony? Hugh Laurie turns out to be an action movie freak. Hugh G. is
fascinated by figures, fees, %.

4 May
I’m beginning to get the hang of Ang. He came by to have a chat. ‘What are
you going to do as Brandon?’ I can only show him and talk in generalised
terms. By the end, he and everyone seems happy. And I can go to Plymouth
for the 6.35 → London.
Reading obituaries for Michael Hordern – my mind goes back to
Stratford 1978 when he was as angry as I was, but warm, funny, flirtatious,
no-nonsense. ‘I’m not much of a company man.’ Dinners chez us, Eve
[M.H.’s wife] waiting outside theatres at curtain-up, Michael saying that
theatre came a poor third to fishing and planting his onions.

5 May
7.30 Odeon Hammersmith or Labatt’s Apollo as it is now known for Mary
Chapin Carpenter. She comes on at 8.30 – polished, professional, blonde
hair swinging over her shoulder, guitars switched on cue. Maybe once or
twice does she make time relative to her interpretation. At all other
moments it passes. She moves effortlessly from one song to another. In her
dressing room afterwards – cool, professional, untouched.

7 May
6ish To Mum. Watched truly awful VE Day concert from Hyde Park. All
those showbiz right wingers. Ute Lemper proving yet again that she isn’t
Marlene Dietrich. Elaine [Paige] not doing her own stuff, stuck with Piaf.
Cliff Richard telling us that ‘today made him realise how much he owed all
those brave men and women . . .’

10 May
And another day not called.
Lunch on the set. Then into boots and breeches and off to the stables.
Marcus is not the smoothest ride – a tank. A reluctant tank. Every stride has
weight in it. Which makes him very tiring to ride. After ½ hour I’m
knackered.

12 May
Another 7.30 wake up. Another day not being used.
The sun shines. They do something else. The clouds come over – they do
something else.
Maybe rent a car. The licence is out of date. So it’s wait.

13 May
7am call – and finally I’m on . . .
As it turns out the scene becomes a nightmare of rushed decisions,
manipulations, too many looks. It isn’t thought through so time is wasted on
fixing the horse to the post in a totally unnecessary way . . . Which means
that acting is out the window . . . I end the day feeling humiliated and angry
– but I can’t show it. Words are expressed to Lindsay Doran [producer],
however. But that’s the scene. Forever. It’s no way to work.
Later to Emma’s party. Fight through the (real) depression and dance.

14 May
Emma, Gemma, Greg [Wise] and I go off for a 3 hour cliff-walk. This was
really spectacular. England, my England. So beautiful (mixed up with caravan
parks, garden gnomes, mini-waterfalls – so English). We walk in twos, threes,
fours, singly . . . Emma still likes to be the Boss.

15 May
An alarming morning – my first with a group of actors, a scene and Ang. He
opens himself so wide to be available to others’ ideas and a vagueness can
creep in. Suggestions are made, the scene relaxes and yields and good work is
done. And his taste is a permanent guiding light.
Late night [call] to USA – the Die Hard 3 Saga. It’s a disgrace that work
can be regurgitated in this way. Do I take on a major studio? Of course not.
I don’t have the energy, never mind the money.

16 May
The Die Hard 3 Saga goes on. Litigation lawyers now come in.
Watching The Politician’s Wife on Channel 4. Compulsive viewing –
especially if Juliet’s character starts to kick back. Ghastly script, but hugely
enjoyable.

17 May
Lunch in a pub car park. Ang has revealed a deep affection for desserts and
all things sweet. I bring him all 3 puddings on a polystyrene plate – lemon
meringue pie, profiteroles and Banoffee pie. Ang heaven. I ate 3 satsumas.

20 May
Breakfast at the hotel with Lindsay – we talk of optimists/pessimists and the
paths that either create for themselves. Rima throws quizzical glances at me.

22 May
This was a day of such contrasts. As ever I wonder what lessons life is
attempting to hand out.
Brandon in the reeds, Brandon sitting alone in a boat, walking with his
dog, riding his horse – a chance to find his centre in some extraordinary
locations. Leaving me introspective enough without coming back to the
hotel to hear of all the Cannes/Carrington events.
Will this prove to be the big mistake of my working life?

23 May
9.35 Train to London.
Ruby comes over and we go to the Agadir for dinner. Fine and dandy for
stories of LA. Less so for Ruby’s analysis of our current sense of each other.
The lesson of course is not to take close friends for granted.
24 May
Harold Wilson has died. The tributes are generous and lucid and human
especially from Barbara Castle and Tony Benn (who reminds us that he
included the Left rather than sidelined or expelled it – ‘A bird needs a left
wing and a right wing to fly’ Ian Mikardo22). What they don’t say is that to
those of us who were teenagers in 1964, it was such a Brave New World and
a government filled with brilliant minds and new ideas. A real sense of
revolution. And as Barbara Castle said – ‘If he hadn’t resigned we may never
have had to endure Thatcherism at all.’

29 May
And, almost inevitably, J.P. wins the gong at Cannes.23 What the fuck are the
lessons? Say ‘yes’ more often. Don’t second-guess so much. You made the
decisions for some maybe very wrong reasons.
Whatever – it produces a very quiet day. I’m sick of getting thumped like
this. But maybe it won’t stop until I stop brooding and prevaricating.

31 May
[Montacute House, Somerset]
Sunny, sunny day.
Various scenes. We solve them together. And in 3 cases one shot.
Later and the strangeness of this life – sprayed with water, in between
takes, with the contents of an Evian spray can, surrounded by the National
Trust stewards.

1 June
The day starts with radio reports of Christopher Reeve’s accident – chilling,
focusing, terrible.24 It makes us all acutely aware of today’s last shot.
Later, Gemma & I get into the coach and go with the clappers. Swiftly
followed by Mark & I galloping down the drive. 4 times. Thank God we
separated the reins . . .
Dinner at the hotel. Flowers on the table. Imelda makes us weep with
laughter at the stories of dope scones.

2 June
Hugh Laurie & I talk of the Wanda sequel [Fierce Creatures]. He’d been asked,
decided to say no in the end, now much self-torture & schadenfreude. This
rings a bell . . .

3 June
The rain pours down – perfect for the shots which remain.
Greg and I carry Kate in turn across the sodden lawn. A piece of green
string is stretched to guide our progress.
Then some waiting. An opportunity to start reading Tim Pat Coogan’s
book on de Valera25 which is terrifically well-written and entertaining.

5 June
Today I felt a schism appear – not permanent, but just my own desire to
focus more on the work than on having a lovely time. I notice actors being
treated somewhat lightly. Scenes put together moment by moment rather
than taking a look at the whole scene first.

6 June
Back to London on the train with Gemma.

7 June
7.45 Ambassadors w. Angela Pleasence to see Killing of Sister George. In case
we are so mind-numbed by the production the play’s title is projected on to
the front drop. Some really terrible work going on. But, of course,
directionless. Not that Miriam [Margolyes] can be easy to direct.

19 June
This was a tough day. I kind of knew it would be. Antagonism and
negativity took familiar toeholds and this was added to far too much
schoolmarming from Emma. I cannot puppet this stuff. Or any stuff. Liz
Spriggs26 noticed the nerve-endings and her arms slipped round my waist.
Later a drink in the bar with some of the sparks [electricians] was a real
pleasure. They so enjoy their life and the people they meet. Not a trace of
cynicism.
20 June
A freer day, lighter breezes around the brain.

22 June
The square in Salisbury with the cathedral floating up behind us. As ever,
words that seem so manageable on the page become intractable in a take.
And with this one, a casual ‘Sorry, can I go again?’ means a major
realignment of carriages, horses, extras, an army . . .
Find a print in a Salisbury bookshop. The end of shoot gift panic begins.
And Major ‘resigns’. It’s called ‘courageous’. Fresh from all my de Valera
reading I’d call it ‘clever’, ‘well-judged’, ‘cunning’.

23 June
Once again, the tightrope walking. Suggestions are treated just too much like
irritations. And this is not an atmosphere for confrontation – and if it were
forced, Ang would collapse from wounded pride, honour, everything.
3.23 Train to London.

25 June
These are the CUSP days on which a life hinges. Left? Right? Straight?
Winding?
Rima decides not to come to the Directors’ Guild dinner – so wisely – I
take Louise Krakower. What the hell is this event about?? Obey your
instincts in future – DON’T go.
How can Cinema be celebrated by [ John] Boorman rambling, Zefferelli
not communicating. And so on. As soon as the last speech descends we
escape . . .

26 June
7.20am pick-up to go to Heathrow and Dublin.
As I got out of the car [in Dublin], there is Julia Roberts, upstairs to find
Liam [Neeson] & Aidan [Quinn]. Neil Jordan arrives a few minutes later –
we all sit down and talk through the de Valera scenes. Neil is his usual
jitterbugging self – like a grasshopper nipping from topic to topic.
27 June
9.45 pick-up to go to [the Michael Collins] offices for a read through.
Stephen Rea’s warm heart fills the room. Some great faces everywhere.
Neil reads the stage directions and sings, and makes occasional yelps and
stops to talk about a set – so excited by it all.
A bit of a dash to airport to get the 2.45 plane.

29 June
To Shepperton  .  .  .  Of course, the set, the newspapers, the TV and
everywhere is obsessed with Hugh Grant and his Sunset trick .  .  .27 What
can you say? Except as I said to Emma ‘There but for the grace.’ At the
moment I think it follows on too perfectly from the notion of a world
feeding on itself in the most gourmandising way. So many column inches, so
many other things we should concern ourselves with.
The scenes feel as if they are being ticked off now . . . Ang seems nervous.
He probably needs a hug. Like Hugh.

5 July
Ruby calls. She’s with Carmen du Sautoy28 – eventually they come over and
we go to Café Med. Great, honest talk with old friends – same old topic of
What are we doing – where are we going? But knot-releasing all the same.

9 July
1pm To Richard Wilson’s for his birthday lunch party . . . Idyllic stuff. Were
it not for the increasingly repetitive angst of How Much Has Been Drunk??
It means late-night rowing – pointless silences.

12 July
7.45 Dinner with Barbara and Ken Follett. Ken, as ever, starts the evening
with a jolly insult about my work – it seems to be a reflex action. Barbara
seems v. tired. (Later she confesses to having been working until 3.30am.)

19 July
To Kensington Council Chamber. When Rima speaks they all shut up. MP
to be . . .
23 July
9am A glorious ride through glorious countryside. Pity my horse is called
Wogan. But he’s high, wide and handsome and when he wants to go he’s a
Force 10 gale.
Home to messages from LA saying that Awfully Big Adventure has been
well reviewed but is doubtless too dark to succeed.

8 August
To  .  .  .  Dublin. And the Shelbourne. Catch-up-fast time. Hire a video
recorder, read the books, get under Dev’s29 skin. Hopefully.

9 August
8.45 pick-up → the set . . . The reconstruction of O’Connell Street is quite
brilliant. Post Office, Mansion House, cobbles and – frighteningly – the
platform for Dev’s speech. But it’s OK (I think) the drive down the street is
first to ease me in.
All day the crowds grow and grow – rumour has it that 2000 more were
sent home. That leaves 2–3000 inside all staring at me since Neil [Jordan]
comes to announce that the speech is first. Is it his nerves that makes him
question the hair, the costume, the accent, the everything???
In the end he’s happy and we just do it. No rehearsal. Just do it. Which is
why the resentment about 1st class, 2nd class treatment of American &
British actors rankles. It will never happen again. But there’s no denying the
buzz of it all.

10 August
10.30 pick-up to the set. Photo call for the Irish press. Julia Roberts a mite
pissed-off at being kept waiting . . . She should have tried yesterday’s gauntlet
ride.

11 August
Lunchtime-ish at ‘The Highest Pub in Ireland (sic)’. Foxes. The Highest?
The most full of bric-a-brac, or junk, certainly. Including some Dev front
pages and a Victorian potty, screwed to the wall . . .
12 August
Taxi to the airport for the 12.30 → Cork. Delays, hanging about, sitting on
tarmac. Eventually we get there and fart about trying to find the hire car.
A staggeringly beautiful drive to Cork (and onwards). The Brown Pub in
the grey square on the blue, blue day is the last stopping point – a glass of
Guinness and then down a lane is Belinda Lang. How did they find this
heaven on earth? .  .  . Picnic on the grass looking up at the hill. Delicious
supper. Too much red wine. Bleary-eyed. Bed.

17 August
Wandering around the streets of Dublin – along Dame Street from Temple
Bar to Grafton Street, Dawson Street and back, getting keys cut, looking
around Brown Thomas30 – it reminds me mostly of early views of 6th and
7th Avenue in Greenwich Village.
Back to the flat, moulding it slowly to my shape . . . To the set for hair
dyeing  .  .  .  Back to clean some windows (always therapeutic – instant
results). Supper. Early night.

18 August
The first day on the set with the other actors  .  .  .  And the prevailing
atmosphere is happy.

19 August
Waiting for the TV man to fix the video and Rima to arrive  .  .  .  Walk
around Temple Bar, buy some quite fantastic ham from the Italian deli.

20 August
Read the Sunday papers. Die Hard with a Vengeance opened this week – could
describe my attitude towards the ‘discussions’ with 20th C. Fox.

21 August
A day of running and jumping . . . Good fun because no lines. A kind of
headiness is inevitable – and deepened by a trip to Whelan’s for Sharon
Shannon. My hero. The joy that empties itself from her CDs is nothing to
what happens live. Number after number has the whole body, the whole
room moving helplessly with it. And I met her. And kissed her. And asked
her to play at our wrap party. And she said yes.
Home to beans on toast.

22 August
Kilmainham Jail.
2 minutes in one of the cells and I’m starting to get anxious – what must
it have been like? Clear enough in Last Words – the book given to me by the
museum manager. They were all so proud to die. They knew when it was
coming [and] what it was for. Strange walking in the footsteps, too, copying
de Valera’s letter to Mother Gonzaga31 (he has been told he is to be shot).
This is beginning to feel like something I just have to hand myself over to –
it will take care of itself. Hidden forces are very strong. I’m sitting in his cell,
writing a letter to Michael Collins, the dust filling the slash of sunlight. That
glimpse of a changing sky must have meant everything.

23 August
Kilmainham and the sacristy. Father Benedict would be de Valera if you gave
him some glasses. I’m surrounded by people talking of where the host, the
genuflexion would be if, and, but, as we try to shape a scene and get a
candle imprint in the wax. Difficult and a sudden reminder that heat
conducts especially down the handle of a metal key. In the end the scene is
sort of stitched together. I hope it has some wit, and that push for full-face
was not seen as pure ego.

25 August
Buried all day down in the endless catacombs. Very little room for the easy
personal exchanges . . . A bit of High-Nooning goes on – not helped by an
excessively silent crowd of jurors (for the scene). The scene is difficult to get
hold of anyway and an excessive (and all-too familiar) desire to ‘solve’ it
instantly doesn’t help. A mix of concentration, determination and invention
produces something like the real thing, but tiredness eventually claims the
crown as the text turns to intractable ashes in my mouth just as the cameras
turn round on me.
3 September
Gearing up to work on a Sunday is a contradiction in terms. 10.15 pick-up
to paint the hair brown again and then many hours in the trailer but at least
it’s the All-Ireland Hurling final [between Clare and Offaly] and Clare would
have been Dev’s team. Fantastically exciting game to watch – now there’s
something for Murdoch to promote. Clare wins for the first time in 81
years . . .
The scene is, surprisingly, in a bike shop so a spinning wheel becomes the
prop and the metaphor (for my brain trying to forge a connection with my
tongue). Not sure it wasn’t a bit tricksy and secretiveness must not become
Dev’s habitual manner but there was a shape.

7 September
7.15 Call. To the Mansion House . . . Some argy-bargy early on about why
aren’t there any women here. Countess Markievicz?32 This script is held
together by liberal scrapings of prejudice allied to the fact that the times are
so badly recorded, as Neil says. So much is left to hearsay or personal
standpoint. We get there, though. In between shots, the usual half-successful
attempts to collar Neil and discuss later scenes, or show him contradictory
versions. But at least I know now that in some part of his nerve-stillness he is
listening. And he lights up all over when he’s pleased with the work. A pat
on the back from quiet, determined, shy Chris Menges [director of
photography] means a lot, too. The day ends well and Neil says (3 or 4
times) ‘I’ll have a look at that scene, yeah?’

9 September
To the airport for the 12.45 to London. Stephen Frears there . . . and I hear
how well The Van is going  .  .  .  I still can’t think quite what he meant by
saying he never understands why people (actors or in this case Chris
Menges) want to direct. Does that mean he hates what he does or is he
inviolate?

12 September
12.45 Flight to Dublin.
 6.45 pick-up and on to a night shoot at Kilmainham. Sandy Powell
[costume designer] has made Dev a fetching coat and bonnet for his Lincoln
Jail escape. Much fiddling about with keys and locks and doors then running
up the road till 5am by which time it’s all happening in a blur. Stephen
Woolley says the rushes are great. This is one man (of few words normally)
who I believe.

19 September
1.30 pick-up. Through the Wicklow Mountains to Glenmalure and a
thatched cottage by a stream. For the first time Dev in a State scene with the
‘Fresh Faced Kid’ i.e. Jonathan33 who’s on his third movie this year, plays
flute, tin whistle and drums (and sings Gaelic & Rock) has just returned
from backpacking in Vietnam, learned Arabic in Egypt, and is, of course,
also impossibly good-looking . . .
The scene is snatched at. No proper thoughts AGAIN. Homework and
flexibility is what we can offer, but no guarantees as to the mood of the
moment. But that is also part of the pleasure of working with Neil. You have
to yield. He doesn’t stand still long enough to have a structured discussion.
In a strange way it’s quite freeing.

21 September
. . . 6pm pick-up.
Another lump of Ireland commandeered for the Pub and Hayrick [scene].
The town stays up all night to see it. Eventually, my shot is at 4am. Maybe
it’s just as well. The shivering is fairly authentic by then.
Neil & I and gradually the crew go to the pub for a 6am drink. It
becomes a chance for a mutual affirmation of the wish to work together
again. My brain had long packed its bags so we may have to have the
discussion again with proper sentences.
Bed at 7am.

25 September
The Treaty Debate. In the Reading Room of Trinity – beautiful octagonal
space filled with great faces . . . Dev takes hold and hangs on all day towards
evening when the camera comes round. A brief note from Neil and the
whole tone shifts to something more neurotic and darker. But it’s a long,
long smoke-filled day.
Good then to go to Cooke’s for a farewell supper with Aidan Quinn. And
proper talks with Neil and then Natasha Richardson who is in the well-
known shall I, shan’t I, dilemma.
And of course Lillie’s beckons until it’s 4am. Again.

1 October
9am The phone rings. It seems only about 3 hours since I went to sleep. It is
only 3 hours since I went to sleep. Down to the set to re-do a scene with
Liam (off-camera but on-glasses).
Now staging for a Tuesday re-shoot. One advantage of this is spending a
Sunday quietly thinking about packing, answering letters, moving on.

3 October
9.45 pick-up. Reshoot scene with Collins without Liam, with Neil reading
in. Chris wanted to re-do the lighting. Fair enough. Actors aren’t the only
craftspersons.

4 October
Home to mounds of mail and 24 messages. The phone rings. Emma T. She
sounds strange – sort of depersonalised which for her is a kind of
contradiction in terms. If only, once, she would receive something from a
point of innocent joy . . .

9 October
7pm Il Postino. Cinema Paradiso school. At a crucial moment, the subtitles
disappeared, and almost wrecked the film. I didn’t quite hand myself over to
it as completely as I expected to.
Dinner at the Italian afterwards. I landed on the horrendous possibility of
a future spent eating in restaurants. Couldn’t. Always more fun preparing
food in an efficient kitchen and entertaining friends.

12 October
9.30 Car to Goldcrest to loop Sense and Sensibility. Good to see Ang and
Lindsay. An incredibly irritating sound recorder. Complete with acting
notes?!? ‘Could you put a laugh in here to cover the gap . . .’

15 October
To → Mum for a.m. visit including hair-raising trip around the supermarket
on her scooter.

16 October
Nothing like enough sleep before getting up and checklisting myself out the
door, into the car and on the way to Heathrow. Not without hitches. The
keys from R.W. The driver leaving me at Terminal 4, not 1 .  .  . But
eventually I’m on the plane with Ian McKellen and St Petersburg here we
come. Ian is the best travel companion – funny and generous and curious
and as clumsy as me with his fruit juice all over the seat. Lunch is taken in a
different area.

17 October
Today was re-aligning mixed up with Babelsberg déjà vu, mixed up with
costume fittings for a character I don’t know yet, so back to the hotel for
catch-up time. Which was helpful in terms of clothes if nothing else.
And before dinner Ian & I wandered into a supermarket, niet, mini-
market and bought the Georgian wine which can take the blame for these
scribblings.

19 October
Will I now ever get used to not having caviar for breakfast??

20 October
First day shooting on Rasputin.
A late start means . . . losing the light so on to the vomit shot – except for
the last take, that is. Some HBO whisperings and ‘one more take’ with the
vomit disappearing behind the pillar. Any amount of sex and violence, but
no visible vomit.
25 October
10am pick-up. Shots lost all the time. [Sedmara] Rutstein has recorded 3
songs – some of the day is spent learning the words. Some of it, over lunch,
reminding Freddie’s34 mother that he’s getting paid so stop
complaining . . . Finally hit the set around 6pm. ‘We have our instructions,’
says Elemér [Ragályo, cinematographer], cryptically. But prophetically. Uli
[Edel, director], always in danger of sense of humour absence, is also
sounding more & more like a dictator. A showdown may well show up.
Back at the hotel, Diana Quick, James Frain,35 Peter Jeffrey,36 etc., etc.
have arrived. We all have dinner in the Imperial and laugh. Actors are great
people, and special and funny & self-denigrating, so fuck you anyone who
disagrees.

26 October
The first real scene. After Rasputin’s first real healing of Alexei. It’s all about
manipulating, cajoling, bullying, flattering, whatever-ing the director. Off-
set Uli has a vulnerability that shines through his tractor-like nature. On-set,
the bark is insistent, humour almost non-existent, manners unheard-of as
extras are herded and actors given their instructions. ‘You will stand here,
you will do this, you will then do that.’
I, of course, respond to all this like a tank running through its gears. A
mild confrontation eventually ensues when we test the water of ‘Actors are
People’, mainly because he likes the work, so a moment arrives to explain –
as if to a child – how exactly it is being achieved. How will this fadge? At
least the bark disappeared.
And the pleasures are that Greta [Scacchi] & Ian retain their wit and good
humour as I sail blowsily into the fray. There will be many laughs ahead . . .

31 October
Scene between Ian and I. Supported by late script notes – but coming from
such a weak, cowardly mouth in production corner.

1 November
In St Isaac’s. This gift ($35,000 of it) of a location. I don’t think Uli knows
what to do with it. Serviceable, clear narrative would be a bonus, but again
his panic and insecurities come out as such charmless, mirthless behaviour
that it is also counter-productive. We would all be working better if we were
really working together.

2 November
I go to the set at 6pm only to be sent home again at 8pm. Somewhere
around 10.30 I feel a confrontation coming on, so I go to look for one.
Success. Nick [Gillott, producer] & Uli are in the bar. Faffing. ‘Out with it’
is had by all. Rehearsals are promised. Hallelujah.

6 November
This was the day for singing in Russian to a Russian crew . . . and rowing
endlessly with Uli, He Who Waits to Be Obeyed. No process. In his boyish
way he just can’t stop himself from stopping us if we step outside his
storyboard.

7 November
Uli finally said it. When I wondered about a camera coming with me across
the snow, he says ‘Why?’ I reply, ‘It would have the right energy.’ He says, ‘I
do it in the editing room.’

8 November
The body clock is whizzing, rewinding and whirring. No knowing what
time my eyes might click open. Writing this at 8.10am. A brainbox that
can’t shake off yesterday’s ‘Why are you doing this movie?’

9 November
The efforts of yesterday turn into the aches, pains and bruises of today.
Massage and whirlpool help and then off to the wooden bridge (the actual
bridge) for the throwing over of Rasputin. Ten degrees below is a jaw-
dropping temperature with gloves and coat off, so I hid in the car as much as
possible. I hate last nights, last shots, goodbyes. Casual as possible is all I can
do – hard in the face of an outpouring of affection from the Russian crew.
Makes me wish we were here longer and with more sensitive leaders.
 But the champagne and cake is a happy farewell as the circus moves on.
Later . . . Uli lectures Masha & Olga [who are playing two of the princesses]
about the history of Russia. Unfuckingbelievable. The almost total lack of
curiosity about another human being . . .

10 November
Vienna Airport. Flew out of St Petersburg at 3.15. Now we’re two hours
back waiting for the 7.50 to Budapest. Totally confused and wondering what
I’m doing. This job engages one minute and utterly distances the next. Why
do I continually find myself being shunted into the middle of the road?? Is
that the awful convergence of Colin Wilson’s37 2 destinies? Half involved,
half outsider – impossible mix or original one?? The above prompted by
Natasha L.’s38 gloom and doom. Drawing ill fortune to oneself then meant
that our flight was cancelled. 2 hours later we’re on to KLM. Arrive
Budapest. Great room overlooking the Danube and Buda.

11 November
Some work on the script. The Nicholas off to war sequence is all wrong.
Budapest has been ‘got at’ – McDonald’s, Burger King, Marks & Spencer.
It doesn’t have the flowing impossible beauty of St Petersburg but there’s
something that was obviously unique being ironed out. The hotel is just
Budapest, America. Imported phones, lamps, cupboards etc. God forbid
Americans should feel they are somewhere ELSE.

13 November
Some days make keeping a diary not only essential but a legal requirement.
My hearing has not been right since the shooting of Rasputin. Today I asked
for a doctor [and] was taken to see a specialist – no burst eardrum but ‘acute
hearing loss’ in the upper register. 4 hours a day treatment (can’t) or vitamin
pills etc. to regenerate damaged cells – all v. alarming . . . I notice a quiet
panic filling the eyes of producers  .  .  .  followed by the words ‘second
opinion’.

14 November
Uli has this irritating ability to look at your instinctive responses and
straighten them in the same breath as complaining that it’s ‘too neat’, ‘too
theatrical’ – too something. I am reminded of one of those battery-run toy
drummers from the TV ads.
Production designer in the bar later voices the same running complaint –
‘It was such a good script’ – I keep trying to work out why it changed.
When? How? The stealthy hand of the money men.

15 November
[Princess] Marisa Scene – Basic Date Rape preceded by the women either
washing my clothes, baking my cakes or sewing my shirts . . . – no opinions,
just hero worship. The Mesmer echoes resound, the gently reproving faces are
a blast from the past, the shrug of the shoulder exactly the same. We hope
for the best . . .
‘Production’ continues to clodhop its way through this experience. Joyce
[Nettles] is now fired (after Pat, the attempt on the camera crew & Andy)
followed by Hugh Harlow [production supervisor]. They are all the people I
actually TRUST – is this a coincidence??? A character flaw??
Sheila Ruskin39 and I, having performed the swiftest seduction scene in
history, are fairly plastered by the time we leave the bar.

16 November
– only to pick up where we left off – humping at 8am, cameras and wires
everywhere. Taste & judgement & careful placing of clothing.

17 November
The start of the day is promising (the band is a joy – later I discovered that
one of the dancers was in tears that her shoulders were uncovered,
convinced that her husband would divorce her – Natasha40 had to move fast
with some shawls).
As the day wears on, Uli hits his stride in terms of slowing the work . . . I
fall into bed with murder on my mind.

20 November
Charm. Humour. Perspective. Respect for other people. Awareness of
foreign tongues, customs. All more or less absent from Herr Director’s
psyche. But his vulnerability keeps me with him rather than on the next
plane.

21 November
Marco Polo with a gang, plus Diana Quick who has flown in. James F.’s last
night with us. He’s a real representative of his generation of actors.
Somewhere covered up is his love of his craft but loud, strong and visible is
his knowledge of who’s doing what film with who, what the grosses were
and how to say Yeah? And Really? As real contributions to a conversation.
Or to cover up (again) his genuine intelligence and warmth lest they should
not be cool qualities. Thank you Thatcher.

22 November
1ish To the hospital for second hearing check. A slight improvement but
they want to do ‘infusions’. 1 hour a day in the hospital – good luck with
that, schedulers.

24 November
Woke knowing there was no way I could work . . . To the set and straight
back to bed and boxes of pills of all descriptions . . . This kind of sickness
robs you of thought – you are all sensation and none of it is pleasant, except
a certain relief at being still and warm.

25 November
Ian & John41 call by having spent 4 hours rewriting two of their
scenes . . . Ian calls back later with flowers and concern. He has the biggest
heart. Greta told me that yesterday he had visited her and the monologue
went ‘You don’t want those clothes lying there, do you?’ ‘You don’t want all
these trays of food left here, do you?’ With that room service was called, he
hung all her clothes up and then went into the bathroom where he cleaned
up, and, Greta thinks, even cleaned the bath. His leaving words were ‘You
can’t get well inside if you’re not well outside, can you.’ There was only one
tray for him to question in my room, but he was certainly looking around.
26 November
Woke feeling lousy . . . What does penicillin do? Mask the symptoms? Kid
you?
Rima sorts it out on the phone, of course. ‘If it’s a virus – no use but no
harm, if it’s a bacteria it’ll help.’ I love her certainties.

28 November
The virus seems to have eased and allowed a quick entry to the full 3-
sneeze-at-a-time cold.
Watched K. Clarke hurdling through his budget. Good if you are a rich
old person owning vintage cars and drinking Scotch – why are we surprised.
Re-reading some pages of this diary is like looking at a graph of an
exhausted mind.

29 November
Back to work  .  .  .  By an effort of will we make it through 3 scenes (2 of
them on one take . . .).

1 December
Rima arrives – happy little trot around the streets, buy some shoes at the
handmade shop. Some gift items for Greta & maybe Ian.

2 December
A day of fairly high temperament – or as Jenny says ‘Once you start on Uli,
it’s amazing how many people have got something else to do.’ But it is
impossible to ignore his rudeness. ‘Move her quicker  .  .  .’ ‘Her’ name is
Elena [Malashevskaya, playing Grand Duchess Olga], she’s been with us from
the beginning. LEARN HER NAME!!!

6 December
Another definition of hell. This time a dinner scene in a room full of mirrors
with a director who HASN’T DONE HIS FUCKING HOMEWORK. So
faff about is the order of the morning.
G.S. has 2 lines and spends most of the day trying to remember them in
amongst a lot of queening. Not endearing and deeply remembered.
Especially when you have a bunch of text and continuity muddled together.
Strangling springs constantly to mind.

7 December
10 scenes to shoot (if possible) .  .  . I watched the plaster/rubber cast of
myself (very creepy) being buried & then, later on, burned. Uli, only half-
joking, had been looking forward to using me, in person, in the coffin and
nailing the lid down (ha ha ha has to be added to this in a Doberman
Pinscher kind of manner).

10 December
Up to Buda and the Castle to look at locations . . . Now I see one of our
problems – Uli’s fatal indecision and non-involvement of others. His always
shaky sense of humour completely deserts him. Filming is a blinkered,
obsessive activity with him, somehow to truly involve others is to confess
weakness, or maybe he was bullied, or maybe as John C.42 was saying his
experience of being German with a black Jewish wife makes him even more
defensive. Or maybe he just shouldn’t bark. In the car on the way back the
unsuspecting driver is yapped at to turn the music off. That’s why I fight him
and don’t love myself for it.

11 December
Mind and body getting v. tired. Morning doing prostitute scene with
Agnes43 who is excellent – usual ‘could you be provocative’ rubbish going
on . . .
Later, an Indian meal with Ian . . . Messages saying S&S a treat. I feel a
holiday coming on in a big way.

14 December
Finally shot the last scene kneeling in wet earth, by the side of a road, dogs
barking, traffic going by . . .
Later at the hotel, Ian, Greta and I have some late supper in the Grill. Too
late, I discover some edible menu food. Greta is up late. Ian says ‘That’s OK,
you’re supposed to look terrible tomorrow.’
15 December
Today they shot the Romanovs. Not before I had been to the hospital – no
improvement. Now diagnosed as permanent damage. Those words are all
suddenly depressing.
Inevitably the wrap party (having been moved to the hotel) moves back to
the stage. Sad to finish in such acrimony with producers. In the bar at the
hotel afterwards I attempt to talk to Uli about the whole experience – he is
immovably certain about his brilliance as a visionary, his tolerance and
understanding of actors. He is wrong about nothing, and even does his
‘Where is . . .’ moments in the middle of something or other I was wasting
my breath trying to explain.
Second-rate, says Ian. Infuriating say I.

17 December
[London]
Rima toddles off to the Sense and Sensibility screening. I’m overflowing
with cold and post-Rasputin confusion and decide to stay at home. She
returns aglow, which for this Austen freak-of-all-time is the greatest
compliment.

21 December
12.30 To Garfield Davies [ENT specialist]. Identical diagnosis. Permanent
damage – nothing can be done. The pills would achieve nothing. Like
staring at a blank piece of paper. Can’t really comprehend.

25 December
Whatever law it is, or thinks it is, which says that families must gather
together and get on on a particular day should be repealed or blown apart.
This was the pits.
Alcohol as ever the great loosener of tongues, truths & untruths. It can
free and it can destroy. The meal at the hotel was dreadful, appalling
service  .  .  .  Cold everything, hours between courses. Too much time to
drink. Memories of past Christmases.
Rima & I end up, thankfully, alone with some cold meat, a bottle of wine
and The American President. Appropriate – a film about nothing . . .
26 December
A trip to Ruby & Ed’s, where, amazement – a hug from Max. A first. We
leave him v. happily playing with his Geo-Game and vamoose to Helena &
Iain’s party. Neil & Glenys, Jonathan & Kate, Susie Orbach, Claire Rayner,
Alastair Campbell, Jon Snow etc., etc. – the usual heady mix. BH, what with
jet lag and LA-itis – have to be rescued & led to a quiet room. More drink,
more tears. A sudden flash of opening a door as a child to find an aunt
crying. Christmas, it was, too. Eventually get away to the only real, real
thing – my mother sitting at home, not well, but happy to see us. Eventually,
join R. & E. & B. at the Standard (local Indian restaurant). Now Miss R. is
pissed and voluble and argumentative. I feel like the top of my head is
coming off, spinning. Pack.

27 December
Painless, easy flight to Toronto.

29 December
Straightforward flight to New York. Beverly Penberthy’s44 brother is there to
pick us up and take us to Rye – winter wonderland via Disney and
Hallmark . . . Beverly later cooks dinner with Martha Clarke45 as an extra
guest. The hearing thing is going to be a battle – it makes me sit ‘outside’
the conversation . . . But then so does exposure to the ad campaign for Sense
and Sensibility – there’s no escaping who Columbia thinks is the draw.

30 December
am Looking out of the curved windows at the Sound flowing by, dark
branches filling the window frames, a clear blue/grey & pale yellow sky –
tracking back over this jam-packed year.
Winter Guest Leeds / Sundance / Los Angeles / Winter Guest London /
Berlin / Blair dinner / Snowdon lunch / ABA premiere / Sense and
Sensibility / Michael Collins / Temple Lane / Rasputin / St Petersburg &
Budapest / no wonder it had to end with a bang and a few whimpers.
Drive into Manhattan alongside the Hudson. Sunny & warm – for all the
world, a spring day. Glad I brought the overcoat and scarf . . .
31 December
Lazy morning . . . Eventually we head out . . . to meet Liam & Natasha for
what turns out to be a wonderful, chatty, friendly lunch – Liam has seen
Michael Collins and loves it so – ONWARD. Natasha tells us a horror story
or two about J.R., K.B., & E.T. and we gas on till about 3.30.
Over the road to Lee Grant’s46 apt at 11.45pm – huge room, lots of
people (including G. Paltrow & Brad Pitt) stand around, hold glass, smile,
chat, leave with Marcy [Kahan], Pat [O’Connor], M. E. [Mastrantonio],
Diana & Richard & R. Visit Marcia’s £3m squat.
Bed. Early call. Bye bye 1995.

1
Scottish actors Sheila Reid (1937–), who played Lily, and Sandra Voe (1936–), who played Chloe
2
British actor (1953–)
3
The director was Bryan Singer.
4
Shallow Grave had been recently released.
5
A.R. is referring to Ang Lee.
6
English artist and stage designer (1904–1978)
7
Arena: The Peter Sellers Story (BBC2, 1995)
8
He walked out of his lead role in Simon Gray’s Cell Mates and fled to Belgium.
9
British talent agent (1947–). He was A.R.’s agent during the early part of his career.
10
[A.R.’s publicist]
11
Stealing Beauty (1996)
12
British actor and model (1972–)
13
American journalist (1951–); Gail was his then wife
14
Irish writer (1944–)
15
American writer (1948–)
16
English actor and satirist (1936–1998)
17
Club modelled on a Victorian brothel
18
British theatre director (1927–). The book was One Foot on the Stage.
19
British actor Rosalind March
20
British actor (1962–), sister of Emma Thompson
21
Australian-Brazilian-Italian production designer (1940–)
22
Labour MP (1908–1993)
23
Jonathan Pryce, for playing Lytton Strachey in Carrington
24
American actor (1952–2004), best known for playing Superman, paralysed in a riding accident
25
De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow
26
Elizabeth Spriggs, English actor (1929–2008)
27
He had been arrested in Los Angeles with a prostitute.
28
British actor (1950–)
29
Éamon de Valera
30
Department store
31
Mother Mary Gonzaga Barry, Irish-Catholic religious sister (1834–1915)
32
Irish politician (1868–1927)
33
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who played Michael Collins’ assassin
34
British actor Freddie Findlay (1983–), who played Tsarevich Alexei
35
English actor (1968–)
36
English actor (1929–1999)
37
Author of The Outsider
38
Natasha Landau, costume designer
39
English actor Sheila Ruskin (1946–). She played Princess Marisa, who asks Rasputin to bless her
but before he does he insists she has sex with him.
40
Natasha Gorina, make up supervisor
41
John Wood, English actor (1930–2011)
42
John Cater, English actor (1932–2009)
43
Ági Kökényessy, Hungarian actor (1967–)
44
American actor (1932–)
45
American theatre director and choreographer (1944–)
46
American actor, documentarian and director (born mid 1920s)
 1996

DUBLIN – MICHAEL COLLINS – ISABELLE HUPPERT – THE

WINTER GUEST – SENSE AND SENSIBILITY – DUNBLANE
MASSACRE – LOS ANGELES – THE ENGLISH PATIENT – NEW
YORK – CANNES – FIFE – GLYNDEBOURNE – IAN McKELLEN –
PASADENA – GLASGOW – NEW YORK – VICTORIA WOOD –
FIFE

15 January
Lunch at Kensington Place with Hilary Heath. She and Jonathan Powell
want me to play whatshisname1 in Rebecca – but it’s a 4 part TV. So I said I
can’t. You may act the same (or better) but somehow TV drags it down.
Unless it’s a sitcom in the US (Tom Hanks, Roseanne) and TV drags you up.
Impossible conundrum.
7.30 The Glass Menagerie.
Another production from Sam Mendes. What is it about him? Theatre is a
playground or a wet-wipe of personal therapy, it seems. No real resonance –
no sense of the danger of an unpredictable outburst. All carefully arranged.
Zoë Wanamaker can look after herself but she needs to be challenged. Claire
Skinner2 can do that standing on her head. It all passes before our eyes
masquerading as the real thing.

17 January
Supper with Belinda & Hugh and Frances B[arber]. An evening of the most
News of the Worldish details. Thank whatever I’m discreet . . . Frances is a life
force – tidal waves of laughter and perception. Just don’t tell her too many
stories; her repertoire is full enough.
18 January
An appalling hangover – headache, ailing back and neck. The works. Never
again.

22 January
Watch S&S in growing dismay. It has been cut to focus only on the women’s
journey – the men are mindless. Sad – we should care who they are
marrying.

23 January
Still brooding, of course. There is a definite sense with S&S that all the
corners have been knocked off – no eccentricities, no focus on what is
happening to (particularly) Brandon. We are holding the plot together.

24 January
Lunch with Kate Ryding at L’Accento. She’s deaf in one ear so we make a
pretty pathetic sight, picking the seats best for our particular ailments.

25 January
Michael Collins beckons.
12.50 → Dublin and Ardmore Studios. Neil’s hair is longer but his
rhythms haven’t changed. No sooner started looping a scene than he wants
to talk about/show me another. Of course, the looping is all the most
emotional stuff. All you can do is get on with it. (Having been told the film
is great.) Good group of editors, and we’re out of there in an hour. Neil
drives us into Dublin – his driving is like his conversation – gear shifts and
braking and accelerating in no discernible order. We have a welcome pint of
Guinness at the Shelbourne . . .

26 January
To the airport for the 2.15 flight to London.
Talk to Emma, she’s very pro the idea of Winter Guest or Winter’s Guest as
the US contingent call it. Siân Thomas is in the front of my brain as my
finger reaches for the phone dial. Such clear waters already become murky.
But a little determined honesty will help.

28 January
Talking to Emma T., realise the British Film Industry kicks itself in the face
again by putting the S&S premiere in the Curzon .  .  . 560 seats up a side
street.

29 January
One minute talking about film deals, the next about hearing aids and a
demonstration of how to pull up your pants with a mechanical gripper.
pm over to see Mum and Aunt Elsie. Who says sisters should get on? But
it is still depressing to watch the endless obstinacy and sniping – fortunately
with moments of ease and good humour but stubbornness rules.
A welcome evening alone. Salutary to watch the Evening Standard Film
Awards. Thora Hird emerged with her dignity intact. And she made me
laugh. Double hero.

31 January
Rima’s birthday – the day spent organising the evening . . . All down to the
always reliable Ivy. I must own part of it by now.

1 February
Leila Bertrand [casting director] comes over to talk through And All That
Jazz her London-through-the-eyes-of-a-Dominican-girl-in-the-1950s film
script. She, John Clive,3 Thandie Newton all good reasons to be involved.
At this stage suggesting a reading is the most helpful thing.
Word from LA . . . that Rasputin has been seen and liked.
Two late nights – woken too early – tiredness takes over and signs of how
that affects the hearing and seems to focus on the tinnitus. Depressing. And a
vicious circle.

3 February
Sandra and Michael Kamen. Supper with Rima, Bryan Adams and Cecilie
[B.A.’s girlfriend]. More surprises since Bryan turns out to be a regular guy
who worries about buildings and doesn’t do drugs. Cecilie is a top – maybe
super – model who’s in it for a couple of years etc., etc.
At maybe 2am Michael played us the new theme song to the (v. worrying)
Jack movie. And then rippled through the Winter Guest like a spring tide.

4 February
To Mum and Aunt Elsie with lunch. This mental digging and need is odd to
watch. Whatever its downside, Mum is looking much healthier. Possibly
from bossing someone around or having a rare opportunity to display the
diva at her centre. Covent Garden’s loss.
And hopelessly touching with Rima & I, hands on the handles of a
wheelchair each, out for a walk around the park, as all four of us pause to
look at the magpies waddling about in the sunset.

6 February
To Isabelle Huppert. The easiest person to talk to – full of laughter and the
ability to focus on the turn of a sixpence. And curious, too. So un-English.
Her courage makes me want to act in French tomorrow.

7 February
7.15 Volpone at the National. Gambon magnificent and so wicked. Doubtful
that [Ben] Jonson called one of the servants Kevin . . . The production leaves
you wanting – the set spins, the language flings itself around, the acting is
(mostly) brave but there is a general air of UNEXPLORED. Simon Russell
Beale has a wonderfully pitched reading. I wish he would find different
mouth-shapes.

11 February
As this birthday approaches there is this strong, strong desire to control the
past (photographs, old scripts, mementos) or sling it out. Very freeing. Look
in the wardrobe – if there are clothes which slightly depress you to look at
them – maybe out they could go.
Watching tape of Ruby with Roseanne [Barr] – mostly a delight but
Ruby should just let them speak. Let’s just look at them.
12 February
. . . a sad message from Alex Sheriffs.4

13 February
Which continues when I phone this morning. Roberta Sheriffs had been
taken into St Mary’s on Sunday and having not been expected to make it
through the night, is still there. But only just – and now they have phoned
Alex to tell her she has maybe 5 minutes. I jump in a cab to meet Alex there
which we do, on the stairs. Arriving at the ward – Roberta has gone. The
curtains are all around the bed, the nurses sympathetic, but going in – gone
is the word. If I didn’t know, it would be impossible to recognise her. The
spirit has truly left this face and body. A sense not so much of death, but of
what life is, because of its extraordinary absence. Alex combs her hair, over
and over, and wipes her mouth, her eyes, kisses her and talks to her. Much
more direct than I, who can only photograph it mentally. Forever. The
doctor is clear and patient because now Alex needs to talk in details. Then
we all go off for an Italian lunch where we laugh as much as we can. Which
is a lot.
The value-battles which have somehow been designed for me reach a
kind of apotheosis because today is Academy Award nominations day. Let’s
draw a veil over my own confused response to everything and merely record
a happy L’Accento supper with Conor McDermottroe (here to stay).

14 February
Academy nominations for Emma & Kate yesterday but not Ian, nor Nicole
K. Crazy days.

15 February
8pm Hampstead.
Stephen Poliakoff ’s new play. Absolutely accosted by Stephen in the foyer
with instructions that I was not to give notes to his actresses. How could I?
Both brilliant in another of Stephen’s trips along the razor edges, the high
wire.

18 February
12 Isabelle’s lunch at the Ivy upstairs. 34? people round the beautiful oval
table. The kind of day you wish would go on and on . . . Other than that –
with hindsight, the room full of echoes. Especially of women I have played
opposite – and as I look around – Juliet, Fiona, Paola, Harriet, Saskia,
Deborah, Beatie, Zoë, Gillian, Anna – it is a source of pride.

20 February
The bar at the Ivy to wait for Isabelle. Bomb scares all over the place –
London a fragile place to be.

21 February
2am Judy Hoflund calls from LA for an early Happy Birthday.
The trouble with this job is that you can watch yourself & your friends
growing older in full colour, close up. Flip a switch to rewind or fast
forward. Too fast forward.
1.15 To Alastair Little for lunch w. Ruby & Suzanne Bertish. Ruby brings
me coffee grinder and saucepans – Suzanne a crystal. They’re a good balance
these two – Suzanne with her beautiful laugh and grounded heart – Ruby
whizzing about as ever.
Home to get ready.
6.30 The car is here and by 6.45 we’re on the way to the Curzon Mayfair
for Sense and Sensibility premiere which is a good distraction from the
birthday . . . Old friends in new frocks, line-up for Prince Charles (tell him
he should have played my part) and in to the film. Terrible sound but cuts
apart it’s a beautiful piece of work. To the Whitehall Banqueting Rooms for
supper – wonderful Rubens on the ceiling – with Richard W. & Isabelle H.
in the car. Harriet comes after her show. Jocelyn Stevens’5 crowd insists that
I ‘Go on! Say something! It’s him! With the voice!’

22 February
A truly awful day after – no sleep, too much wine, unresolved everything;
long slow dull pain. A real feeling of why bother? Everywhere is tension
from friends to politics. What’s going on? Maybe the wind will turn, but at
the moment there is a gnawing feeling that this life offers only fleeting
moments when it all comes together because the rest of it requires a fitter
body and a more grown-up mind.
None of it helped by spending the day alone. Janet comes to clean, the
phone rings – agent business, mortgage business. But the contrast to all the
glitter of yesterday makes both seem aimless.
Count blessings. Grow up.

24 February
Watch Shawshank Redemption. ‘Expertly done’ would be the review. Not a
foot wrong. Classy. I just wish this had not extended even to the immaculate
hairdos of all the inmates. When will a director tell a hair person to STOP
tidying everyone up – it’s an awful reflex action.

26 February
11.15 The car, after a bit of last-minute phoning, planning and parking,
picks me up and first stop is Kristin Milward’s who is coming with me on a
trip to Berlin. Columbia needs me to pick up the Golden Bear. Ang’s away,
Emma’s in hiding or purdah, but it’s an opportunity to see old friends.
5pm – Phone interview with the US. And write short speech to be
delivered in German.
6.30 Christina, Klaus & Christophe [German friends of A.R.] bring a
bottle of champagne to the hotel, then off to the prize-giving. Clamber on
stage and receive Golden Teddy . . .

3 March
8pm The Dorchester, to sit around & order room service with Susan
Sarandon who has come in to do publicity for Dead Man Walking. Susan is a
mind on speed – equal emphasis as she skids from politics to her career to
Tim [Robbins, her partner] to her kids. Which other mother takes 2 of
them river rafting in Idaho?

6 March
2.30 Judy Daish’s office – really beautiful space – a perfect frame for Judy’s
merry, thoroughbred personality.
 Later, finishing Draft 2 Winter Guest. Some adjusting and maybe Hey
Presto. It is a great script.

7 March
Isabelle wants an escort for the Restoration premiere. I put Hugh Fraser into a
tailspin by suggesting him. But he’s going.

9 March
3pm Tommy matinée. Stunning production. The critics sniping  .  .  .  is real
anal retention. Just go with it.
5.20 To . . . the Groucho Club to talk with Des McAnuff about his film
Cousin Bette,6 which as I said to him is like mixing Feydeau with Ibsen. Is
that possible? He’s good to talk to, though. Today I managed a little less.
Filling potential pauses. Sometimes you don’t know the end of the sentence
upon which you have just embarked. Scary.

10 March
12.15 Car to Grayshott Park [spa]. 4 days away from the phone and the
builders. 4 days with no alcohol and limited food. 4 days with regular
exercise.
But starting with 45 minutes of face massage and creams & mask. So what
the doctor ordered that I dozed off and at one point frightened the masseuse
out of her wits with a loud snore.
Side-product is that scripts are getting read and letters written. Hallelujah.

11 March
9.30 Dietician – what can she say? It’s a ridiculous lifestyle.
10.15 Steam room.
10.45 Massage. And we can. None of your Champney’s nonsense.
Lunchtime preceded by swim and hot-tub.
2.30 An hour’s coaching on the tennis court. Instant improvement, years
of bad habits. Completely whacked.
5pm Cranial osteopathy. Drifting in and out of a kind of sleep/dream
state. And when she says at the end ‘you’re more balanced now’ (or
somesuch) – I was.

12 March
Lunch is a question of how much can I get on the plate without falling on
the floor on the way from buffet to table.
5.30 Holistic massage – about as close to sex as it is legal to get here,
methinks. She insists on complete nakedness and the hands and oil are
SLOW.
Two hours later she’s done. I might have enjoyed it but for the ghastly
new age ‘Relaxation’ music and the growing suspicion that she was getting
most out of it. ‘It’s a lovely job – I just can’t wait to get my hands on all
those naked bodies.’
Very comatose. Pretty damn peckish.

13 March
Today was made somewhat irrelevant by the slaughter of all those children in
the school gymnasium in Dunblane. I didn’t find out until the afternoon so
the Reflexology wasn’t complicated by other thoughts, but the Flotation
Tank certainly was. My brain fought it all the way trying to make it less self-
indulgent, I suppose. What do you mean let yourself go, think of nothing?
If I hadn’t been leaving tomorrow, I would have anyway. To do what, I
don’t know, but just to join in again. Taking myself out of it has been very
valuable not to say very expensive and gives rise to all kinds of examinings.
How do you equate a week here with a drama student’s living expenses with
a jacket for LA with Mum’s chair with etcetera etcetera. The truth is, I have
been stroked a lot for four days but not by someone I love. And up in
Scotland tonight there is all that love and all that loss.

14 March
This morning’s TV coverage – and all British life is there. Channel 4
manages to intersperse news reports with silly games – how? BBC is dry as
dust, GMTV more alive to the situation, but smug and judgemental with it.
Talk of the killer ‘burning in hell’ helps no one . . . The murderer was also
five years old once. Look at him and look at the photos of the children.
What happens to us as we move on from their complete innocence – no
knowledge of hate, repression, race, responsibility. Just smiling faces – no
thoughts beyond the next half hour. Why is it only men who years later pick
up the guns? What do we do to ourselves to create these monsters within us?
Or is it innate? Whatever, GMTV’s simplicities are grotesque.

19 March
10am pick-up for 12.15 flight to Los Angeles.
Ian McK. & his boyfriend Ridian at the ticket desk. Which makes for a
really enjoyable flight.

20 March
7.15 Pick-up for Rasputin screening. Just as I am about to ‘cure’ Alexei a
voice from the back says ‘Is there a doctor in the house? We have an
emergency in the foyer.’ I nearly got up until I remembered I know nothing.
Weird sound. Weird screening. Maybe R. was visiting. Dinner at the Eclipse.
I think no one really knows what to make of the film. No wonder – it has
been directed by at least a dozen people.

24 March
5.15 Judy at the hotel to go to Lindsay [Doran] & Rodney’s house for S&S
reception. It is a little like a house for an American Agatha Christie film.
And it’s true – built in the ’30s and feeling like a historic monument. Emma
& Greg brown & happy.
8.30 To Martha L.’s house for reception for Susan Sarandon and Tim
Robbins. There is a growing certainty in the room, the town, the water that
Susan is going to win tomorrow. And that’s the Oscars – it’s not her best
performance but it’s time. And the Academy has no way to deal with the
subtlety of Tim’s direction so he won’t win.7

25 March
2pm Meet Ian to drive w. Ridian to David Hockney’s studio. It’s an industry
– offices, files, underlings. Going into a vast studio/exhibition space D.H. is
asleep on the sofa. This is a pinch me time, as we go on to his home on
Mulholland. All his enthusiasms as his mind bounces around showing us his
new things, schemes. He takes Polaroids of the 3 of us and then Xeroxes &
enlarges it. Ridian is the lucky recipient. His deafness only seems to increase.
His awakeness, his laughter, the colour which he almost swims in, in this
house.
5.45 to the Bel Air Hotel to pick up Greg and on to Judy’s house . . . The
Braveheart evening. Ent Weekly had thought ‘S&S may have peaked.’ What a
world. Afterwards to . . . the Columbia party. Noise, cameras, food, drink. A
vague sense of disappointment in the room. I feel distanced from it. Emma
& Kate arrive – noise, cameras, Emma & Katery.

26 March
9.30 Breakfast w. Anthony & Carolyn Minghella plus their business
managers – John and Duncan.
Robert Young replaces them – we talk of last night (his film Usual Suspects
had picked up two).
Julia Roberts comes in looking for Susan’s celebration brunch – her waist
is the most encirclable. On the way out pass Susan who is tired but very OK.

27 March
7am Check out and to LAX with Anthony Minghella for the flight to San
Francisco . . .
pm I watched a 4-hour assembly of The English Patient. Absolutely
exhausting, but riveting, too, in terms of storytelling, coverage, shot-making,
acting. The lot. It confirmed what I thought when I read the script – this
film will be made in the editing room.
Back home I spew up two responses. Anthony is like a happy dog at his
bowl. I can see how obsessive this directing lark might be. Ralph Fiennes,
Kristin Scott Thomas, Willem Dafoe and Juliette Binoche all wonderful.
Great to see such intelligent acting. Not just splurging.

28 March
Back at the ranch (almost literally) Anthony decides to look up A.R. on the
internet – 368 entries. It’s like reading about a stranger. Especially when they
write about who I live next door to, or don’t . . . But mostly they are good-
hearted. It’s like having a band of cheerleaders, all tapping away into the
night.
9 April
7.30 To Santa Monica for Michael Collins test screening. And still it’s an
action movie with not enough politics. Boys Own Revolution. Do the
explosions cancel out in art as in life? But it’s work in progress, so there’s
time to help the narrative. Neil sort of there – up and down in his seat. ‘Do
you have a cigarette?’ ‘Are you with it?’

11 April
Judy calls to tell me of the Daily Mail hate piece. Heigh ho.

12 April
[London]
8pm Michael Kamen’s birthday party  .  .  .  memorable for meeting Sharon
Stone – a truly attractive woman, in the real sense of light in the eyes
attractive – and smart and funny. No wonder she doesn’t have a man.

14 April
1.15 Lunch at the Ivy w. Peter Medak [film director], Julia Migenes [opera
singer], Louise Krakower [film producer], Ruth Myers [costume designer] &
Isabella Rossellini. Great to meet Ms R. finally . . . Her beauty is the kind
that stops you concentrating on what she’s saying sometimes because you are
fixated by the shape of her mouth.

28 April
New York.
12 Wyndham Hotel.
A huge shadow casts itself across the day with the news of how seriously
ill Diane Bull8 has become – life in a snap of the fingers. We press on as
Jonathan talks to London. It’s a luxury working with these people – all with
strong opinions and all able to take short cuts so that we gradually rebuild
the programme. I worry that there isn’t enough humour, though.
7ish Circo – Tina Brown/New Yorker/Almeida bash.
A huge crush of people. For most of the evening I only made it to the
edge of the throng. Then suddenly the room had cleared. Americans are like
that – not the English, we hang on long past the time we’re welcome
picking at the food and looking for wine in empty bottles.

29 April
2pm Laura Pels Theatre, Broadway & 45.
For a while I thought we might not get through it all – negotiating moves
and scribbling them down. By 6 we had finished and went to the dressing
room. I could not even remember who entered first by this point. A
sandwich was sent for, Natasha Richardson & I went to the supermarket
over the road. A quiet trawl through the hurried jottings.
8pm – Performance. First half v. pushed. Inevitably. Fishing around. Who
are you? What’s this material? Who am I? Where am I? But the audience
gradually decides to trust it all and the second half is lighter. The balance of
the material was fine. By the end it was all very special and joyous.

12 May
Cannes Film Festival 96.
. . . to Nice. A car to the Hotel du Cap in Cannes. V. expensive monk’s
cell . . . it’s £60 to have your suit cleaned. A 200F cab ride to the party for
Kansas City. No one got me a drink but the charm button was in full
operation and the final reward was to meet Robert Altman. Human, warm,
open, fun. ICON 1. 3am in the bar. ICON 2. Mick Jagger.

13 May
12 [midnight] Trainspotting. First time up that red carpet. Except we are ½
hour early, so it’s not exactly thick with atmosphere. But there at the top is
Lord Grade – worth the visit. 89 years old and waiting in the midnight air to
watch Trainspotting. And so generous in his appreciation. Also there – Damon
Albarn, Leonardo DiCaprio, V. Bottomley9 plus Danny Boyle, of course.
The film is an advert for drugs. A brilliant one.

25 May
9.05 Odeon Kensington. Secrets and Lies.
 Like watching your own life flash by. Things that aunts did or said and
mums never forgot and never talked about leaving you perplexed as you
open Xmas doors on sobbing relatives. Tim Spall quite wonderful.

31 May
7pm To the Covent Garden Hotel to pick up Laura Dern and on to the NT
for Designated Mourner. Wally Shawn [the play’s author] in the foyer before, at
the stage door afterwards and at the Ivy. What to say? I do not know what
was going on but it was happening with great style and wit. The Ivy was fun
– especially because Fay Presto10complete with playing card on the ceiling.

2 June
9ish To Searcys for Brian Cox’s birthday party. All human acting was there
(including a little boy who was the image of Rima).

6 June
The early morning scratchy throat.
10.15 Ear Test.
The bug starts to wander from the head to the chest.
7pm Dash in order [not] to miss the curtain for 7.30 English National
Opera Fidelio . . . That 1st act quartet is one of the most beautiful things I’ve
ever heard. David Hockney there and he tells a joke about Degas and the
telephone that I still don’t quite get.
Later – the Ivy.
and later – Lemsip revisited.

9 June
12 To David Suchet’s birthday party dinner . . . Nothing prepares me for the
ultimate cute High Street, or David & Sheila’s vast, perfect garden. Red
check table cloths flapping in the kind of heat that nails you down.
2.45 An undignified exit with Duncan for Susan Fleetwood’s11 memorial
service which was fine but nearly ruined by the egomaniac rector of St
James’s.

10 June
11ish Sharman arrives and we start working through the text and timing the
scenes.

12 June
2ish am – call Ian McK. in Los Angeles. He’s full of stories – the Indian guru
at Goldie Hawn’s house. ‘Are those Marlboro you are smoking?’

14 June
To Marks & Spencer to find a sweater & dress for Mama.

7 July
Emma & Phyllida for tea. This felt a little like an exam. No one’s fault but a
major career is being handed over for a temporary outing here, and she has a
right to feel nervous.

11 July
8 Dinner with Michael & Sandra Kamen. Ruby v. funny about her trip to
Paris as Vogue critic for the new collection. She learnt how to say ‘Who the
fuck is she?’ in 11 languages since she was always put in Seat 1A.

14 July
12 Richard W.’s birthday. His 60th – with friends and filled with his
generosity. He should be a grandfather – he loves children so much. Before
the party he was patiently organising the toys as the canapes were floating by.

15 July
8am Flight to Edinburgh.
Dinner (late) with Anthony, John, John-Ross & David. A phalanx of
parents in the bar. Chinese opposite the Lyceum. Suddenly they have moved
from boys to teenagers. John-Ross has a new voice, David found his height,
John seems 18 at 14, only Anthony has the same rubber-ball bouncing inside
him (only with more room now he’s 9" taller).
A message to call Rima. Mum is in hospital. Not much sleep.

16 July
A day of hopping about between towns on the Fife coast. Somewhere in
here Anstruther and Pittenweem assert themselves in the midst of wondering
whether it’s all about something simpler, starker.
8ish Dinner  .  .  .  with Christian Zanone. Thai. He talks of passing his
exams with no work. Subtle changes to his face too. I find myself looking at
him as casting directors must look at actors – too much this, not enough
that. At least he retains his sweet-tempered side. Talks of playing Malvolio
and washing up at a refuge centre in Italy with equal emphasis.

17 July
To Loch Lomond in order to rule it out. And on to the West Coast – Largs,
Troon, Prestwick, Ayr. In order to scream quietly. Ayr is summer hell. But at
Saltcoats there was a wonderful walkway & wall & strange abandoned house
which should be remembered.
In essence the Fife coast could certainly work if we keep the camera away
from the picturesque and concentrate on rock formations, walls, lighthouse.
The writing is crenellated enough.

19 July
1.30 To Cheyne Walk and on to Glyndebourne with Barbara & Ken Follett.
Ken pissed off because no car/no driver or something. He very much likes
things to go according to plan. Champagne & canapes in the car going down
etc.

3 August
5pm St Columba’s Church, Pont Street, for Dusty12 & Jessica Hughes’s
wedding.
A church, at first seeming an atmosphere-free zone, but in the end its
simplicity, not to mention its great choir – some beautiful Mozart – and the
picture of Dusty’s mother gently disappearing into Alzheimer’s as her nurse
talks her through the service – made the whole thing rather wonderful.
The reception at Leighton House meant sitting next to Kathy Lette who
has to be the world champion flirt.

11 August
1.30 Cab to Ian McKellen’s house on the river for Suzanne Bertish’s birthday
party. Sean13 is there in high spirits and obviously duck to watering on his
film of Bent, and Frances Barber on devastating form with tales of Chichester
life – NB never divulge anything to her that you do not want spread like soft
margarine. Even she had to stop Imogen Stubbs with a warning hand when
Imogen had started a sentence with ‘Strictly entre nous .  .  .’ – which we
decided was the title of Frances’ one-woman show when she has had
enough and wants to end her career.

7 September
10.30 pick-up. 12.15 → Los Angeles.
This is a kind of insanity – a 48-hour turnaround. But there had been a
nagging feeling that I should go.

8 September
3.30ish pick-up for the trip to Pasadena.14 Louise and Judy both in black.
Judy brings a bottle of Cristal and at the time it felt like something for
later . . . Arrive there and hoopla, hoopla. Banks of seats for star watchers,
Joan Rivers asking me who made my suit . . . On air & there’s Oprah. The
jet lag is kicking in, the ceiling is starting to spin a bit, some instinct
connected to the Cristal made me try to remember a few thankyou names,
and then there was Helen Mirren winning and then the electric shock of
hearing your own name. C[hristine] Baranski in gold, a red Cybill Shepherd
– the first arms outstretched, the second all reserve. A dazzling blur followed
– shepherded through room after room of cameras, microphones, laptops.
For TV awards! . . . Then a party . . .

9 September
Talking to Judy later I hadn’t realised quite what a long shot I was.
8.55[pm] → London.

11 September
9.45 car to Dr Gaynor.
 Apparently I am now classed as ‘impossible’ on the insurance form, so a
major overhaul necessary. Interesting and typical that actors aren’t
indispensable.
Later – to the Art Dept. Bless them – a banner strung across the room.
Work going on; steadily becoming the real thing.

15 September
7.45 pick-up → Heathrow and Glasgow. Pick up Seamus [McGarvey,
cinematographer] and on to Fife. Walking all over the streets and rocks that
will be the frosted life of this film. Seamus’ favourite word for all the
possibilities opening up in front of him is ‘mental’.

16 September
On to Elie to wait for Emma & Phyllida. It is good to have them here and
for them to spend time with Seamus. Of course they all instantly get on and
we do the street/rock walk again. This time properly discovering the inside
of Chocs ’N Things – which will become a haunt – a throwback filled as it
is with homemade chocolates, Jenny’s Boilings, Parma Violets and those
edible necklaces that my sister used to chew on ’til there was a string of tasty
elastic around her wrist and neck.

24 September
RADA to look at final Vanbrugh model. I went in with boxing gloves on,
but the little white box seems to contain the best solutions and Bryan Avery
[architect] was genuinely grateful for the intervention.
A rush back to the photography shop for Alessandro & Elizabeth’s
wedding present and then into the car for the 2.45 → Newark.
On the plane watching Blue in the Face – a new hero; the man who takes
plastic bags out of trees . . . Then a great Cracker episode – camera handled
so confidently. I got scared for the second time in days.
Dinner . . . Neil J[ordan]. The human butterfly, spray-gun, jack in a box,
grasshopper with a heart.

25 September
New York.
 9.45 → to the Regency for the first day of the junkets. Roomfuls of
questions. Julia Roberts there in a corridor with her surroundable waist. The
usual mix of questions, the usual avoidance tactics – a slight sense of being
perched on my own shoulder.
Lunch with Aidan and Liam, who are studying all the TV ads for the film.
Michael Collins – the buddy film.

26 September
10am pick-up. And into the TV interviews. 6 minutes each. Amazing how
quickly the questions become standard. What is it like portraying someone
who lived? What research did you do? How was Neil/Liam? Were you
worried about subject matter? Tell us the history of Ireland and, later in the
day, ‘Who do you think is sexy in the movies?’

28 September
7ish arrive London.
8pm Victoria Wood – Albert Hall.
A staggering performance. She delivers the material so fast it could easily
be the basis for an all-day performance if she slowed down a bit. Brilliant
demolition job on Christmas. Including an alarming reference to Die Hard in
front of 6,000 people.

4 October
Fife.
8.30 Dinner w. Ross, Liz, Seamus, Sharman, Arlene, Steve [Clark-Hall,
producer] at the Balgeddie House. This is home now for a few weeks.
Country house, huge back lawn, fir trees, comfortable, good food – but 30
mins away from Elie/Pittenweem. This could be a drag.

6 October
Sleeping late is sometimes just a matter of limbs which won’t move. Which
they did at 11.30 when Arthur [Morrison, transport captain] dropped us all
at St Monan’s for the 3 mile cliff walk to Elie. Breathtaking. Cliffs, rocks,
beaches, slopes, expanses, ruins, even a tunnel. Panic, too, that these are all
overlooked locations. But maybe not, on reflection. Difficult access, and
sometimes too much figure in a landscape.
Lunch at the blessed Ship Inn has Finnan haddock overflowing the plate.
Sticky toffee pudding after. How will I survive all this?

11 October
10am → Haircuts.
Douglas Murphy15 particularly stricken by losing his curtains. He’s a
complicated boy – way ahead of his years in vocabulary, ideas, brain-power
but reduced to sitting on the floor with a hat on his head at having his ‘fat
face’ (not true, of course) exposed.
4pm to the office. Emma & Phyllida have arrived. She looks great in her
new, short hair.

12 October
To the Golf [Hotel] for Emma & Phyllida’s costume fittings. Emma nicks my
sweater for the film.

14 October
6.25am – The alarm beeps; from elsewhere in the hotel, low voices, creaking
floors, distant toilet flushes. It’s still dark out, but through the wide sashed
window apart from the lights of Glenrothes I can see the sky – frighteningly
clear. Seamus will have his nose to the window pane, no doubt.
Here we go!
11pm. Back at the hotel after an Indian meal . . . an amazing day – like
the first day at RADA. A calmness has been around me for days – something
about being surrounded by the right people at the right time. We got some
great shots, missed some. The tide chased us away, the skies beckoned us
back.

17 October
Impossibly sunny day. We did one shot of Emma crossing the bridge but
anything else would have been pointless. In the teeth of some pressure, I
asked to move inside.
 The rest of the day was saved by ace teamwork. We were up and running
by about 2.30pm and by 6.30 had shot most of the bathroom [scene]. Emma
fantastic just obeying commands scene by scene. Stand, turn on taps, sit,
listen to music, cry . . .

25 October
Thousands of feet of film waiting for a seagull to take a piece of fish from
Douglas’s nervous fingers.

26 October
Emma really is a Rolls-Royce. Every detail perfectly angled to the camera.
Every thought clear and placed. The job is to keep her vocally centred
instead of veering into an upper register which I suspect is where she can
monitor herself best.

30 October
Rushes look wonderful – Bravo Seamus. (On the way there, help upturn a
crashed car. ‘Are you Alan Rickman?’)

31 October
And so to looping. The tide beats us and Emma & Phyllida play the scene
with water crashing against the beach and only just out of shot.
And the devil came to sit on my shoulder making it hard to mask my
anger at potential cuts and the inevitable compromises of weather &
schedules.
5ish. Joan [Bergin] had decorated the bars for Halloween. I was in such a
non-party mood and couldn’t shake it off.
In bed by 9pm. Shattered and not really capable of talking coherently with
Sharman.

1 November
Sleep and the wind blew it all away. And E. & Ph. being wonderful all day.
How do they do it? Rigorous and good-humoured.

2 November
10ish Finding Sharman in the bar – yes, she has been waiting . . . Odd, this
stage – when she wants to hang on and let go. The bartering of cuts goes on
over breakfast.

6 November
Talk to the US re Man in Iron Mask movie. The 4 Musketeers again?? I
suppose they are aiming at Braveheart. Depressing. & CAA [Creative Artists
Agency] asked when I begin shooting. And Clinton got in again.

15 November
9.30[pm] Rima arrives. As usual, most things calm down.

17 November
Breakfast at Rusacks.
Walk along the Chariots16 beach.

18 November
Hopelessly sunny day. Blue, blue sky. Freezing – but blue. Useless. Except
when Seamus can mask off the sunlight.

19 November
A day of hail, frost, freezing wind. The crew stuck outside in it all day . . . A
pile of shots to wade through, a pile of cakes to eat  .  .  .  the gale rages
on . . . What will Mother N. sling at us tomorrow?

23 November
8.30 Party at Rufflets. White parachute silk marquee. Great food.
Candlelight, ivy, fairy lights, music. We could have danced all night and as I
write this at 4.04am we almost did . . .

30 November
Back to Pittenweem for the helicopter shots.
Turns out to be a bit of an ‘if only’ day amongst other things. If only I
hadn’t been chicken, I would have gone up in the helicopter earlier and we
would have got better shots, better timing. Heigh ho. When I did go up, I
could slow them down and focus the thing. From then on it was like
something from a cop movie . . . By now of course the sun had come out
plus the road was too narrow to turn round on, plus the pilot had to be on
his way back to Inverness by 3pm or it would be too dark to land. No
pressure. We pointed the camera and hoped for the best. Waved goodbye to
Sheila and at 2.50 headed back to Pittenweem. Emma ran along the pier as
we flew in and then we circled round to find Gary17 on the doorstep and
then up and away. Exhilarating and mad.

2 December
Long scenes. Pages of dialogue. Some good on the spot cutting made them
leaner and more specific. Sharman will hate some of the cuts, however.

3 December
Dinner w. Emma, Greg, Phyllida & Seamus. The young journalist sits
outside reading a book. At some time I suppose this girl was at university
and full of ambitions.

4 December
Emma’s last day. And to all intents, Phyllida’s. Joan [Bergin] & Gabriel
[O’Brien, wardrobe manager] had made Elspeth & Frances dolls with much
loving care. They were presented – all tears and hooting laughter in the
kitchen set.

6 December
Arlene looking beautiful in her red & gold tablecloth but it must be way
below freezing outside. Ellie says ‘But if the heaters go on we won’t see the
smoke on her breath.’
9.35 Last shot on Arlene. Last shot on film, followed by 30 seconds silence
for ‘atmosphere’. Interesting 30 seconds that. A moment for what the hell
was that? Then hugs, champagne – all in freezing cold, as Arlene glided
through the studio set in a towel.

7 December
Emma called. I said ‘You should direct’, she said ‘We have to grow up a bit
first.’ Stamina – that’s what you need most.
Wrap party  .  .  .  Great to see Douglas Murphy and Sean Biggerstaff18
again. Not so great being cornered just when you would wish to be free. But
on time and on budget. Bed at 4.30am. It’s what that book says – Rima
calms me down.

11 December
To Dr Gaynor to reassure myself I do not have frostbite (two toes refusing to
un-numb).
7pm To Nicole Farhi’s Christmas party . . . David Hare has not so much
softened as melted with the marriage and now the lucky sod is off to Peru &
Colombia for Christmas.

30 December
Mum is in hospital again.

31 December
Belinda & Hugh for New Year’s eve supper. Right & proper – old friends on
the move. Their last celebration in this house as our neighbours  .  .  .  And
Lily more and more the growing girl and problem child. Lovely food. Good
talk. Friends.

1
Maxim de Winter
2
English actor (1965–)
3
English actor (1933–2012)
4
An old friend
5
Newspaper publisher (1932–2014)
6
McAnuff had directed this adaptation of the novel by Balzac.
7
Best Film was won by Braveheart, Best Actress was Susan Sarandon for Dead Man Walking, Best
Director was Mel Gibson for Braveheart.
8
English actor (1952–2008)
9
Virginia Bottomley, (1948–), then Secretary of State for National Heritage
10
British magician (1948–)
11
Scottish actor (1944–1995)
12
English playwright (1947–)
13
Sean Mathias, Welsh theatre director (1956–)
14
A.R. was awarded an Emmy as the best actor in a miniseries for his title role in Rasputin.
15
Scottish actor who played Sam
16
St Andrews location for the 1981 film Chariots of Fire
17
Scottish actor Gary Hollywood (1979–), who played Alex
18
Scottish actor (1983–)
 1997

LOS ANGELES, GOLDEN GLOBES – HOME OFFICE PROTEST –

LEICESTER – DEATH OF A.R.’S MOTHER – SCREEN ACTORS
GUILD AWARD – ANTHONY MINGHELLA – BAFTA – PETER
MANDELSON – MICHAEL KAMEN – VENICE – RUBY WAX –
AUNTIE ELSIE – ROME – VENICE – PRINCESS DIANA – ROD
STEIGER – BOSTON – CAMDEN, MAINE – DARK HARBOR –
DAVID MAMET – WYOMING – NEW YORK – EDNA O’BRIEN

1 January
A new year starts not in the Caribbean – lying in bed, wandering about the
flat, opening cupboard doors, finding moth holes in a suit.
Half my brain shuffles the deck of the film [The Winter Guest] – keeping it
fluid in my head, at least.

4 January
1.45 train to Leicester and the General Hospital. Mum fast asleep as we
walked into the ward. Nudged her gently awake, surrounded her with
chocolates and biscuits, watched her doing some embroidery, listened to the
cries of the old woman down the ward as she was changed (?) moved (?)
whatever happens behind the curtains – ‘NO! NO! Mama! Mama!’
Otherwise a peaceful time – she seems calm and rosy.

6 January
6.30 The English Patient . . . Bravo, Ant. May you win everything with this
huge achievement.

7 January
7.30 A Doll’s House.
From the second she catherine-wheeled on stage Janet McTeer1 was
giving one of the finest performances I have ever seen. Not a generalised
second, not a dishonest moment, always listening, always responding.
Glorious work.

17 January
12 BA flight to Los Angeles. Watched Brassed Off and Lone Star. Poles apart.

19 January
3pm Car to Judy, then to pick up Louise and on to the Golden Globes. Ian
McK. won, we won, I won . . .! . . .! Flash lights, speeches, uneaten food,
Stephen Rea, Brenda Blethyn, seeing Anthony win best film – Hollywood
hoopla.
Some dark rooms or tents filled with flowers and people standing about.
Met Geoffrey Rush and his wife2 who seem tense and a bit complicated. I
think she hates her role as side-dish.

23 January
Somewhere around 12 – back home.
The rest of the day, having started The Road Less Travelled on the plane,
watching myself not ‘delaying gratification’ as usual. Not that there’s much
gratifying to delay – the fridge is empty.
But I managed to find enough enjoyable jobs to do which avoid sitting
down and dealing with mail and scripts.
The book is right – do the difficult stuff first, otherwise you waste so
much time avoiding it.
1am finds me answering mail.

24 January
A screening [of The Winter Guest] at 1pm. Some good some not. Still a
worrying tendency to miss the emotional undertow. Or is that just personal
taste?
30 January
One of those big days when you feel alternately very grown-up and small
boy in the corner of a room full of adults.
9am To Channel 4 . . . and the first screening for the money people. We
watch mostly in silence (I of course imagining proper colour, music, etc. and
etc.). Some quiet laughter floating up from the grey suede seats. Afterwards a
really dangerous silence in the elevator. ‘Really powerful,’ says Sharon H. Bless
her. In the office I break it – ‘So say anything you like.’ So he did.3 All day
spent pulling shards of glass from my insides, but of course it was the best
thing. Now the adventure begins. Be reckless, find the film.

31 January
4.30 The Home Office to join Chris M., Harold Pinter, Denis L[awson] &
Sheila G[ish], Richard W., Frankie de la T.4 and friends to protest at the
continued imprisonment of the political refugees in Rochester Jail – all on
hunger strike. Eventually some photographers straggled along. We froze.
Michael Howard flipped through his rollerdesk.

8 February
To Leicester. Mum surrounded by drips and her face covered with an
oxygen mask.

9 February
The morning in the hotel reading the papers cover to cover.
To the hospital. Michael, Sheila, David & Chris there. Rima arrived later.
Mum convinced that the doctor is deliberately mistreating her and the
other patients because ‘he wants to be leader of the Tories’ and knows of
Rima’s political ambitions . . . It’s funny, but very distressing to think this is
all swimming around in her head, making her unhappy.

10 February
Mum had clearly had a bad night . . . The doctor holds out little hope, but
this amazing spirit blazes away inside the dizzy spells and straining breaths.

11 February
To the hospital.
Writing retrospectively during all this is pretty impossible. The highs,
lows, noise, quiet all create an endless graph that takes no notice of diary
dividing lines.
Back to London.

12 February
8pm Train to Leicester.
Spending the night at the hospital flats after hanging around the deserted
cafeteria. They’re holding down a male patient in Ward 20 who screams
non-stop that he’s being murdered. So there we are, brothers, sister together
in what felt like Czechoslovakia.

13 February
Mum is now having very peaceful, watchful times, but interspersed more
frequently with struggling for breath. The doctor talks of administering
Diamorphine. And does so. Which started a new scenario. Sleep, fluttering
eyelids, faraway gazes.
Lunchtime to the local shopping precinct (very Poliakoff, windswept,
depressing) to find some clean underwear & socks.
Eventually common sense sends us to Gyngell’s for something to eat. It’s
part of Premier Lodge Hotels – my feet walk automatically to Reception
and book us all in. Hot showers, towels, TV.
After supper and back to the Hospital . . . As we arrive Mum wakes but
it’s from a Diamorphine sleep. She’s gazing at the ceiling – something
fascinating up there beyond the veiled eyes. It’s the deepest kind of
heartbreak to watch.

14 February
Sheila’s birthday – Mum asks for a photo of all of us – Polaroid the only
word to spring to mind. Some value from yesterday’s lunchtime trip – a
Dixon’s. Bought a Polaroid, took the photos, put them in plastic frames,
propped them up on the cabinet after Mum watched them developing.
Sheila gets the Polaroid camera as a birthday gift. Writing this in the
welcome peace of the lunchtime sleep break. Lights out, curtain drawn, only
the insistent buzz & burr of the nebulisers and oxygen masks around the
ward. Mum’s eyes open & close, her chest rises and falls – all of it inventing a
rhythm moment by moment.
Supper at Gyngell’s – Valentine’s night in the restaurant/bar/children’s play
area/whatever. This extraordinary concoction only the English could dream
up. From a distance the saxophone and vocals with digital back-up make
‘Lady In Red’ merge seamlessly with Kenny G. as breaded this or tikka that
hits the table.

15 February
Breakfast is a more civilised affair. A few people, the sun on the grass
outside, coffee, eggs & toast. Unspoilable. Even with the won’t-go-away
press nonsense about playing Dr Who.
A pattern is emerging. A little chat, some smiles, some vacant looks; we
sit, read, go into the day-room, have a coffee, talk to the nurses, sit some
more. Mum is peaceful sometimes, agitated at others. She is given nebulisers,
and more injections. Through it all, moments of such sweetness shaft
through. Yesterday’s smile inhabiting the corners of her eyes and mouth.
Today, again, she looks around and counts the four of us sitting there. Her
kids. What she said. But today she is talking very little. She counts, and
looks, and sleeps.

16 February
Writing in retrospect.
Rima and I both sleepless.
At 7.15 there is a knock at the door – from Michael’s voice (or maybe it is
from the knock) I knew that Mum had gone. Michael just capsized into the
room, desolate that she had died without us. But it could have happened
while we were having a cup of tea, in a corridor, turned away for a
second . . . But of course nothing takes away that shaft of guilt. We all pull
ourselves together and drive to the hospital, where Joyce the nurse is
waiting. It was as she turned away for a moment. Mum snatched her space. I
have tried to rehearse the inside of my head for months now and as I write
this I don’t know how much I have accepted, but walking behind those
closed curtains and seeing her yellowish face and still, still body is not
something you can ever be ready for.

17 February
11.30 Just made the train to London. This was a ride I had rehearsed. Sitting
there reading quietly as the fields flashed by.

18 February
To the funeral directors with David and Michael.
A day of trying to pull various threads into one cord – church, cemetery,
Kew, minister.
At 3pm we went to Kew – a beautiful room. Again I feel the nerves of
someone imposing my taste on a roomful of people who probably are
expecting low voices and ham sandwiches when I’m proposing a string
quartet playing Gershwin and fish pie. It’s a beautiful day and we open the
french windows onto the lawn and walls and all will be forgiven.
Found ‘Barry Island’5 to read at the service. If you can get through it . . .

19 February
7.30 David & I go to see Rev. John Simmonds – his house is a perfect
Methodist vicar’s set. Talk about Mum and visit the new Rivercourt Church
– unrecognisable really. Scenes of one’s youth cannot come flooding back as
it has all changed. Or been given a makeover more accurately.

20 February
1.30 Lunch at the Atlantic. I just listen to it all. Oscar chat. Like there will
be next year.

23 February
The roses which Lindsay & Hilton sent have given such pleasure. The
mixture of colours and smells are so beguiling you find yourself trying to
commit every shade & congruence to memory.
PS: Phone message to say I won the SAG award.6 That’s from actors.

25 February
2pm To Kenyon [funeral directors] in Rochester Row via the church
opposite. Which was a surprise pleasure with its piped music.
Mum looked fine in her dress. Complete and OK with the world.

26 February
Mum’s funeral.
Which should or might be two dark and heavy words. In fact it was a day
of flowers and lightness, shafts of sunshine hitting the lawns, Rivercourt
filled with daffodils.
Much thanks to Rev. John Simmonds, whose light but focused touch
meant that everyone knew why they were there.
It was absolutely about Her, for Her, her picture on the table at Kew,
Porter, Gershwin sidling forth from the string quartet. In the end, a real
celebration – with people going home clutching flowers and in a way, happy.
You were honoured, Mum. With Love.

19 March
11.30 David Aukin & Allon Reich [film producer] from Channel 4. They
know they’re walking on eggs, but actually we make a few great strides. And
I make a few more cuts . . .

20 March
Looping with Emma & Phyllida – some nightmare stuff for both of them
which they buckle down to with almost unfailingly good humour. I don’t
know how they do it . . . I remember some past tantrums in the studio –
microphones hitting the deck etc.
8.15 → Belinda & Hugh w. Ruby. Too much wine. Again. And a run
round some familiar houses. But these are friends I love so it doesn’t matter –
and sometimes real comic energy is released. Rare and wonderful.

24 March
2am Watching the Oscars.
Who’s there. Who’s not. Who wins. Who should. Who shouldn’t.
And what did they wear?
But Bravo Ant, Saul, Walter.7
26 March
7pm King Lear, NT.
Richard Eyre all over the place again. No idea what he was aiming at. Ian
Holm wonderful in the detailed, small stuff but too aware of the mountains
others have climbed instead of scaling his own slopes.

4 April
2.30 Screening.
Late start. Lousy sound. The music like the afterthoughts of a coke-head.
The Finance sit there like M. Rushmore. An Absolute Hell.

7 April
Somehow things seem to pull themselves together (in the cutting room
sense). Why is it taking until now to find freedom with this film? The
feeling is of having possessed it entirely and of now letting go. Something
like learning to yoyo.

9 April
Long call from Anthony Minghella. He’s back in the Real World of car
insurance. And spends time strengthening my resolve.
Later sorting through fan mail – a letter from a woman who has watched
S&S and wants to know if in England we still bow to each other on entering
a room.

12 April
Mezzo for lunch.
Andrew (from Rasputin) is spotted across the restaurant floor. After
waving, his companion in leather cap smiles, comes over, and at the last
minute I realise it’s Christian Slater – which means that Radha B.8 is there.
As they leave she ignores me in such an overt way, I was actually shocked.

13 April
To 175 Old Oak Common Lane.9 David, Michael, Chris and I start opening
drawers, looking at photographs, discarding, keeping. Nothing which
retained any memory had been thrown away. Old light bulbs, ribbon from
presents, all the birth certificates. A life made tangible wherever you turned.
Mum’s certificate for her piano exams tucked in amongst some underwear;
my old drama group photos under the stairs. Incredibly touching things like
the letter to Kevin Costner’s wife with its simple statement of loneliness. We
sat in the garden and had lunch together. These are things to hang on to.

15 April
Much more work needed on the music.

18 April
8.30 Roger Graef ’s10 birthday party.
A conversational pizza. Helena Kennedy & Iain Hutchison, Janet Suzman,
Peter Eyre,11 BBC people, newspaper people, Eve Arnold,12 etc, etc. Very
‘Eve of Blair/Stalin on the Throne’ – so different from ’92. If the Tories win
no one will be depressed this time, just resigned or on a plane.

25 April
2.30 RADA Council. Attenborough, as always, astonishingly in command of
the facts. We all toddle behind in his wake.

27 April
5pm Royal Albert Hall – w. Tara.
Bettina Jonic singing Weill, Heine, Brecht. Bettina is her own biggest fan
– and rightly so. Rare to watch a real artist like this. You don’t have to speak
fluent German to sense the undertow of exile & alienation.

29 April
6.15 Car to the Albert Hall for BAFTA.
Saw Kate W. – couldn’t kiss her or her makeup would be ruined; stood
behind Diana Ross to present award – couldn’t stand too close or would
have been surfing on the train of her dress. Gave award to Anthony M. . . .
Sat at table w. Ken Loach who showed how to stand up for royalty without
seeming to . . .
30 April
8.30 Columbia TriStar – Mike Newell’s screening of Donnie Brasco.
Brilliantly directed and shot and acted. Mike enjoying himself hugely.

1 May
Election Day. The sun blazes.
10.30 To Helena K. & Iain.
And the party begins. All I can think as the seats mount is ‘Someone say
thanks to Neil Kinnock.’ All the time people cheering, laughing and some
crying. Endless choruses of ‘I can’t believe it.’13

2 May
The Sunniest Day.
Sent flowers to Neil, Barbara Follett & Peter Mandelson. All we can think
of is this day 5 years ago. Everything so different. Finally a feeling of the
country breathing. Long may it last.
7pm Peter M. calls by to say thank you for the flowers. Says he burst into
tears when he saw them. I asked him how he feels. ‘Weird.’

15 May
12 Michael Kamen.
Thank God Scott came over in the afternoon to referee. This is easily the
toughest relationship on the film. Michael is kissed with genius but it is like
trapping a butterfly. Wayward, unfocused, utterly specific, instinctive by
turns. Clinging on to some calm and aided by Scott’s steering, we get some
wonderful results and somewhere in there Michael enjoys it. On the way
home, I realise I’m dragging through uncharted waters. It is not customary
working like this . . . mea culpa.

16 May
8am pick-up → Luton Airport → Venice.
Paul Allen’s14 Extravaganza.

17 May
6am While I can still remember. On the flight here Bryan Ferry, Mimi
Rogers,15 Dave Stewart, Geena Davis, Sydney Pollack, Jerry Hall, Siobhan
Fahey16 – an extraordinary weekend begins. How could I ever have thought
of not coming? It’s not just the biggest name drop ever (last night the above
joined by Robin Williams, Barbara Hershey, Michael Keaton, Monica Seles,
John McEnroe, Albert Brooks,17 Jim Brooks,18 Carrie Fisher, Ruby, Fran
Leibowitz, Michael & Sandra K., etc., etc., etc.), but writing this at 6am on
the balcony of the Londra Palace Hotel looking at the length of the Grand
Canal as it is swept gently into life  .  .  .  it is also a weekend stuffed with
indelible pictures. Last night at the Scuola Grande San Rocco, Tiepolos &
Tinterettos everywhere, Albinoni and Vivaldi underneath. Red velvet &
Harry’s Bar.

17 May
7.30 Champagne is delivered to the room as we chase a bit to get ready –
and it begins. To the lobby and out to the gondolas (more champagne on
ice). The convoy glides off to the Palazzo where trumpeters, a fire-eater and
dancer greet every arrival. Names announced at the door, Paul Allen &
Monica Seles greet us, everyone looking glorious masked & feathered.
Upstairs dinner goes on and on, opera is sung, Santana plays a floor higher
with Dave Stewart, Noel Redding,19 John McEnroe & Paul A. & Harry
Shearer20 as backing group.
Later the Piano Bar. Patti Smith sings to me.

18 May
12 Bags downstairs and a boat to Cipriani for brunch. John & Di Carling
[old friends] pop up in the lobby – it’s her birthday. Very levelling in the
circumstances – as in Peter Gabriel, Trudie & Sting, Eric Idle, David Geffen,
Barry Diller,21 Laurence Fishburne, Penny Marshall, Terry George
[nightclub owner], Maggie Renzi22 and on and on. Everyone with a specific
image to hang on to.
4.30 Into a boat → Aeroporto for the flight to Nice and London.

21 May
A trip to the dry cleaner’s is good for clearing the brain.

6 June
Michael’s music all over the place in tone, warmth, clarity etc.
We will have to re-record.

23 June
11ish To Whitfield Recording Studios for another day of teeth pulling with
Michael & Steve.

2 July
12ish Ruby comes for script inspiration – Jennifer Saunders is not coming
up with the goods fast enough. Rubes, impatient as ever for RESULTS,
understanding nothing as ever of PROCESS is already flipping through the
metaphorical writers’ version of Spotlight.

3 July
2.30 to Video City to collect and then deliver a TV to Arwen Holm in St
Mary’s Hospital. She was in a side room having her hair done – lying
covered in plastic with newly blackened hair. The whole process requiring
great invention by the hairdresser who talks cheerily of her work in hospital
morgues. ‘I like it – they can’t answer back.’

6 July
Long phone call with Ruby. There is so much history here I think we
should just absorb that and get on with it. Ruby seems to want to analyse. I
don’t think that will go anywhere but inwards.

10 July
On the way to find a taxi, bump into a guy handing out promotional cards –
they go flying, he looks at me with such violence and says ‘pick them up’.
Something in me – for once – didn’t argue. Agree how clumsy I was but
that it wasn’t deliberate and walked quietly away. How things change. I know
I was a second away from real hard-core assault.
14 July
7pm Festival Hall for Guardian’s summer party. Absolutely fascinating.
Degrees of leglessness unknown other than to journalists.

29 July
To 11 Downing Street and Gordon Brown, Chris Smith23 and Tom
Clarke’s24 homage to the film industry. Talk about the usual suspects . . . At
one glorious moment we were taken on a scuttling tour of No. 10 and No.
11 – the Cabinet Office, Dining Room etc. before the gaff was blown and
we scurried off.

3 August
3 To see Arwen at St Mary’s.

4 August
A day when events, phone-calls frustrations and unalloyed sadnesses &
pleasures trip over each other  .  .  .  as we try to sort out a holiday and
checking the sub-titles. David eventually gets through to tell me that Auntie
Elsie died this morning. No point now in writing anything for yesterday’s
entry – it would seem more like foreboding. But I did sense something was
worryingly wrong.

5 August
7pm Chelsea Cinema – Mr Bean.
Sit in (doubtless) wrong seats with Mel Smith & Rowan Atkinson behind
us, so laughs are forced in order to send OK messages backwards. Ate whole
packet of M&Ms.

13 August
Talked to Peter Mandelson about being beleaguered. He sounds genuinely
depressed, and it has been an onslaught in the press. I talk of heat & kitchens
but didn’t get round to the fact that he should recognise how he brings it on
himself to a large degree.
14 August
7.55 Flight to Rome.
11.20 Claudio collects us and drives us calmly and swiftly to Todi.
8.30 Dinner at the hotel. Eventually. It only took him ½ hr to bring the
menus and ½ hr to serve some food.

15 August
Drive to Assisi.
Lunch by nose-following, down some steps, along an alleyway . . .
After lunch to San Francisco and the line of glorious Giotto frescoes on
the life of St Francis.

20 August
Rome.
We clambered out of bed and made it to the Sistine Chapel queue at
8.30am. It already wound around the block for 150 yards. But getting in was
fairly painless . . . I wish I had the nerve to just lie on the floor and look at it
or [on] some trolley on wheels, maybe much as Michelangelo did. Stroll out
feeling like a great big human being.
3.40 → London.

26 August
9.30 Alastair Morris for Winter Guest photo shoot. He’s being paid a shitload
for 3 hours’ work that Emma doesn’t really want to do. She sees the artwork
(current) and points straight to the image I prefer of the 2 of them. ‘What’s
wrong with that?’ What indeed. Alastair is charming, efficient and as I
thought the wrong photographer for something which needs to be fresh and
full of subtle attitudes. He is classical and controlled. Short of having a clause
in the contract I don’t know what to do.

27 August
8.45 pick-up to Heathrow. Find Phyllida & Emma. Find plane to
Venice . . . Happy flight, happy boat trip to Gritti Palace.
9pm Taxi to Danieli. Emma is a bit will-she, won’t-she today. A bit of
gentle persuasion gets her on to the water taxi and off to Ed & Kevin’s
dinner party.

28 August
a.m. at the Hotel des Bains – manage not to recognise Jane Campion as she
says hello. At first think it’s Streep with a haircut but think, no she’s in
Ireland – who is it? The chair of the jury, no less.
1pm Lunch around the pool of the Hotel des Bains. Arlene, boys,
parents . . . Jane Campion . . .
8.30–9 Another walk to a scaffold. The evening in a way wrecked by
Ruth Vitale [film producer] telling me of mixed reviews & Ed thinking only
of the marketing meetings.
The film is milky and the sound all over the place – I watch it in total,
helpless capitulation.
At the end of the evening I am filled with something unnameable but
dark. Fine Line [production company] are already unsure of what to do with
their eyes – a common attitude of non-culpability is asserting itself.
Sometimes I truly hate this business.

29 August
Very sleepless. The deepest sadness, now depression, settling way down low
in the pit of everywhere. Elastoplast – whatever, needed to drag it all up and
out for an afternoon of interviews.
First an 11am chat with Judy & Patrick. Something has to be said about
Holy Man. How much more work can I turn down?
Meanwhile mixed reviews as far as I can tell. Some of them get it. Some
of them not. Start rearranging the inside of my head. Again.
I need months off.

30 August
Lunchtime in the Visconti Salon with the bird-filled terrace outside and
Venice beyond that. It all seems like a ludicrous backdrop to the endless
questions and camera-clicking. How alarming to take Venice for granted.
Home to news that Mary Selway25 is in hospital having put her nearly
new hip out. A horrible story of agonising pain and delays. I feel guilty – I
persuaded her to come.
31 August
The unnameable prevailing still, slow sadness is given an absolute shocking
identity when Sean and his family arrive for breakfast and tell me that
Princess Diana is dead. For a second or two I thought it was a word-game or
strange joke. No – here on the terrace of the Gritti Palace, glittering in the
sun and clearly one of the most beautiful places in the world, the news is
brutal and true.
Emma, Phyllida, Rima and I go to the Accademia in a daze, but it is the
best thing to do – look at the Carpaccio, the Tintorettos, Veroneses. Phyllida
finally caves in – you never know with her, all smiles and all heartbreak at
the same time. The 3 of us go off to visit Mary in hospital. She’s smiling in a
body cast (once we get past Nurse Ratched thanks to Emma’s diplomacy)
and 6 seats are coming out of the plane on Monday.
5.30 Boat → airport and private jet/cars to Country House Hotel land.

1 September
The hotel grounds stretch away, forever England  .  .  .  Lunch at a brilliant
country pub, a breathtaking helicopter ride to Heathrow, a car that once
belonged to Queen Elizabeth is waiting to take Rima home, Air Canada all
charm.
The newspapers are thick with it. Pictures of Diana crowd the pages;
flowers carpet the streets. It is true – a light has gone out. A legend begins.
The 4.45 becomes the 5.30 to Toronto. I hope I can handle the next few
days with something free of noise and bullshit.

2 September
Awards & screening. What simple words for such a major Horror Show.
Arriving, there was already something chaotic in the air. Then, the shunting
& shoving started. Such rudeness by the festival director (echoed by chatting
to Rod Steiger in the wings) and a lesson in how not to show this film –
discord, unsettled audience, noise.

3 September
Spoke to Ruby – eloquent as ever about Diana.
A photo that is beyond horror in Le Devoir. → 9.45 Los Angeles.
 Talk to Steiger on the plane. Or rather, listen. And why not? I wish I had
a tape recorder. He talks much of Brando and of having met him in a
Chinese restaurant in Montreal for the first time in 44 years. Of Brando
saying to Val Kilmer ‘I don’t like your voice, I don’t like your face, I don’t
like your acting, I don’t like you . . .’ He talks of live TV and the man in the
aeroplane scene who forgot his lines and came out with ‘This is my stop I
get out here.’ At 35,000 ft. of the studio executive who said ‘Can you do a
Southern accent?’ (Heat of the Night – Academy Award). A reservoir.

4 September
Read Holy Man again – it’s an obvious NO. Hand another job, another pile
of cash to another actor. Where is the sense in all of this?? Variety review is
apparently ‘GREEEAT’. Grudging would be my word.

5 September
At Roland Joffé & Susi’s beautiful Bel Air house, we settled down to watch
Diana’s funeral. From about 11pm–5am we hardly spoke. It is not just
hindsight which suggests we were watching something extraordinary. The
images compelled real focus as they happened. The single toll of the bell
every minute; the absolute involvement of the people across sex, age and
colour made me watch it in such a highly concentrated way – Remember
this. Remember this. By the time Charles Spencer spoke we were watching
history shift and stir and the future may have reshaped itself. King William at
25 with his father tucked away at Highgrove deadheading the roses? Quite
spectacularly moving the whole thing – even Elton John got away with it.
The applause and flower-throwing adding impromptu to detail. People were
left standing around outside the Abbey, the Palace not wanting to let go.
Wonderful that someone so laughingly direct could gather these souls up like
this.

7 September
The Mark Hotel and then to dinner. Coco Pazzo – horrible East Side,
deadly swank. And Paula Poundstone [stand-up comedian] comes over from
a Billy Joel type table to enquire as to who I am . . . Breathtaking rudeness
but then later the manager slides by to say she’s paid our bill.
9 September
To Boston and a day of interviews. OK apart from a depressing insistence on
talking about Die Hard. I can see the twisted, mangled tag lines – Die Hard
Softy.

19 September
Dinner with Liam & Natasha and John Cleese, Ewan McGregor & Eve [his
wife], George Lucas & Mia, and Natasha’s sister Catherine. Mr McG. is self-
involved to a jaw-dropping degree but like a child, so it’s somehow not
repellent. But how will these people grow into anything at 35 or 40? It is
scary how much they have to trade on a light-voiced, light-hearted, light-
headed 20-something.

22 September
8 To Orsino w. Michelle Guish for dinner with Lindsay Doran, Emma,
Greg, Kate W., Imogen S., Emma J., Pat Doyle26 and eventually, Trevor
Nunn. Autograph hunters’ fantasy – even the waiter was auditioning. Much
talk of who doing what, but as ever, the best bit was Pat and his stories. His
royal family talks could go on a loop tape and I’d be happy. Trevor looks at
him slightly bemused – how could someone be this talented and I don’t
know who he is?

24 September
7.30am Missed the alarm, missed the car maybe. Phone calls, new car, new
time. Wet clothes in dryer. Rethink. Repack  .  .  .  Forgot the Gatwick
monorail and endlessness of it all. Made the plane with 10 mins to
go . . . Watched Trees Lounge, Steve Buscemi’s beautiful film. Complete re-
think on the in-it-and-direct question although it has such a central
quietness you forget anybody is acting or directing something. V. inspiring.

28 September
[Camden, Maine, re: Dark Harbor]
4pm Everyone comes over to read, eat, drink, hang. Some fittings. The
reading is a strange, disembodied experience and I lose all connection to the
script and have to lie like mad to Norman Reedus27 who wonders ½ way
through if it’s a good idea. He reads beautifully – and X.M. will work fine.
As I said yesterday it’s Polly28 and I who have to do the coal-mining.

29 September
Dark Harbor – First Day. Slipping and sliding. In the rain. Inside the head.
Adam [Coleman Howard, director] is all applause, noise and enthusiasm.
Probably mistakes my quietness for disapproval, but standing in the pouring
rain needs some stillness to bear. Long lunchtime chat with N., who has had
a life. Tennis champ, living on an Indian reservation, Tokyo, Spain &
Tooting Bec. I’m dazzled by his openness. He could achieve anything with
it. How on earth does LA understand him? Polly is quietly heroic all day too.
How can I love these two people so quickly? The script still needs
vacuuming. The bedroom needs heating.

4 October
Standing in a forest being sprayed with lukewarm water so that pyjamas and
dressing gown are soaking. In the cold morning air. And because my mind is
not in the right place – although in some ways it is, of course – I can’t get
properly into the scene. Big déjà vu, too, with smoke-guns and mist and
watching the DP’s29 nonplussedness as it all vanishes before it has settled.
The scene is then played to the background of what seems like a war film.

5 October
Raining, raining, raining – especially in my head . . . Eventually, see Tony
Blair’s conference speech. All NEW, MODERN, REFORMED,
CHANGED, like a soap powder ad. It was full of good things but repetitive
and straining for sincerity. He has it in bunkerloads but when unmatched by
anger or real indignation, he can appear to be Head Boy rather than Prime
Minister. You slightly want to pat his head rather than applaud.

6 October
Duncan Heath arrives somewhat improbably for lunch from New York–
Boston–Portland on his way home. Insane, really, but touching. We talk
about The Confessions which it seems I am not doing. Can’t say I’m that
worried – it should be a New York Jew. But what is happening inside my
head – recklessness? carelessness? Or some new, better stuff? Where I don’t
obsess . . .
A truth, of course, is that when I am preoccupied with one individual,
everything else seems secondary. Idiotic.

7 October
Sitting in the Rotunda all morning – the lunch scene. Joined by the fly
population of Maine.
Later the Suncream Scene. Pretending to know how to work a laptop.

10 October
Out on the dock and screaming around the bay in the motorboat. Authentic
thrills. And nearly spills, as we hit the wake of the camera boat. But all in
glorious slowly-settling sunshine (after a morning sailing in the mist) until
the boat hit a twig, complained and stopped. Ignominy is a rope towing us
into Camden Harbor. Until 10pm I wait to do an eventually aborted shot.

11 October
And now the tiredness from Toronto plus delayed action from the boat is
really kicking in and as the day progresses it’s an ugly tiredness which has
everyone asking if I’m OK, and I can feel the authentic acting animal
swishing its tail.
Not healthy, not productive but it isolates a problem – namely that isolation
of playing scenes when you & the person you are in love with have no
scenes between the two of you to refer to. Everything is supposition. This
makes the brain very insecure and the spirit undernourished.
Lindsay & Margaret are there on return. Bless them, they have cooked
duck & chocolate soufflé and there’s some great red wine. After they go to
bed, I went to Waterworks at midnight. A wise move – dancing and talking
& singing and laughing – antidote to much if not all.

13 October
The Golf Scene. Pulling some teeth. Frustrations. Manoeuvrings. Adam is
full of perceptions and full of control mechanisms. Do I see myself? Is that
what is putting a band around my brain by 5pm? Something weird is going
on and it needs to be lanced. Thank goodness for Polly, the straightforward,
giving girl who called – was anyone tapping that call?

16 October
Writing this and slow-churning. On the boat all day, playing a sleepy mist
scene to the sound of fog-guns. Polly and I inaudible to each other. She and
Norman go in the freezing night-time water.

17 October
One of the worst all-night-awakes of recent memory. Thank God the day is
spent inside a ’60s Mercedes with rain pouring down the
wind-screen  .  .  .  On other fronts, something less gut-wrenching descends
like a comforter. May it last.

18 October
As horrible as yesterday was, today was a stretched out pleasure. Playing parts
of Górecki’s symphony helped set up the sinner scene, and the rest of the day
Polly and I lay in a big squashy bed pretending to be asleep. Filming bliss.
Later to Café Miranda for supper w. Polly, and then the inevitable
Waterworks. Soo loud but the dancing sweats some of the wine and chicken
away.
Adam is like an ever-fretting, boiling-over, alka-seltzered glass of life, love,
indiscretion and openness. I can only hope all his boundless enthusiasm is
well-placed. And that the vibes have roots.

20 October
What the fuck is all this insomnia – the pillow? the mattress? The whole
Feng Shui of it all?
Anyway – a morning at the house waiting for the eventual 2.30 call. We
are in the kitchen for the first morning-after scene – cigarette magic trick.
And after driving home, laughing, a kiss is returned.

21 October
The dreaded Scene 77. Thirteen pages of text, noise, small room and
increasing heartache. Somehow, there are some takes we can use.

22 October
The day of all the reverses throws me into a cocoon of silence. I watch
myself in this pointless activity. It does have a huge effect on people – they
are confused, I am confused. All the time the ache gets bigger. At this point
I don’t know how to deal with it. Punishment comes with the fight – cuts
and bruises everywhere. I can see where the word ‘difficult’ comes from.
Why is this destructive side so unstoppable, feeding so voraciously on itself,
victor in absolutely nothing. It’s just a film.

25 October
Nasty, cold day on the beach, a hastily rehearsed scene throws up
resentments about divide and rule techniques. Water round Walt’s30 ankles.
Déjà vu.
Later, at  .  .  .  dinner with Adam, Jeff [Roda, producer] .  .  . It’s like a
spider’s web and after dancing till midnight, one of those all-back-to-Room-
138 escapades which ended with lights out and pile of bodies on the bed. I
crept away later than I should have . . .

26 October
11 Headache. Heartache.

27 October
A day in the rain. Only more so. Breeds temperament. Why can’t I just get
on with it? Polly is amazing in that way. And I’m not even the wettest . . .

29 October
In the living room with a cardboard box and two live lobsters, elastic bands
round their claws, accusing eyes peering up.
Later in the day an exit on to the porch means a sudden collision with the
bell that hangs (way too low) from the ceiling. 20 mins later we’re on our
way to Pen Bay Hospital with a cut across the nose and an ice pack. And it’s
all true – 20 mins more of form-filling and office work before a glimpse of a
nurse or a doctor. But then they are fine and felicitous, guarding against
concussion, dizziness etc., etc., etc.

30 October
Very difficult to describe in coded form except to say various takes of Scene
105. Once the hair and costume had been decided we basically got on with
it. At times the temptation was to stop in the middle and just say Who’s
kidding who here – this is mutual isn’t it? Was it? Wasn’t it? Will I ever
know.31

1 November
Writing this as the wind attacks the house, having run away from the wrap
party. I’m not sure who is angry at who – I certainly feel a little mislaid . . .
The scene today was tough. Mostly just arriving at it. Adam’s
stubbornness is like treacle on the stairs, a roadblock. All I want is some
narrative not endless rationales.
We get there. And it’s one of those scenes the crew describes as ‘amazing’.
But now I’m tired of the cold shouldering mixed up with the kiss on the
cheek. Of course, it’s all about my needs. But, fuck it, I’ve given this film a
ton-load.

2 November
Clearing up. Getting out. Driving off.
7.30 Dinner at Reidy’s for cast and crew. A happy necessary time. Still
can’t get it right, though. Somewhere in my speech the word love is
mentioned. Later, hands are held, but more misconnections. I think at this
point I have to give up. Dizzy.

3 November
The last day. Last shots. Norman disappears to the airport – his black eye still
in place. Had to bang on his door & head massage him on to the set. I go on
walking into buildings, from buildings & cabs, along streets, up stairs until
‘that’s a wrap’. All kinds of mixed feelings, as ever, only this time so on the
line, on the edge.
13 November
[To LA for the filming of further scenes for Dark Harbor]
The day the rain came. The beginning of El Niño? Eventually we start on
the car crash stuff in the middle of this Mexican district. The telegraph wires
have several pairs of sneakers hanging from them. Apparently this means
drugs are obtainable in this area – one shoe for dope, two for crack etc.

14 November
Sitting in the car on the low-loader all morning. Silly but funny and a very
good humour pervades. Until the teamsters decide to strike . . .

22 November
Lunchtime around the pool with Greg & Em.
We screened Winter Guest at CAA. Pretty damn scary and thank you Fine
Line for a shitty print, out of date grade and no song. But they liked it (they
really liked it) and we sailed on to Goldfingers. Noisy, small, dark, two girls
in gold paint, not enough food but everyone danced and drank till 2.30 . . .
Collapse.

4 December
3pm and I know I’ve just been talking to National Enquirer/News of the World
not the Guardian. Horrendous, intrusive, entirely centred on sex life. It gets
worse as I think about it afterwards.

6 December
2 David & Chris, R. and I go to the cemetery. Mum’s birthday today. We
planted some bulbs and primroses and hung a Christmas holly wreath. It
looked a bit mad but pleased with itself.
Then to Nan & Grandad’s. Some artificial flowers have crept on to the
earth. Awful. After we drove to Auntie D. & Uncle V. for tea and fruitcake.
And photos of the 50th party.

7 December
Jean Anderson’s32 90th birthday party. She’s a lesson – still wondering about
the next job, still betting on the horses. Miss out on lunch, though; the car
to Heathrow is there at 1.30pm.

8 December
The phone rings and a voice says ‘This is David Mamet’, and then I spend
ten minutes telling him why I probably won’t do The Winslow Boy.33

16 December
3.45 Today Show – Jill Rappaport. God, what a lot of hair.

17 December
1pm Lunch Trattoria Dell’Arte. Peter Travers [film critic]. Fun. He’s very
focused and generous and I could feel the journalist in the gossipy questions
slipped in between the professional concerns. Laura Dern tucked in a booth
on the way out helpfully calls WG ‘a masterpiece’.
8 WG screening – Ken’s34 speech curled my toes – references to no one
earning more than $150,000 . . .

19 December
8.15 Dinner at Erica Jong’s . . . A roomful of very witty and probably vulgar
people being rather polite all evening.

21 December
8.15 Good Will Hunting.
Ultimately a bit of a let down. Matt Damon is a really fine actor, however.
But the film feels as if it is looking for a sense of purpose, or that it has too
many. And Robin Williams is too sweet from the word go.

25 December
Christmas Day in Wyoming [with Judy Hoflund]. Coming downstairs to
people hidden behind flying wrapping paper, mounds of Barbie and
fluorescent plastic. These girls so spoiled the word has no meaning. Later in
the day Rosemary stands in the middle of it all wanting ‘something to do’.
Charlotte’s main dream had always been ‘a lollipop’.
 6.30 Dinner’s on the table. Reto [the cook] and I negotiating our way
around Judy’s obsession with oven temperature. She had promised us a
wonderful cook and then wouldn’t let him do it. When it does all magically
arrive on plates it is delicious, original and Reto is exhausted.
Later – watching Wings of the Dove. I have only a question mark as a
response. Who are these people? What product are they advertising?

26 December
To Calico for a family meal. Reto had been ready to cook but I don’t think
Judy can stand the competition. Crazy, really – is she checking the restaurant
kitchens? No. What does she give the girls for breakfast? Chemically
flavoured & coloured ‘cereal’? Coffeemate. Back home watching Kennedy
Center Awards. Dylan in a black suit & ribbons. What next as he sits next to
Charlton Heston . . .?

27 December
To New York.
Exodus with many bags  .  .  .  Jackson Hole Airport [Wyoming] looking
bleak and dramatic and snow-swept.

31 December
To Edna O’Brien at the Wyndham . . . Edna spotted Pluck U the chicken
shop on 2nd Avenue.
9 To Nick Hytner [theatre director] in the Village. He calls it ‘The House
That Ho Chi Minh Built’.35 Very focusing. Stunning views of Manhattan. A
real fire. I feel like I’m in a magazine.
11 To Susan Sarandon & Tim Robbins on 15th Street  .  .  .  A great
accordionist plays with Tim & a friend. Another stranger sang ‘In The
Midnight Hour’. Emily Watson & husband Jack, woozy with jet lag, come
with us.
1.15am Back to the Mark. During the evening the New Yorker review of
WG (it has the lingering radiance of art) was quoted. ‘Disastrous,’ says Edna
O’B.
1
English actor (1961–)
2
Jane Menelaus, Australian actor (1959–)
3
David Aukin (1942–), then Head of Film at Channel 4
4
Frances de la Tour, English actor (1944–)
5
Poem ‘Let’s Go to Barry Island’ by Idris Davies
6
For Rasputin
7
Walter Murch (1943–), American film editor who won alongside Anthony Minghella and Saul
Zaentz for The English Patient
8
Radha Blank, American filmmaker (1976–)
9
A.R.’s mum’s house
10
British documentary maker (1936–2022)
11
American actor (1942–)
12
American photojournalist (1912–2012)
13
Labour, led by Tony Blair, won in a landslide.
14
One of the founders of Microsoft
15
American actor (1956–)
16
Of Banarama, the then wife of Dave Stewart
17
American actor (1947–)
18
American director, producer and screenwriter James L. Brooks (1940–)
19
Bass guitarist with the Jimi Hendrix Experience
20
American actor (1943–)
21
American media executive (1942–)
22
American film producer (1951–)
23
Labour politician (1951–), then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
24
Labour politician (1941–), then Minister of State for Film and Tourism
25
English casting director (1936–2004)
26
Scottish composer of film music (1953–)
27
American actor (1969–)
28
English actor Polly Walker (1966–), A.R.’s co-star
29
Director of photography
30
Walt Lloyd, cinematographer
31
A.R. is here referring to filming with Norman Reedus.
32
English actor (1907–2001)
33
Mamet was writing and directing a screen adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s play.
34
Ken Lipper, producer
35
Because of the success of Miss Saigon
 1998

THE WINTER GUEST – LOS ANGELES – GOLDEN GLOBES –

BRUSSELS – TOKYO – ISSEY MIYAKE – SOUTH AFRICA –
PITTSBURGH, DOGMA – NEW YORK – KEVIN SPACEY –
PITTSBURGH, DOGMA – FRANK SINATRA – LOS ANGELES –
DOGMA – EDDIE IZZARD – CONCORDE – TUSCANY –
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA – ALASKA – HELEN MIRREN – CAPE
TOWN

1 January
Edna called to say that she was ‘never drinking again’ – or something like
that – and was currently eating a bowl of porridge.

2 January
7pm To Kennedy and BA Sleeper Service. Not.

5 January
Phone, phone, premiere tickets, friends, donations, LA (Golden Globes).
Kath Viner1 – who talks to me slightly as if I’m interviewing her.

8 January
7pm car to Odeon Hammersmith (w. Rima & Miranda Richardson).
Decided to tackle initial atmosphere head-on at the microphone and refer
fairly directly to shitty reviews. I think it helped. At all events, the audience
relaxed and united and it was v. v. special atmosphere.
Later to Belinda’s. 3am and she’s talking and cooking! Pasta.

9 January
The whingeing has started. New York, here I come . . .

11 January
It has been hellish and perplexing reading some notices, avoiding most – the
complaints are beginning to be predictable. Too theatrical, nothing new to
say. All focusing on negatives. All missing the point. Why does it not at least
occur to them that it is intentionally non-naturalistic, that the film is about
something age-old, that needs repeating.

15 January
12.30 To St George’s Hospital, Tooting, to see Pat Doyle.2 His knowledge of
what is happening to him – the morphine to combat the pain from
chemotherapy; the daily obsession with his ‘count’ – is awesome. And still he
is funny and curious. Emma arrives in the See You Jimmy hat & we take
Polaroids.
3pm Nicole Farhi shop in Bond St. Came away with a suit, shoes and 2
things for Rima at some sort of knockdown price. Will I wear this suit more
than once?

16 January
10ish Ruby arrives, finds me in dressing gown and disappears for croissants.
Talk of awfulness in the Seychelles and the Apocalypse Now of it with her
parents.

17 January
10.30 pick-up → Heathrow → LAX.

18 January
3.30 pick-up for Golden Globes.
Madhouse of plates being whipped away half-finished lest they still be
there for the broadcast; movie stars in vastly expensive dresses they can only
wear once; name dropping on a big scale – there and at . . . the CAA party –
Gus Van Sant, Matt Damon (I was fairly drunk, grabbing his lapels to tell
him he’s a really, no really good actor), Minnie Driver, Lauren Bacall, Shirley
MacLaine (she loved The Winter Guest, my hero), Winona Ryder, Joan
Cusack (squished in a lift – could we work together?), Kevin Kline. Giving
the Golden Globe to Alfre Woodard3 was BEST!

22 January
11.30 Back in London.

25 January
South Bank Awards on TV – Peter Hall rightly says both parties wonderful
about the arts in opposition. He’s right. It won’t do.
10.27 Eurostar to Brussels. This could become a habit. Everything they
say is true. Speed, soundlessness smooth as silk and straight into the centre of
Brussels. Roll on Paris.
3pm Interviews – a strange green room cum bar hidden inside a shopping
mall that has the air of an upmarket Leningrad.

27 January
Having woken at 5am the day looms ahead full of stifled yawns and
sentences without verbs. But the morning interviews are full of bright edgy
questions. This makes the job so much lighter, easier. Otherwise I could
supply (or even fax) some standard answers to the six ever-ready questions.
pm More stuff as they edge ever closer to Die Hard & Robin Hood. They
are like tired dogs with a very old slipper.
7pm Screening, which was ace. Even the screen covered in Flemish &
French subtitles didn’t stop it getting across the red, red seats. Standing
ovation.
Radio interview after screening. She risks garroting by starting ‘Usually
you play . . .’
10 L’Huîtrière with Neil [Kinnock] . . . Neil managing to cover 12 topics
at once but threading through it a growing savaging of New Labour. ‘Kicked
out if you don’t go to the gym 3 times a week.’

31 January
→ Heathrow → Amsterdam.

1 February
→ Tokyo.
Weird. Getting off Amsterdam flight there’s King Constantine and Queen
Anne-Marie of Greece. Getting on Tokyo flight, he’s there in the cabin.
What are the odds?

2 February
Arrived Tokyo.
7pm Dinner w. Ninagawa  .  .  .  Always hard to unpick through the
formalities. Ninagawa always so contained, so focused on the work. He asks
me to act again & to direct a Shakespeare.

3 February
Interviews all day. Next time – there really is no need for the interviews to
be 50 mins each. It’s just knackering. But there’s a disarming tunnel vision
about the Japanese – these quiet, small people throwing up this enormous
city, churning out product, quietly, ceaselessly.
8.30 Dinner w. Issey Miyake . . .4 He’s charming, funny and open. Gives
me a book of Irving Penn photographs of his clothes. Thank God I had
taken the Martin Parr5 book, although first instincts to stagger across the seas
with the Damien Hirst book would probably have been better. The thought,
however, definitely counts in these situations.

4 February
Alarming first TV interview – ‘the mother and daughter have one
expression when they go to the seaside and a different one when they return
– how did you make them change their expressions?’

6 February
9.52 The bullet to Kyoto. Well-named this train. So fast you travel with a
gentle underflow of nausea. Inasmuch as you can grab any image as Japan
flashes by it looks like one vast 3D electrical circuit. But it’s a beautiful train.
I look forward to the day British Rail has an electronic noticeboard, quiet
audible announcements and a ticket collector who bows to us as she leaves
the carriage.
11 February
A day of No’s.
Uneasy making. A quiet depression.
Further Academy stupidity – the total omission of any nomination for The
Ice Storm, next to nothing for Donnie Brasco, Boogie Nights.
Don’t be too much of a downer, don’t open too early in the year.

13 February
3pm to Hazlitt’s to find John Hurt and then to Groucho’s and then to the
Atlantic Bar.
Taxi to Habitat. Whizz round the bathroom cabinets. Taxi home.
Watching the Dark Harbor shots. V. depressing . . . 20lbs too depressing.

24 February
9pm The Ivy w. Adam & Polly and with perfect Hello magazine placing –
Fergie chatting to Elton John with Jeremy Irons & Sinead Cusack across the
room. Adam agog . . .

4 March
6.30 Car to Heathrow for 9pm flight to South Africa.

6 March
Streaming with cold/flu/whatever. Life can become another TV set, another
hotel room however much the sun and swimming pool say Cape Town,
South Africa.

7 March
9 Screening Winter Guest.
Like watching it through the bottom of a beer glass. It is so hard for the
film to work under these circumstances. Does music work through static?
Does a painting work if you have a headache?

8 March
10.30 Q&A on WG.
 I have a feeling that people don’t know quite what to ask since they
probably didn’t like it very much. Not all of them as I gradually discover, but
enough.

9 March
9ish Die Hard. Ten years on. It still works like none of the others. Real
energy, perfect camera work, wit and style.

10 March
9 Under the Skin.
This is something very special. No wonder [the jury] gave it the main
prize at Edinburgh.

14 March
6.10 → Johannesburg / 9.15 → London.
One of Liza Key’s madcap outings. At one point everything lost – the
keys, the parking ticket, my wallet. We get lost. Nearly. At one point she
asks hopefully ‘Can anyone see an airport?’ But the drive is spectacular –
along the Indian Ocean – and shocking – the townships and shanty towns
just a crazy collage of cardboard and metal bits and pieces called home. Lots
of washing flapping bravely in the dirt. How would you send a letter here?
300th shack on the left of the freeway?

15 March
Ruby and the Spice Girls on TV. What? Who? Why?

17 March
11.30 → PITTSBURGH.
Watched Regeneration on the plane. Curiously uninvolved, uninvolving.
Not stealthy enough or cold enough or sharp enough. Smooth, slow and
brownish – Sunday TV. Except in the last minutes. Something epic started to
happen.
We stopped in Montreal for an hour then on to Pittsburgh and the
William Penn Hotel. The burst through that tunnel still as thrilling.
18 March
[Filming of Dogma]
11 Costume fitting. Versace rules. Abigail6 is obviously v. v. good. She
doesn’t put a foot wrong in terms of shape, line, texture. And she’s willing to
listen.
3pm Read with Linda Fiorentino. Also meet Jay (Jason Mewes7) and
assume like an idiot that he’s Kevin’s assistant then recognise him from
Chasing Amy. Foot deeply in it. Linda thinks this is hilarious. She’s
everything she looks and sounds – smoky, dark, a coming-on disposition.
Somewhere in the middle Ben Affleck crashes in, later Jason Lee and later
yet Matt Damon. The room is suddenly full of baseball caps, popping cans of
water/iced tea/whatever, peeling oranges, potato chips, cigarette smoke. We
bungee-jump our way through the script. Chaotic, free fall, Linda resolutely
giving nothing . . . which we discuss somewhat in the Steelyard restaurant
later. Everything slows up or opens out here and we have some really
interesting, open chat. They are all bright, funny, passionate people. And
vulnerable. Some eyes soften I’m glad to say.

19 March
9 Kevin Smith has the strangest way of running a rehearsal. Matt and Ben
seem to take it, so when in Pittsburgh  .  .  .  We spend an hour reading
newspapers, chatting, sitting, waiting . . . for breakfast. No explanations or
attempts to pull us together. Then we do this sort of show and tell rehearsal.
Get up, go in the middle and do your scenes. Kevin just watches, says ‘sweet’
and at the end of a scene takes photographs on his digital camera. Jason Lee
throws himself at it, Linda beyond laid back.
3pm Linda and me. Where Kevin gives line readings or says up a bit,
down a bit on odd lines. It has its own real charm. He wrote it. He hears the
tunes.
Supper in the room. Strange, dislocated perplexed state of mind.
Sometimes one feels like the milk bottle without which the rocket can’t take
off. But that would be negative thinking so away! with it.

20 March
6.45 Drive to Pittsburgh Airport for 8.05 → New York.
Somewhere around 10 arrive at the studio for prosthetic making.
To the Lombardy Hotel.

21 March
2.30 The Big Lebowski.
Like its title sounds – sprawling. Jewels in amongst the box of chocolates
and other such mixed metaphors.

26 March
10.15 Car to Newark Airport for 12.14 flight to Pittsburgh.
To the set, the church.
3pm Wardrobe for costume fitting. Would like to drop 10lbs overnight.
Starvation diet before Wednesday.

31 March
To the set, the church.
George Carlin and the Buddy Christ8 figure both on great form. Carlin
improvising brilliantly with the extras. Should have taped him. An echo of
the day when Gore Vidal joined us, in Pittsburgh, on Bob Roberts.

1 April
7.30am pick-up to the set and all day in the Mexican restaurant.
A six page scene to start the film. Reminders of day one on Michael
Collins. Here was another cliff face only this time involving the daggers-
drawn battle between memory and any kind of freedom. Somewhere in
there the 2 shots, the one over-the-shoulder and the close-ups, there were
moments when it took off but always with the slight frustration of not really
being able to make it a scene between 2 people. So much plot to get over.
And fast.
Kevin seemed to be flushed with happiness at the end of the day. Hours
skate by at times like these. 7.30am pick-up finish at 6pm.
Linda has this volcano of brilliance rumbling quietly underneath the
persona she brings out and applies to every line. Seductive, dark, throaty,
eyebrows arched, eyes rolling. All fascinating and all wrong for this character.
But it ain’t my place to say anything. I must be learning.

3 April
Spoke with Mike Nichols who issued invite out to Martha’s Vineyard.
Certainly. Happily.
2.30 Pick-up for car to JFK and 5pm → Heathrow.

6 April
8 Closer.
A cast trapped by their director.9 Who is also the author. Same old
problem. Frances Barber talks of being unable to step outside Patrick’s notes.
And it’s true – you can see the lines sitting on the page.
To the Ivy & Teatro. Someone should do tests on Frances – to measure
how laughter makes you healthy because something must be counteracting
the wine intake. A hasty escape from Teatro when the Daily Mail slides into
the cubicle, along with Caroline Aherne.

11 April
Discovering exactly what I earned on Judas Kiss (the movie) was a bit of a
shock.

13 April
The Iceman Cometh.
Kevin Spacey is the acting equivalent of a champion surfer. He makes
everyone else look effortful. Even if he also carries a slightly self-satisfied air.

19 April
Watching the BAFTA awards. Like watching from Mars. Where I speak only
Martian. At least Titanic went home empty-handed.
But, yet again, apart from Sigourney Weaver, so did The Ice Storm, a
continuing injustice in the nonsense of these ceremonies. Winter Guest keeps
good company. And avoids a deeply tacky ceremony which at times shamed
all those present.
25 April
12.25 → Pittsburgh.

27 April
1pm Costume fitting. Issey Miyake has sent two garments from Outer Space
– a little too far out for this film.
4.15 To the doctor to deal with the nose bleeds. He cauterises (another
word for hurts).
8.15 Jeff10 comes to re-dye my hair.

30 April
A rehearsal. At which Linda asks for 2 lines out of 5. Has she looked at the
scene apart from on the drive in? I am catapulted into a dark and frowning
place – silent with resentment at having to work solo. Again. And so – a
long day with a pile of lines and [a] scene that’s all about prosthetics and 80lb
wings. The latter is a unique experience. When they’re down it’s like a
magnet pulling you against the wall and as the minutes turn into half hours
the weight and the harness play games with the memory. Pain versus
concentration. And still Linda blows her lines. Kevin does notice. And asks
me if there’s a problem. What can you say?

1 May
Vince11 and his team paste me into my false crotch and away we go with a
cinema first. Full frontal no frontal. Everyone takes many snaps which will
doubtless wind up on the internet.
Somewhere during the day someone mentions this great dermatologist
Linda has been to. Off I trot to 3pm appointment. Dr Nancy Nieland[-
Fisher] promptly informs me I have rosacea, psoriasis and acne and here are
your prescriptions for these ungetriddable ailments. Great.

5 May
Meet Alanis Morissette. She’s in the make-up van having flowers put in her
hair. Odd this. I have the CD12 along with the rest of the world. All that
angst and rock ’n’ roll. Here’s this quiet, charming, gentle girl/woman. We
wait a lot, shoot a bit. Share a van back to the hotel. Talk about work; what’s
now, what’s next. The Girl Next Door acquires new resonance.

6 May
Me and Alanis – comedy duo. Who knew? Laurel and Hardy live . . .

7 May
Definite change in the atmosphere – Chris Rock allows himself to be more
vulnerable now that Ben A has gone. That’s one of the deals with the devil –
surrender your peculiarities to the pushy certainties; be seen as often as
possible with a mobile phone – right up to a call for ‘Action’.
All sorts of stuff released – in the bus on the way back to the hotel Salma
Hayek talks of her time in India as a volunteer for Mother Teresa – this
utterly beautiful woman talking of wiping up shit and worms and keeping
the flies off a dying woman’s face.
Alanis had talked only yesterday of being there too.

8 May
Pittsburgh will forever be associated with my room at the William Penn
Hotel. Car-less, cab-less and on a film which is all about creating a family of
any description. I have a feeling that the need is there throughout the unit,
but there is a shyness at the top which coagulates unhappily with the
arrogance factor and makes visible vulnerability impossible. I’m just not
around enough to make a huge difference.

9 May
Somewhere on the way back to the hotel, I felt a familiar knife-like pain in
my lower back. I know what this means. Five days of pain. The wings have
caught up with me.

10 May
Trying to move the body out of bed is like a mathematical equation. A slow
progression to an upright position and an 8am pick-up by Ratz, the
production designer, and off to the flea market.
11 May
Woke up at 8 after just over 4 hours’ sleep. The pain in the lower back is bad
so a chiropractor is called. Maybe not such a wise move. There is a pinched
nerve and all around it muscles have put their fists up to defend it.
7.50 pick-up for the 5 min drive to the Station restaurant. Pain starting to
dominate every thought and move . . . A bad call was to shoot my close-up
at 3.30am because by then my brain had gone. I asked for cue cards. First
time ever. Horrible experience. But otherwise no scene and a lot of despair.
Pain worse and worse. Standing up from the chair excruciating.

12 May
The pain is too gross. Can’t film tonight. They shift the scenes
around . . . Doctor comes and gives pills for spasms and pain. Somewhere in
here, had a massage. Watched TV standing up.

13 May
To the hospital for X-rays. Fortunately, no disc problems but muscle spasms
are eased by a brace (which I probably should have been wearing with the
wings anyway).

15 May
A day when the pain lessens gradually and then just when you’re feeling
confident, stabs you hard.
Clearing up. Clearing out. Moving on. Again.
Listening to Sinatra songs all day on TV. Even the dreaded ‘My Way’ is
coated with that amazing voice, although the utterly unpredictable phrasing
is better heard in ‘All The Way’ or the spider’s trap of ‘I’ve Got You Under
My Skin’. Someone dies and for a while you stop taking them for granted.

16 May
11.50 to New York.

20 May
9am Flight to Los Angeles and the Mondrian Hotel.
21 May
9am Lasse Halström. Gentle man. V. intriguing script of Cider House Rules.
Would not require acting – just getting on with it while the camera has a
look.
2.15 Car to looping for Judas Kiss. Sebastian [Gutierrez, director] says
would you like the good news or the bad news. Turns out there’s really only
bad news. The Germans & Stefan [Simchowitz, producer] have cut the film
to resemble an action flick which means Emma & I are trimmed to the bone
(or so it seems). Plus ça change.

26 May
Pittsburgh.
5.40 is one of those nightmare pick-up times that punish you all day long.
Plus the gentle insistent presence of a headache punctuated by sneezing. Just
what is not needed.
The scene has a myriad set-ups and by the early evening is drowning in
the daily fly-past up above, the shoot coming alive to the sound of ghetto-
blasters.

30 May
6.45[pm] pick-up and out to the Star Lake auditorium to walk on water.
Which all works fine apart from the by now predictable 3am when the
camera comes round, and my brain is frying gently. But there’s a vaguely
celebratory atmosphere, the lake lit beautifully and as dawn broke we drank
some champagne in the make-up trailer and said goodbyes.
To bed at 7am.

1 June
5.50[pm] → New York.

4 June
8.30 Eddie Izzard’s show.
He was more openly political than I have ever seen him and wonderful as
he skated around from Pol Pot to landing on the moon to puberty.
 Later – to Balthazar. Eddie in jeans, T-shirt and 4" stilettos. A lovely
evening.

5 June
As Catherine was saying on the phone this morning, Eddie is one of the
people who change the world. And the morning after I feel real admiration
for the clarity of his stance, and the shrewdness of his approach. He
challenges and reassures at the same time and you can hear the grind and
click of rusty minds all over the audience.

6 June
7.30 Wangle my way on to Concorde. Hooray. Ivana Trump adds a bit of
dash sitting in front of me just where I can watch her checking her press
clippings, tearing bits out, looking through itineraries and then rather
touchingly looking long & hard at photos of loved ones before putting them
back in her wallet.

20 July
7.30 Broadcasting House. Dinner . . . What to say about this? Were we set
decoration? Will any of it be of use? Michael Frayn the only real intellectual
heavyweight. Richard Eyre v. good as was Jonathan.13 Harvey G[oldsmith] –
opinionated. Simon Russell Beale & I hoping same. Simon Curtis [film
director] and Elizabeth14 think it’s funny to tell stories of me in silk pyjamas
during the [LA] earthquake.

21 July
RADA Appeals Committee.
Attenborough tells horrific tales of Arts Council Lottery funding
cutbacks, double-dealings etc., etc. And, consistently, he puts his hand into
his pocket to shore the whole thing up.

30 July
8 Dinner w. Catherine & David Bailey.
The loft of anyone’s dreams. High above King’s Cross Station, the rails
curving into the arched entrance. Hours of potential pleasure people-
watching from this big airy room with its TV den tucked round a corner.
They are a great couple. Aside from all the iconic stuff, both very vulnerable
and straightforward.

3 August
HOLIDAYS!
Talk to Helen Mirren who, as ever, is warm, funny, honest, persuasive,
understanding, persuasive . . .
12 Car to Whiteley’s [shopping centre] (Amex & A&C) and on to
Heathrow for supposed 2.10 → Rome. It took off at 4. Livia meets us for (it
turns out) her first ‘long’ drive for 10 years. Never goes on autostradas. So
drives slow. Until the full stop. And what looks like a hideous crash six cars
ahead. A container lorry stretched and crushed across the road like a huge
broken unknown animal. Eventually discover that the driver has been pulled
clear and seems OK . . . 2 hours later the crane lifts the entire thing into the
air – a massive poetic sight as endless frozen carcasses of meat spill out across
the road. Antonioni.15
2am. Sit down to pasta & prawns as the crickets do their stuff.

4 August
5 A drive into Capalbio. Etruscan walls, narrow streets, waiting to be a film
set. Or for the tourists to just fuck off.
7.30pm. That’s it. I’m doing it. Antony & Cleopatra. NT. Helen M. Sean
[Mathias] Relief.

6 August
A great happy beach day . . . I’m reading Arnold Wesker’s account of The
Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel. I know it was written (it’s a
diary) in 76-77 but I am shocked by the overall tone. Deification of John
Dexter,16 total fascination with Wesker’s own every thought & move.
Especial fascination with the number of times his advice had not been
heeded. The amount of input – almost as 2nd director – that had been
allowed but mostly the patronising of actors – constantly referred to by their
characters’ names. Endless references to him & Dexter hissing comments
during run-through. Actors are performing dogs – malleable, silly, not
capable of rational thought just blind instinct & infuriating inabilities to hear
their authors’ ‘music’. And it comes across as a surprise to find they have
private lives. But he does quote John Whiting17 memorably – ‘A line in a
play holds just so much sense and no more. Just so much emotion & no
more . . . The really great actors exercise their own control. They give a line
an essential rightness of sense which makes it seem impossible to read any
other way. They also make the emotion a kind of atmosphere in which the
sense can freely exist. LESSER TALENTS OFTEN TRY TO OVER-
HUMANISE.’ (here)
8.30 Spoke to Paul Lyon-Maris. Something about the NT contract. Will
do Antony & Cleopatra for about £100 per performance. Tell that to those
opera singers. Patrick Proctor18 will do the poster.

9 August
11ish to the beach. Finishing the Wesker diary. Contradictory, irrational,
pointed, exact, self-delusory, honest, self-important, fickle – whatever
adjective suits – apply. And ultimately so disrespectful to actors. We should
all be engaged in an activity which ‘gives away’. Here, too much is ‘on
show’.

11 August
8ish Dinner at Monte Po. This is like a chapter from Evelyn Waugh. The
Greenes. Graham19 & Sally and their children Matt (screenwriter, Los
Angeles), Charlotte (the homemaker) and Alexander. This breathtaking
house, every corner filled with effortless taste and abundant eccentricity.
Candle-strewn tables, a disco upstairs with the children dancing behind a
shadow-lit sheet. And the cook quit at 5pm. Hat, bag, case, the lot.

17 August
First day rehearsals Antony & Cleopatra.
Rehearsal Room 1 and a time warp image of a circle of cushions on a
collage of Turkish carpets. But it’s not a bad thing to be thinking of Peter
Brook and 1978 especially because whatever else Helen and I will never fall
into the alarmingly cold space that Alan Howard and Glenda Jackson
inhabited.
 Anyway, a few familiar faces . . . are there and lots of strangers with great
faces. Trevor Nunn greets us with a big hug and a hello speech surrounded
by the NT staff and then Patsy R.20 gets us breathing before Sean starts. The
rest of the day is picking the text up in forefinger and thumb for
examination.
Tim Hatley shows us the set, David Belugou his costumes. First alarm
bells. I hope unnecessary – but how will we make this personal and not epic
given that golden wall, those clothes?

19 August
5.30 First run (words) of Act 1. Too much acting from me . . .

20 August
Sean handles rehearsals beautifully. Honest, fun, denying the power of his
role, really. ‘I can’t direct unless you show me something’ – or words to that
effect.

21 August
11.30 26 Manchester Street and Patrick Proctor. (Suddenly there’s a reason
for a diary.) Dressed immaculately (was it a paper hanky tucked into his
pocket?). And however drunk he is – and he is – he knows he’s wearing a
Versace tie. The drawing time amounts to about 15 mins during the next
hour, interspersed with several large whiskies. But whenever, as he lowers
himself on to his stool his eyes focus murderously on to me, lines come out
of him on to the canvas  .  .  .  that are ravishing. He insists in his utterly
aristocratic way on lunch. At Odin’s – full of Peter Langan’s drawings &
paintings. Beautiful Laura Knight, Hockney and across the way – Proctor.

24 August
A session with Patsy and in roughly 20 mins she sorts out the ‘fogging’ vocal
problem. Surprise – I’m not breathing properly (1) and (2) drinking enough
water.
8 To Sandra & Michael Kamen for Sandra’s birthday. And in view of
Sandra’s recent aneurysm and operation it’s great to see her cutting a cake,
answering the door, anything. George Harrison there trying to find a corner,
a hallway, anywhere but the middle of the room at, God forbid, a party. I can
see his point. He seems incredibly genuine and open.

25 August
Reading through Act 2. Something light and generous takes hold and all of
Sean’s work & methods over the last 10 days pays off. As he said afterwards it
was simple and direct and modern.

26 August
Strange to feel this company getting closer and closer but somehow Helen
and I remain on the outside. With Finbar.21 Involved, committed but
outside. Make of it what you will.

27 August
9.45 There’s no solution to where’s the taxi? Except the fantasy of the NT
sending a car. Ha. So – late again.
pm On into the wondrous depths of Antony & Cleopatra. Evening reading
in a circle, in a monotone, the jaw drops.
Supper at home. Packing.

28 August
TO ALASKA!
12 Alaskan time. Arrive Juneau Airport.
1.30 Deliver surprise of the year to Mary Elizabeth [Mastrantonio] on the
set . . .
3.30 River rafting. Wind, driving rain, talk of ‘How not to fall in’ – we
nearly chickened out, but didn’t and are glad.

30 August
7.30 Drinks in the Red Saloon before 8.30 dinner & Alaskan totem rituals
in completely designed-and-built-from-scratch top floor, over-the-pool
venue . . . The constant sense of who’s sitting where beginning to wear me
down. Robin Williams arrives – his usual, disarming, shy, unpushy self and
makes an example of everyone. Dance till late while Rima ‘Scrabbles’ in the
bar.
31 August
8.30 Wake. Pack.
And the long goodbyes.
Through all the unbelievable work and care and attention to detail it’s
hard to let go and just enjoy it. A gift others possess. This year’s guest list [at
Paul Allen’s party] included – Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, James
Cameron, Neil Jordan, Jim Sheridan,22 Terry George, Jeff Goldblum,
Candice Bergen, Annabeth Gish,23 Ed Begley, Dave Stewart, Deepak
Chopra, John Richmond,24 Noel Redding, Dan Aykroyd, Robin Williams,
Patti Smith,25 Jennifer Saunders, Ade Edmondson, Clare Peploe,26 Douglas
Adams, Quincy Jones, Carrie Fisher, etc., etc. All mixed up with scientists,
architects and Belfast family members.

1 September
RETURN FROM ALASKA.
11.30 (Managed some sleep) .  .  . Car back home. Change. On to NT
arrive 3pm. Straight into reading Act 3. Use it, I thought, and the spirit was
accurate but the eyesight was weak.

2 September
Finishing the work-through of Act 4. Odd flicker of shapes, cohesions,
threads appear through the jet-lag recovery. Sometimes I speak, for a long
time I’m silent. So much so, that Helen wonders in her easy non-
judgemental way if I’m OK with the process or find it boring? Nothing
could be further from the truth. I just lose myself in possibilities with this
glorious play. Talk about ‘mouthed to flesh-burst gush’.27

3 September
Lunchtime – looking at Patrick Proctor’s finished work. It looks like a
portrait of two 14-year-olds. Not far wrong.

7 September
First day of moving the play. By late afternoon – alarm bells. These weeks of
detailed text work and now a day of some v. good work but no real sense of
sorting wheat from chaff. So in there is some terribly demonstrated work
and bad verse speaking. The set proving to be as awkward as I had feared in
terms of creating a dynamic set of entrances and exits.

8 September
Better. I’m a dog with a slipper in the morning. I can feel all the new
separate energies flying around. Helen, if offered no other option, does a
solo act. One small suggestion and she transforms spectacularly. Instinctive
genius.

17 September
Working through the 4th Act am  .  .  .  and Sean is worrying about the
impenetrable lyricism of this part of the play. It forces me to analyse aims –
specific feelings, actions. And in the following run-through a lot becomes
clearer, more direct. Sean is a big pile of Kleenex – and honest to himself
ever, tells us how moved he was. It is in a way, a warning. Don’t sit back on
it.

23 September
These have been difficult days, running scenes with that awful grasping sense
of the text. So – no impetus inside. And listening to text being chopped
every which way, so no impetus outside.
The only solution is to stop and teach. I sound and feel so reactionary but it
is like a knife in the stomach when Shakespeare is rewritten or ridden the
wrong way. He makes it easy (or easier) if you think on the line.
6.30 Fittings. The mustard suede is on its way out. Hallelujah. I would
have been a face with no body.

28 September
Run through Act 3. Ohmigod.

29 September
Starting Act 4. Learning lines a little ahead of myself here. Recipe for panic.

30 September
Oh God, let me lose this script.

1 October
3 hours’ sleep and a run. Thank God for experience (of a kind) otherwise I’d
be reaching for the hand-gun.

5 October
7pm First run – Act 1.
Sean’s happy. It feels like a mess to me. Except for Helen who is free,
creative and flying. An afternoon of Katia C.28 and her intense missing of the
point exhausts me.

6 October
These are the tough days. I can feel myself not exactly closing off from the
company but concentrating so hard that chatter disappears.
The Thidias Scene is the first big Waterloo. You just have to say these
words over and over so that the knowledge sinks deep.

7 October
2.30 The first run-through. An out of body experience. Full of heroics,
dumbness, company things, solo things, conclusive, inconclusive. But a basis.
For tomorrow. And an excuse for getting fairly blasted in the bar afterwards.

8 October
Hung over in a major way.
3pm The Tech starts. Memorable moment in the wings as Helen says ‘I’m
so happy . . . all I dreamed of as a girl was to be a queen in a big theatre . . .
’

9 October
Hung over in another major way.
The day spirals on, the costume gradually appears, the character gradually
disappears; hairpiece is tried. Much hoopla from the rest of the cast. Only
question marks from me.
10 October
Like a car crash we get past the interval and on into the second half. My
questions are getting larger & more urgent. Where is the music? Where will
the story be? Time and again where is the exactness?
11.30 In the bar. Everybody is good humoured. Helen and I quietly
hoping there will be a dress rehearsal.

11 October
11am–7pm and at the close we are still in Act 4. A kind of calm terror looms
at the prospect of a public performance tomorrow night. Armour seen for
the first time . . . Why? Could it not have been made in week 3 or 4? It’s a
prop. Now they have to duck and dive all day tomorrow as we all face the
prospect of public improvisation for close on 4 hours. The music appears in
arbitrary strokes. The lighting will be an instant surprise.

12 October
7.15 and on . . .
1200 people watching a dress rehearsal and only the second-ever run of
the play. Utterly terrifying. And I will always think – destructive. But, of
course, we have to turn it to our advantage.

13 October
Second performance.
It grows. And shrinks. But it has started to find its space.

14 October
Still hideous nerves. It’s so big, this play. And this theatre.
Later talking on the doorstep with Helen & Sean. His vulnerability in
spades. But so? Directors, I think, aren’t allowed that. They should only
encourage, challenge, reassure. Never look for validation.

15 October
The gremlins arrive.
Skidding on water.
Road trips on the breakers.
 The sword falls from its scabbard and is revolved off.
Antony killed himself with Eros’ sword tonight . . .
A corporate members’ do in the Olivier bar. Followed by a too-late
session with Helen and some LX guys.

17 October
1.30 First matinée.
Somewhere around 6.25 .  .  . Sean comes in, looking wired. He doesn’t
drink but I found myself looking at his can of orange juice wondering about
the effect of carbonated water. For some reason he was on the attack.
‘Would it hurt you to show some fucking charm?’ I was stunned, asked him
not to speak to me like that, he nearly stormed out. I said just give me the
notes, this is the first time you’ve mentioned this, I’m piecing the part
together etc., etc. The evening show was a step forward but as I write this
I’m still bewildered. Had people been nagging him? What? Ian McK. &
Charlotte Cornwell came round having loved it. Were they sent too?

18 October
A day of relative stillness. Sleep. Newspapers. Planet Organic. Cappuccino.
Ironing the odd shirt. Answering mail. Cooking supper. Thinking.
Thinking. Rima, blessedly and unsentimentally, with me.

20 October
7pm Press night.
As per usual everything heightened. Therefore – high energy, high focus,
not as free as it should be.
Later to Soho House.

21 October
And then the morning quietness which means the press is not good.
Eventually I hear the tentative messages and get the picture.
7pm Second performance. Not easy. Nothing discussed. Is this a good
idea? I don’t think so. Major cut inflicted during the show so I pour blood
until plasters are slapped on.
22 October
Here we are again. Major avoidance. Major silence. Appalling how
Good/Bad determines everyone’s response – like it’s some club to which you
have admittance, or not.
7pm Actually, a show full of good things. And lessons. Don’t push so hard
throughout. Find things. Let go. Led by Helen – the freest soul.

23 October
7pm The other side of the coin. Young actors playing their own isolated
ideas – no sense of status (of character). In the Thidias Scene I hit Ed29
twice. Wrong, wrong. But when Antony is in that kind of rage and is faced
by such insolence it is almost unavoidable.

25 October
Another heavy silence hangs over the grey, grey day . . . By now this means
only more bad press . . . OK – on through the next 6 weeks.

26 October
7pm These are the tough shows. Everyone knows what has been said. No
one refers to it. Except at the interval (after a shaky first half) there’s a very
touching, anonymous note from the company sending love and loyalty.
At the end of the show, Sean knocks. Unaware of what it might have been
like for an actor tonight when it is pointed out he says ‘What about me?’ Oh
Sean . . .

29 October
2.45 Company call.
Sean tells us how important a time this is for him.

30 October
Maybe it’s time to try and let go. Antony would. Stop holding on to the
problem.

4 November
This just feels impossible. But somehow it happens. Belinda & Hugh are
there and full of disbelief of the reviews.
Working through a dizzying band of tiredness. Some things released, some
trapped. A swift cab home – some simmering anger from a phone call to
Paola Dionisotti (not her fault – just articulating friends’ lack of faith – YET
AGAIN).

6 November
This one was tough. An incipient cold/flu/thing threatens. Worse – bone
crushing tiredness and an awareness that there is a price to pay for a night
out.
10.45 With a bit more nerve I should have gone to Langan’s
Brasserie . . . with Patrick Proctor & friend. He loved it. Bless him.

10 November
Mistaken purchase of Time Out . . . forgetting inevitable discovery of theatre
review. How trashed can you be?

13 November
7 .  .  . Ed punches me, so I kick him, he kicks me again, I kick him
again . . . Drama centre . . .

14 November
6am What is this destructive force within my body that makes me wake at
5.30 knowing that I have two shows today? Malevolent and unfair.
1.30 and 7pm with a 2 hour break. Dizziness, yawning and eventually at
around 9.30ish a sudden burst of energy. From where? Finbar thinks I put
him down with ‘Thou art a soldier only . . .’ These sensitive souls around
whom Helen and I are like bookends.

18 November
Helen says she’s nervous. I worry that she’s starting to shout her way through
it.

19 November
A blessed 1½ hours’ sleep, somewhere between 9 & 10.30.
Tonight remarkable for the woman with flash camera – 3 shots in the first
½ hour.
→ Back to the world of ‘well done’ from Danny, Leila, Emily, Tom. But
not Arlene who clearly thinks she’s seen something else . . . Bless her . . .

20 November
Long phone call from Ian McKellen. Gee-ing up, reminding, empowering,
focusing. He’s currently rehearsing Present Laughter ‘without a director’.

21 November
Spent some time flipping back through the pages of this extraordinary year.
Some 27 plane rides .  .  . The Winter Guest, Japan, Spain, South Africa,
Dogma, Pittsburgh, Antony & Cleopatra . . .
The odd moment of peace in Tuscany. Like living in a watershed. Or so, I
am sure, it will prove.
1.30 The long slog begins . . . The matinée has a freewheeling thing that
feels good. After, Vivien H.30 brings round some professor of drama in
Hawaii who says I have some ‘moments’ that ‘show potential’.

26 November
A real need to sleep as long as possible.
7 The show is all fits and starts, pluses and minuses.
11.30 To Sheekey’s. Richard Wilson and Anna Massey. A depressingly
chill air over their response especially after last night. How volatile an
inexpertly directed show is, how much it depends on the spit sharp energies
of its actors. Still I attempt to articulate the positive, how negative has this
experience been?

28 November
.  .  .  a happy audience. More and more people saying ‘What were they
talking about?’

1 December
1.30 The curse of the matinée. From which it is hard to recover.
 7 This is an endurance test. One scene at a time, conserve energy where
you can.

3 December
And the last performance. Just to help it along – a barracker is in the
audience apparently shouting ‘Rubbish!’ at one point and then ‘Quiet,
ladies’ as Helen & I are kissing. Removed at the interval.

4 December
Bed at 7am.
Woke at 12.
To the theatre to clear out the dressing room. Turns out to be a 2 hour
job.

7 December
First night home just making supper, watching TV. Helen is right – I miss
Antony. Or the idea of him. The reality is just too tough. But moments
recur. And the defensiveness mounts.

10 December
Talk to Helen. News comes of Sunday Telegraph hate piece. Fax sent to
Dominic Lawson [editor].

11 December
Morning dealing with ICM, Keith Shilling [lawyer specialising in privacy
law], National, Thelma re Telegraph and now Daily Mail pieces. Total lies.
Invention. Malice.

13 December
3pm To Richard & Ruthie Rogers’31 for their 25th wedding anniversary.

18 December
Conor McDermottroe comes by. We wander to David Wainwright – Ruby
had said of her gift (metal-framed mirror) ‘take it back to DW if you don’t
like it’. DW says, ‘We haven’t stocked this for 6 months.’ The penny drops. I
think this mirror used to hang over her kitchen fireplace.

20 December
7.30 To Lindsay & Hilton.
A real sense of who came to see A&C and who didn’t. Curious how these
things matter.

22 December
4[am] pick-up for Heathrow.
6.20 Flight to Cape Town.
Impossible to sleep.
Watched Zorro – Prince of Thieves with swords & masks but Ms Zeta-Jones
jumps off the screen.

23 December
8.15am or so arrive Cape Town.
Taxi to the house.
Lovely house, splash pool out front – hammock looking straight at Table
Mountain; inside every room full of wonderful witty ceramics – Marmite
pot full of walking sticks, huge balsamic vinegar bottle etc., etc. I
immediately collide with coffee table and start breaking things. What is it
with me?

1
Katharine Viner, British journalist (1971–)
2
He was diagnosed with leukemia.
3
American actor (1952–)
4
Japanese designer (1938–)
5
British photographer (1952–)
6
Abigail Murray, costume designer
7
American actor (1974–)
8
Scene in Dogma in which a cardinal attempts to rebrand Jesus Christ
9
Patrick Marber
10
Jeffrey A. Rubis, makeup artist
11
Vincent J. Guastini, special effects makeup creator
12
Jagged Little Pill
13
Jonathan Kent, English theatre director (1949–)
14
Elizabeth McGovern, American actor (1961–), S.C.’s wife
15
Michelangelo Anonioni, Italian film director (1912–2007), best known for films such as Blow-up
16
English theatre director (1925–1990)
17
English actor, playwright and author (1917–1963)
18
English painter (1936–2003)
19
Graham Greene (1936–2016), British publisher
20
Patsy Rodenburg, British voice coach (1953–)
21
Irish actor Finbar Lynch (1959–)
22
Irish playwright (1949–)
23
American actor (1971–)
24
English fashion designer (1960–)
25
American singer-songwriter (1946–)
26
British screenwriter (1942–2021)
27
From ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins
28
Katia Caballero, playing Octavia
29
Edward Laurie, playing Thidias
30
Scottish actor Vivien Heilbron (1944–)
31
British architect Richard Rogers (1933–2021) and his wife, British chef and restaurateur Ruth
Rogers (1949–)
 1999

LOS ANGELES, OSCARS – NEW YORK – LOS ANGELES – UTAH –

CANNES – LOS ANGELES – DAVID HARE – NEW YORK – LOS
ANGELES – GALAXY QUEST SCREENING – NEW YORK –
LONDON

11 January
6.30 Miranda Richardson picks me up – off to Camberwell Art Gallery for
the Julian Schnabel show. He’s there, and a charmer. The room is packed
with young people in black – nobody looking at the paintings, which are
huge and looking at us actually.
8.45 To Pharmacy for a drink.
9.15 The evening has terminal cool. At the Campden Hill Square house
there are Schnabels, a Bacon, a Warhol, some Basquiats. Terry Gilliam
arrives with Johnny Depp. As we leave the party, Depp is in close
conversation with Kate Moss who has suddenly materialised. I feel like I’m
walking around in a magazine.

15 March
12.05 → Flight to Los Angeles.
Galaxy Quest.

16 March
9am pick-up. Plaster cast to be made of my head. As usual the experts are
charming self-effacing people utterly confident of their craft. This is the
second time I have had my head encased in plaster or goo (Rasputin was the
first). It is a very disconcerting experience. You have to talk yourself out of
panic or fainting. Can’t see, hear, speak or move. The stuff (same as dentists
use) is cold, then warm as it sets – temperature and consistency gradually
changing as your world closes in.

19 March
8 onwards (we arrived 9.15) Ed Limato’s1 party. Absolute 24 carat
Hollywood. Faye Dunaway, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Madonna,
Emily Watson, Holly H., Catherine Z.-J., Michael Douglas, Nicolas Cage,
Minnie D., Rupert E., Carrie F. etc., etc.

21 March
4pm → Dan and Barbara’s [old friends] for Oscars 99 TV Fest. Apart from
its sheer length this was suffused with an air of something manipulated,
cynical and insincere. Knowing too much about G.P.2 doesn’t help.
Memories of Out of Sight, Dancing at Lughnasa etc., etc. abound. Real acting
rather than the demonstrated neon-lit stuff that gets awards. Often.

24 March
6.15 pick-up for the 7.55 flight to New York. 3 minutes down the road I
remember my shirts and jackets are still in the closet at the 4 Seasons.

25 March
6.30 First night – Closer. This is the difference between here and London.
Outside the theatre there are cameras, TV & flashbulbs. Inside Judi Dench
sitting in front of me – elsewhere, Harrison Ford, Uma Thurman, Ethan
Hawke, Kate Moss etc., etc. The production still doesn’t fly – Patrick won’t
let it. Natasha and Rupert Everett very good. Anna Friel amazingly first
time on stage. Ciarán [Hinds] yelling a bit. Natasha doing the star bit way
too much with dressing room lists and celeb table at the party. Went to Café
Loup with several of the above. Kate M. very sweet and vulnerable – a
victim of the crap which Natasha craves. Depressing.

29 March
3pm Mike Nichols’ to talk about Betrayal/The Real Thing. Lindsay still not
getting any keener, but thankfully she’s as articulate as ever about it. A
reading is arranged for Wednesday.
31 March
Talking to Bob this morning I discover that the Betrayal/Real Thing double
bill is intended for off Broadway. I still have a hankering for Private Lives on
Broadway.
Gramercy Park Theatre for reading of The Real Thing. I enjoyed letting rip
on this part and the play has subtle painful threads running through it. I
should have done it in 1984. Now? Lindsay not keen. Mike N. very keen.

1 April
6.15 pick-up for 8am flight to LAX.
4ish Rima arrives from London. We struggle together with the mechanics
of the house – esp the insane TV system.

3 April
Waiting for the pool man, the satellite TV man and Lauren the cleaner to
make their separate arrivals so as they could sort out my life. Also drive to
Sunset Plaza Drive to see possible rental. V. clean, new-pin, soulless.

26 April
Galaxy Quest.
5.45 pick-up
and the Dining Room scene.
This is tough stuff – not made simpler if no one drives the car, be it
director or leading actor. Also having to deal with a bowl full of leeches and
centipedes who, unsurprisingly, do not wish to remain in their watery abode
and proceed to wreck the scene by crawling up, out and all over the place.

6 May
3.15 pick-up → Burbank Airport for 4.45 flight to Grand Junction, Utah,
and drive to Green River. The town is one big truck stop. Dozens of motels,
places to buy steak, frankfurters, ice cream, watch satellite sports in bars.

8 May
Working in Goblin Valley.
 This amazing place. Wind and seas have eroded the valley into something
akin to the Chinese soldiers’ tombs, only here it’s those
mushroom/goblin/penis shapes that create a dizzying maze all over the valley
– especially as it looks more film-set planet than real planet. But ‘exposed’
hardly describes it. Wind and sun rule.

9 May
5–7 Rehearse at the Comfort Inn. Actually ‘rehearse’ is so far from the right
word. Cue monologue might be better.

10 May
6am pick-up for a day in the wind, the dust and the red dirt. And the other
side of the coin. At the end of the day Sam [Rockwell] says ‘Sorry.’ I say ‘For
what?’ ‘I just don’t want you to think American actors are wankers.’ Which,
of course, I don’t. But Tim [Allen] has this perverse need to needle,
antagonise, provoke, demoralise – he just thinks he’s being funny (maybe) –
which just slows everything down and leads to zero concentration. I feel like
a reactionary.
The wind & dust & sun make me feel like an invalid with a red face.

11 May
This was one of those utterly glorious Mother Nature days – blue skies,
mountains and NO wind. The landscape looks like a cut out.
But still – Tim takes every opportunity to belittle. Finally, there is so
much chatter and noise that I can’t hear ‘action’ and step away. ‘Oh, Alan has
a little problem.’ ‘I don’t have any problem.’ ‘Oohh.’
And doubtless, a seed has been sown.

13 May
9ish To Sigourney’s room for fried chicken with Tony [Shalhoub] & Mark
[Johnson, producer]. Some ‘political’ chat which makes Mark look nervous.
(He already looked nervous since Sigourney’s room is a palace in Green
River terms.)

14 May
pm ‘I thought that was great’ (Dean).3 ‘Well, fabulous concentration’ (Me).
Which were brave words but had an amazing immediate effect. Oh, this
complex chemistry. Young actors looking for moments, close ups, Tim by
turns pugilist and wild animal.

17 May
9 Tamarisk w. Dean, Jerzy4 & looking at storyboard. Dean is easy going in
capital letters – whatever his inner terror, horror, whatever, his demeanor is
that of a slow cowboy song. As I listen to them all talk I can’t feel the weight
or energy of a decision. But something progresses apparently. Maybe this
film is becoming itself without us noticing.

18 May
Grand Junction for the flight to Salt Lake City and then Los Angeles. Said au
revoir to Tim before leaving – touching that he says he’ll miss us. ‘I’ve
grown attached’ – there has been a sea change recently in noticing the spaces
that each of us needs and should allow each other. Genuinely I was able to
say that I knew how he felt. In a week we have, I think, a really healthy
respect for each other which was frighteningly absent at first.

23 May
The long trek home.5 10.30 and into the cars to Nice airport, London
airport and then Virgin to LAX.

24 May
In the morning Sigourney is amazed by my with-it-ness. As am I . . . But it’s
a little like madness when you mess around with sleep and travel zones – at
least for ½ the day I can put one word after the other. Later on, my legs start
to leave my torso.

26 May
The Rock Monster Speech, which whenever I let it float through my mind,
or worse, tongue, seems laboured and deeply unfunny. Something, however,
stops me from forcing it and lo and behold by adhering even more strictly to
the written text it seems to work. Seems to . . .
28 May
Hallelujah. A day off. A day free of chicken head. A day of chicken head to
be free of me.

4 June
Hawaiian Day on the set. And Tim has to motor a scene which is the heart
of the movie. And he does it beautifully.

6 June
Tony Awards. There was a messiness about it all – the patronising air towards
Arthur Miller, names being fudged, the sense of give it to the American
choice if possible.

8 June
Another day in the corridors of the space ship.

9 June
8pm Dinner with Mel Smith. Jet lag or illegal substances? Hard to tell, but v.
good to see him and fall instantly into the shorthand of an old friendship.

10 June
8.30 pick-up.
Longish wait in the trailer. Which I like – plenty of channel-hopping and
jigsaw-finishing.

11 June
8am pick-up.
Oh boy. Writing this at 1.10am. We finished at midnight after flying by
the seat of various pants day. Beginning in my trailer with Dean & Tim.
Almost a waste of time as Tim spins off into a rant and eventually is clawed
back. I know now that he won’t be landed without a fight. Huge budget.
Impatient producers. Actors & directors fashioning a script at the last
minute. Then the day was like a 12 hour scrum ending with Sigourney’s
transparent manoeuvrings to get in the shot or create her own shot or
whatever. It’s so transparent she might as well announce it over the Tannoy.
14 June
7pm Buena Vista Social Club. What a joyous film. Total collaboration.
Brilliant musicians in their 70s, 80s & 90s are rediscovered by Ry Cooder
and Wim Wenders records it. Heart-stopping music. Heart-stopping people.

8 July
Heigh ho. Still it’s the kick, bollock and scramble school of writing. Wind
up outside the sound stage with Dean & Sigourney stitching a scene
together. In comes Tim and it’s like a nailbomb has arrived. When the initial
dust settles we then pull it all back together again. Until Sigourney walks
into a steel pole and, touchingly, becomes a 12-year-old.

20 September
8ish Dinner w. Ian McK., Edna O’B., Suzanne Bertish, Neil Tennant,
Martin Sherman,6 Penny Wilton.7 A gentle, homely evening. Ian cooked
and gave away books, mementoes as he packs for a year in New Zealand,
and the house waits to be ripped apart.

30 November
7.30 Mamma Mia.
This was good fun, but could easily be sensational. Some real
choreographing (rather than the dated TV variety show spins and finger
snapping) would help.
The Ivy – Lindsay awaits. Heroically. Since she’s working tomorrow. I’m a
bit concerned about her – she looks preoccupied, dispirited underneath her
perennially brave & beautiful exterior.

4 December
I have spent the last few mornings snatching moments to read David Hare’s
Acting Up. He says he has decided not to edit with hindsight, but I wonder if
he knows just how transparent it is? More self-involved than any actor I have
ever met, but then I suppose if I kept a diary about my decision to write a
play maybe the parallels would get closer. He describes me as the V. S.
Naipaul of acting – hardly able to do it at all. That, of course, is not
unconnected with the decision not to do The Judas Kiss.8 He forgets that I
would have done it if he had written a First Act. It remains, however, a huge
ambition to work with him. His cool candour is a breeze.

5 December
9am → to Heathrow and 10.55 → New York.

7 December
Waiting at the elevator with friends – none other than Sarah, Duchess of
York, who looks at me and yells ‘Eric!’ as in Idle . . . Must call him.

10 December
8.30pm Lupa – 170 Thompson Street. Excellent food, good wine and
company. Nick Hytner arrived later but I was in my ‘escorting Edna O’B.
role’ so left a little earlier than I should have. She complained in the taxi that
Nick had no curiosity about any other human being, that a smugness had
settled over him. But then, that’s an epidemic.

17 December
LOS ANGELES.
8pm Little Door – Marcia, Tim, Dan O’Connor & Barbara, Maggie &
Scott & Dexter Fletcher. Seamus McG[arvey] and Stephen Frears (who at
the end of the meal says, predictably, ‘Do you need any money for the bill?
No – you’re in a hit film, aren’t you?’) .  .  . The general assumption that I
will pay the bill is beginning to pall a little, however.

18 December
9–6 PRESS DAY.
Unremittingly tough. Although the journalists are very generous of spirit.
They all seem to love the film.9 Hang on to that thought. Sometimes one is
articulate, ten minutes later blathering.

19 December
2pm Screening. Terrible sound for some reason makes the comedy harder to
land. The audience goes wild at the end but they were never quite together.
Not helped by the crass editing, of course. I notice more cuts this time.
7pm Dinner w. Sigourney, Dean & Jed [Rees]. Stories of great notices are
not helping lift my leaden heart. Here we go. AGAIN. This is so boring. Let
it go. Move on. Don’t angst over what you can’t change. Too many films
have the same battles. At its heart GQ has an innocence they could never
understand.

20 December
8am → LAX.
10am → NY AA [American Airlines].
There is the gradual realisation of having been shafted. Again. Almost all
of my (Alexander’s) moments in the driving seat have been removed to
effectively give Tim a clear road. It’s not just about length. Or ‘rocket-ship
rides’.

26 December
NEW YORK.
4ish Ang Lee arrives with Haan and Mason, his sons, later joined by Jane,
his wife. Ang maintains his legendary (to me) reputation for elbow-off-the-
table plain speaking (you look good – better than you did on S&S) but all in
all it’s another lovely day, with the Long Island Sound and its spreading
sunset to cast a beautiful glow.

28 December
9.10 → London . . . We’re not properly tired so fiddle about with opening
mail etc. until about 2am.

31 December
4am awake . . . Thinking . . . is that even the word for this activity? Into my
mind (or what passes for it) comes a quote from Mandela: ‘Harder than
changing the world is changing yourself.’
8 Ian McKellen’s party.
Friends and strangers.
 David Foxxe, Armistead Maupin, Dena Hammerstein,10 Martin Sherman.
The house beautifully lit and decorated – wonderful food and wines. The
last gathering before the builders and decorators move in. As midnight
approaches, coats are gathered and we all clamber on to the roof . . .

1
Talent agent
2
Gwyneth Paltrow, winner of Best Actress in a Leading Role for Shakespeare in Love
3
Dean Parisot, director
4
Jerzy Zieliński, cinematographer
5
From Cannes
6
American dramatist (1938–)
7
Penelope Wilton, English actor (1946–)
8
Play by David Hare about Oscar Wilde – not to be confused with the film Judas Kiss that A.R.
appeared in in 1998
9
Galaxy Quest
10
British actor, writer and producer (1940–)
 2000

HARRODS – FIONA SHAW – JANE LAPOTAIRE – PARIS – OSCAR

NOMINATIONS – ANNA MASSEY – ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF
THIEVES – COPENHAGEN – HAMBURG – REEPERBAHN –
STING – LAKE COMO – ISMAIL MERCHANT – SAMUEL
BECKETT – AUNG SAN SUU KYI – DUBLIN – HARRY POTTER
OFFERED – THE SEARCH FOR JACK GISSING – SHARLEEN
SPITERI – TUSCANY – BRUCE WILLIS – J.K. ROWLING –
VICTORIA WOOD CHRISTMAS SHOW – HILLARY CLINTON

1 January
We watched 2000 arrive with the river spread out below us, a piper played
on a balcony nearby and fireworks dolphined above the skyline from Tower
Bridge, Greenwich and Docklands.
6.30am Home  .  .  .  Clearly something stilled any violence in the streets,
everywhere there was celebration and thoughtfulness. A reflection which slid
on into today. All day. So that we didn’t want to do anything.
Bumped into P. Mandelson & Reinaldo [his partner] in Westbourne
Grove. He was eating a choc-ice and trying to rent a video. Tea with
Mussolini.
Quiet supper at home. Although with hindsight another party would have
been a good idea . . .

2 January
Later am . . . Jet lag, of course, but also brain scramblings. Of late, this diary
has become not so much a trial but almost an avoidance and at best a record.
If there is a resolution knocking around just now it’s not about the diary as
such (although it would doubtless be affected) but to stretch the boundaries
of all relationships, try not to leave so much unsaid, put it in a note WHEN I
THINK IT – maybe as Ian McK. says succumb to the laptop and thereby the
email. Braver, less enigma, let it all just HAPPEN. Be more known. Cut
away the negatives. Say what you mean. Be clear & decisive.
2pm Harriet W. (CBE .  .  .!) & Peter [Blythe].1 Some lamb casserole &
Christmas pudding, a lot of wine and dates. Many reminders of old friends,
simple pleasures, and Mandela’s creased but curious & playful face bookends
it all (BBC TV).

6 January
8.15am Julie-Kate Olivier2 picks me up → the Globe via Helen M.’s house.
Poor Helen. Two shows yesterday and we’re ringing the bell at 8.45. ‘5
minutes’ says the voice on the intercom . . .
6pm Emma, Greg and Gaia Romilly Wise (aged 1 month). Ms Wise is a
beautiful child and a comedian to boot. And boy does she live in a lovely,
comfortable home.

8 January
More or less all day in the Harrods Sale buying late Christmas gifts.
Sometimes easy, sometimes headbangingly difficult – not least when
clutching six carrier bags, losing one of them, going to lost property, back
on to the floor trying to check sizes one-handed when the size is completely
obliterated by a price ticket.
10 River Cafe for supper, or so we thought, at 10.15 with Miranda and
David Young [playwright]. They eventually arrived at 11 (disastrous) with
Simon McBurney (happily). We ordered for them earlier in some
uncertainty and when the bill came Miranda was in the loo and David was
saying thank you before I had even found my credit card. For once, I was a
bit pissed off at paying the bill. It seemed close to very bad manners . . .

11 January
6pm A phone call from Jacky Cukier3 asking me to come to Paris. I suggest
Jan. 21st.

13 January
To Wandsworth Bridge Road and the lighting shop. Boy, is this a backward
area in GB. Try to find a decent lamp . . .
7.30 NT. Fiona [Shaw]’s production of Widowers’ Houses. Cottesloe. The
play is pretty unspeakable but Fifi has given it the full
Dostoevsky/Meyerhold/Moscow Arts production. And good for her. This is
made for 14–18-year-olds and will of course enrage the traditionalists.
Indeed there was some reported spluttering at the end. Margaret Drabble
there with Michael Holroyd and was kind and positive about A&C. ‘It
reminded me very much of someone I knew . . .’

18 January
Slept. Woke. Read. Until 4am. Simon [Callow]’s book, Love Is Where It
Falls, is breathtakingly honest. Takes all sorts of chances. His recall is
staggering – I can’t remember what I was doing yesterday. But then Peggy
Ramsay4 is such a spiritual guide. She talks of not trivialising one’s life – too
many people, restaurants, and of the Krishnamurti-inspired notion of
solitude. So that the mind can wander . . .

19 January
Word has reached me that Jane Lapotaire5 has had a stroke. This eventually is
corrected and as Rima suspected from the collapse/intensive care
information, the truth is an aneurysm. Messages are sent, and a call to her
agent – she cannot have flowers, does not really want it widely known.

23 January
1.48 Eurostar to Paris. Taxi to Hotel Raphael.

24 January
1.15 To Ron & Karen Bowen’s [old friends]. Chose a painting. Reminding
myself of the Robert Graves poem about ‘Vases, words and stillness’. Then to
a fantastic Tavola Calda for lunch and on to the Beaubourg and an
exhibition devoted to time. Hard to forget the backwards-playing film of
cow → steak etc.
 7 To Isabelle H. & Roni Ch. for a drink and to meet Angelo, their 2-
year-old, for the first time.

25 January
10.00 Taxi to Paris Nord. 10.15 Coffee with Isabelle D[uBar].
11.43 Eurostar to London. It’s a pleasantly disorienting experience, this.
Lunch, a newspaper, a script and you’re back in London as if you’d been to
Leeds. Odd for an islander. We spend all our lives on boats & planes in order
to escape. Now there’s this little miracle.

29 January
To John Lewis and the purchase of the BLENDER . . .
8.30 Hampstead. My Best Friend, Tamsin Oglesby’s play. Deeply
unsatisfying production of Tamsin’s clearly good play. No changes of gear,
little of its comedy, pushing for melodrama throughout . . . Tamsin obviously
unhappy about this production, but planning another . . .

9 February
Filing system on the stairs finally claimed its first victim. Me, a tray with
plates, bottle and glass (all empty .  .  .) headlong, or rather footlong, down
the stairs. And later a nagging pain to the right ankle.

11 February
11.53 WATERLOO → PARIS → 26 Rue Guynemer – Annette & Saul
Zaentz’s apartment in St Germain.

16 February
Reading the Oscar nominations. Once again, nothing makes much sense –
sixth or otherwise. The Green Mile is an awfully long film. But it is clear in
my mind that however difficult the subject matter the voters need space to
cheer and get on with their lives at the end of any movie.
1.30 → Carpeaux exhibition in the Luxembourg Palace Museum.
Walking around and caught in the most all-embracing storm – thunder,
hail, snow and eventually, blue skies and sunshine.
2.30 A croque monsieur at the local café.
 7.30 Car arrives to pick us up → Ron + Karen and → to Champs Elysées
for Ripley premiere. This is not a Green Mile type movie. This one picks you
up and tosses you around from start to finish. Lack of Oscar nominations (or
is it my imagination?) means a quiet house and Ant and Matt & the rest
seem subdued.
11.30 Dinner at Fouquet’s on the Champs Elysées. The food, apparently,
was good. The ambience very red plush. Somewhere in here is an agreement
that a play will change your life in a way that film never can.

17 February
1.30 [Le] Bristol – lunch with Anthony M., Matt Damon, Carolyn, Max,
Gabriel,6 Saul Zaentz.
Later – a whistle-stop tour of Malvolio with Max for his NYT audition,
& shopping with Carolyn.
7.20 American Beauty. Ron was right – the endings are all too neatly
contrived so that we can leave disturbed but at peace with ourselves – hence
the multiple Oscar nominations. All the same – hats off to Sam Mendes. It is
full of good stuff.

23 February
11 Car to Gare du Nord and the 12.19 train to Waterloo.
7.30 Dublin Carol – Royal Court. The theatre is stunning. A perfect
balance of preservation, restoration and re-invention. It makes one hungry to
perform there again. The bar under Sloane Square is a triumph and would
be made perfect by the until-now denied access to Sloane Square. It will
happen. The play is difficult to hear because Brian [Cox] insists on shouting
words for no apparent reason (unless it’s the feud he’s conducting with
Trevor Nunn which he tells us about afterwards).

25 February
7.45 Dinner with Anna M[assey] & Uri [Andres] plus David Hare & Nicole
Farhi. Reminded again of how fond I am of Anna & Uri. She for her
impeccable manners salted with the fruitiest swear words. And Uri is an
inspiration and a lesson. Courteous, kind, vulnerable with eyes that crinkle
with concentration, sympathy, total involvement when someone else engages
his attention. He’s curious.

27 February
4.45 Tea with Emma, Greg & Phyllida (briefly) to deliver the dress bought
for Gaia in Paris. Gaia already has the most glorious personality – funny,
quirky, quixotic creature. Talk of a Tuscan adventure . . .
Home for the last half hour of Prince of Thieves which is on BBC1 tonight.
Soo many waters under so many bridges . . .

6 March
9am pick-up for 10.50 flight → COPENHAGEN.
From around 2pm–7pm working in the downtown studios on Help! I’m A
Fish.7
8pm Dinner in the ex-monastery. Great environment. Awful food.

7 March
am (early) to 11. Thinking, reading, brooding. And eventually leaning
towards ‘No’ on Final Curtain.8 The idea, the personnel are fine. Scene by
scene needs more work. Will they get this? Doubtful.
pm → Elsinore.9 The courtyard all that was open at 3.15 but all rather
special, really, in the wind, rain and absence of tourists.

8 March
11.15 Pauline Dowd. Harley Street. More antibiotics, more cream. I cannot
escape the feeling that it’s all more to do with giving things up, not sticking
things on . . .

10 March
To Brightwell.10 The bathroom approaches its debut, its unveiling, its
renaissance. After lunch a trip to Do It All to find floor tiles, fire
extinguishers, smoke alarms.

12 March
12 To the cemetery w. David & Chris. Where have all the potential flowers
gone? (Has someone nicked the bulbs?)

14 March
9.15 Pick-up to Blue Studios, Old Compton Street, to start recording
Discovery Channel’s Patagonia Eco-Challenge.

17 March
6.30 John Wark down from Scotland for his second RADA audition. As
Sharman said, ‘a real actor’. And it’s true. I don’t feel the same nervousness as
with Christian & Arlene. John knows where he’s going.

19 March
[Re Galaxy Quest]
12 Pick-up for drive to Heathrow and 2.15 flight to Hamburg.
Arrive at Vier Jahreszeiten – 4 Seasons – a beautiful suite with a terrace
looking at the lake and rust/orange roses in two big vases. And some Veuve
Clicquot. Like living in an occasional cartoon.

20 March
9.45am Make-up and 10am start of interviews. Generally the questions are
much brighter than expected. A relief – it’s less tiring when the answers are
spontaneous rather than appear to be. Lunch in the Hotel Grill and hello
again to Sigourney. A message on the machine at home from John Wark. He
has got in to RADA. So that’s 3 of them [from The Winter Guest] in the
business now . . .
Later to the Reeperbahn and the Dollhouse. All rather tasteful and
innocent. A hand delicately placed over the crotch as the G-string slides
down. Incredibly efficient take-overs by dancers, clever lighting, good
bodies, middle-class audience.

21 March
10am start. And through to about 1.15pm.
Lunch in the excellent Thai (sort of) restaurant in the hotel . . .
 2.50 Back to the grind. And when it’s over the familiar sensations. The
constant attempt to avoid bullshit, not to be irritated by the labelling, say
what you believe etc., etc. always leaves me whacked and empty. Quite close
to humiliated. And as I do it I always forget the pay-off.
4.45 pick-up to Hamburg Airport and the 6.10(ish) flight to London.
Lufthansa  .  .  .  Later, at home, reading an old journal. Stuff from 20 years
ago. Scary. And also looking at excerpts from Sylvia Plath’s journal. My old
one is very pre-movies. Pre-interviews and pre- those more recent books.
Much more naked. I can only hope that when I look again at the ’90s
volumes that I can remember the coded details and the sharp thoughts
hidden between the safer lines.

24 March
Dinner at the Bear. A long time since I’ve seen deep-fried Brie or
mushroom stroganoff. Almost expected to hear Steeleye Span on the
intercom.

28 March
Lunch w. Karen Moline11 at Dakota. She seems angrier at life this time.
And, as ever, hopelessly indiscreet. God forbid I ever give her information I
don’t want passed on . . .
8pm Royal Albert Hall for Sting concert. Nitin Sawhney first. Or
Knitting Sorbet as the guy at Door 9 calls him. In all seriousness. Suzanne B.
and I go to Box 25 which Trudie has filled with food and drink. Perfect
hostess as ever. The concert (both halves) is really wonderful. Very moving,
really, to hear the sheer number of anthems that Sting has written over the
years. And still awake to the innovations of Nitin S.

29 March
8pm Dinner w. Suzanne, Nicky & Edna O’B. Edna the
phenomenon  .  .  .  Story after story. ‘If Pat Magee12 were here now – he’s
dead – if he were here now . . .’; ‘May I ask a trivial little question about
Juliet & Fiona .  .  .?’ But a lovely evening. Which I look forward to
reproducing in the country . . .
30 March
To RADA to see the new building . . . I can’t quite shake off the feeling that
too much has been smashed into too little space, but at the moment it’s all
grey cement and no light so it’s unfair to speculate. In an ideal world and an
ideal building the rehearsal rooms would be bigger with higher ceilings, the
Vanbrugh stage would be deeper etc., etc.

1 April
11am To the Millennium Wheel. For a second time. This could become a
habit. I can imagine solo trips before long.

5 April
11.45 Dr Pauline Dowd. Mainly memorable this time for finding a
horoscope to purloin from the waiting room. It even mentions clutter-
clearing, which has been the word du jour for a week now. (Karen
Kingston’s brilliant book13 finally finished last night.)
Almeida – Celebration/The Room [plays by Harold Pinter]. V. enjoyable
evening in all senses. First the pleasure of seeing Lindsay, Susi,14 Andy [de la
Tour] and Danny Dyer on stage together and all very funny, esp. in
Celebration, and Lindsay does pull off The Room in spite of her worries.
Harold and Antonia15 are also in – he had thought we were a bit quiet. It’s
hard to guffaw if you worry that the author won’t approve. Still thinking
about the plays and about how deep they actually bite, but talking afterwards
in good old Casale Franco when Andy & Susi tell of Harold only directing
the actor who is speaking . . . Only underlines my belief that writers should
not direct their own work in the theatre.

11 April
7 Anna M. & Uri A., Eve Black & David Samuel for drinks before dinner at
Assaggi. This is something to do more of. Put together a group of people
who really have something to talk about and basically listen and enjoy their
mingling. David, the brain chemist, Uri the physicist, Eve the Arts
Administrator-Marine Architect, Rima and Anna knowing something about
all of it. I enjoyed the noise.
12 April
→ LAKE COMO.
9.30 Car to Heathrow for flight to Milan, and on to Villa D’Este at Lake
Como. Here for the BBDO Ad Agency get-together, bonding thing. Isaac
Mizrahi16 and Ismail Merchant have already spoken. Fairly terrified for a
week now but having finally got the opening paragraph, spent the plane ride
and then the early evening scribbling furiously and now have 17 pages.
5pm A drink in the bar with Ismail Merchant & Richard his assistant. It’s
always been a bit of a mystery why I’ve never worked with this (extremely
amiable) man. Now we all think that.
Dinner in the Grill. Good food but on my top ten hate list would be
over-attentive waiters – I like watching my wine glass get emptier. I am close
to slapping the arm of the next waiter who refills my glass after every sip.

13 April
To Regina Room to throw myself to the wolves. A speech I was concerned
may only last 10 mins actually ran 45 mins. You can definitely feel the good
bits and bad bits and with (now) hindsight the bits I’d rewrite. Doubt
whether references to Thatcher went down well with an agency boss who
was on Reagan’s re-election team. Peter Souter – the UK boss – extremely
impressive and says ‘Don’t suppose we’d get you to do something for us?’
Hmmm . . .

21 April
Clearing clutter . . .
Specifically a first go-round at Winter Guest papers. And you think – How
did this ever happen? How did it start? Look at all the people who became
part of it. And then it faded into the past.
6pm Erin Brockovich at Whiteley’s.
Good for Soderbergh. A film that has gathered a huge audience and that
involves from the first frames. Full of beautiful acting (Julia Roberts always
underestimated anyway, but here she gets her chance to show how in-the-
moment she is). Albert Finney and everyone – smaller parts brilliantly played
– clearly happy working with such [a] meticulous, observant, subtle director.
And it’s about something.
7 May
Watching Close My Eyes17 on Channel 4. Brings back all kinds of memories
of that hot summer and a vow to lose a stone. At least. In spite of its list of
implausibilities, the film still looks good and makes the current crop of
Britflicks look ridiculous.

10 May
Miranda Richardson visited late lunchtime with the mad dog Liv. Who
could hardly contain her excitement, and so didn’t. 20 mins later the house
and garden resembled a rugby pitch  .  .  .  Took an hour to find the door
wedges . . .
3 To Jim Henson’s for a face mask. Third time for this weird piece of
sensory deprivation. And I feel the beginning of a sense of panicked
responsibility to learn the lines in time.
7 The Merchant of Venice, NT. Henry Goodman on another planet (from
most actors, but certainly from everyone else on stage tonight). Every line is
a thought contained in a body which has a life. Every line is discovered. An
acting lesson.

18 May
Breakfast at 106. Sara Sugarman18 sitting there and a chat later. Her film
[Very Annie Mary] opening in August – she’s now thinking of moving to LA.
And she’s one of the few people who could take her own mix of ambition
and anarchy and bend LA to her will.

22 May
10.10am Pick-up to Pinewood.
Play, Samuel Beckett, with Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliet Stevenson.
Anthony Minghella directing us in our big pots.

24 May
6.10am pick-up.
On set at 8.30ish after longish makeup. All of us terrified. But because
Anthony has a) done his homework, and b) is receptive to what is going on
around him – it becomes properly organic and ‘found’.
Home at around 7.45pm.

25 May
6.15am pick-up.
Much less nervous-making. In 24 hours there’s a real feeling of a team.
Benoît,19 the DP, grins, and the sound recordist says ‘When I read this I
didn’t know what it was all about but now I think it’s amazing.’ Juliet is
amazing. She’s doing a play by night and still manages to be brilliantly ahead
of the game in this. Hats off.

26 May
6.15[am] pick-up.
Finished around 8pm. This has been a very special time. Pushing the
boundaries; testing resources against a great text; knowing that a secure
friendship means a relaxed honesty; noticing how K.S.T.’s ‘froideur’ moves
through insecurity to quiet confidence in the course of 3 days; Juliet’s real
strength.

2 June
11am Lyric, Hammersmith, for run-through of Ruby’s new show.

4 June
12.13 Train back to London [from Brightwell-cum-Sotwell].
4pm Run-through of Peace Garden concert at Royal Opera House. One
of those extraordinary events. Trudie Styler gathers quite a clan around her.
As I arrive, Madonna is on stage with an Egyptian band. Trudie trying to be
organised but the time is disappearing fast. Vanessa [Redgrave], Alan Bates,
Angharad Rees, Simon Callow, Lulu, Jimmy Nail, Bryan Adams, Miranda
Richardson, dancers, singers, monks, Can Can dancers (Simon’s favourite
sight – the monks watching the Can Can). Somehow all these elements sort
of gel and we started 45 mins late. But the evening (especially the second
half, especially the singers & Vanessa) had some wonderful moments and the
audience, thankfully, was alive and warm – not the dreaded mass humourless
gathering of the Tory party.
 Sights of T.S. [Trudie Styler] with her makeup & hair stylist, v. expensive
dresses and the food & drink afterwards gave pause for a little thought . . .

5 June
11am To Emma & Greg’s to find Catherine Olim & Phyllida & to go for a v.
pleasant stroll around Hampstead and the Heath. A sandwich in a side street,
a glance in an estate agent’s window (or rather a pause while Emma actually
goes in and gets details of a couple of properties – oh, you must come and
live in Hampstead – and indeed, the leafiness and elegant mishmashery of it
all is seductive . . .). Also a trip to the refurbished Everyman Cinema. Great
people running it and superb circle seating. A Must Go.

12 June
Stay-at-home night.

13 June
5pm Lanesborough Hotel to meet Mike Binder [film director]. Mostly, I’m
trying to figure out whether or not he dyes his hair. Somewhere in there I’m
meeting a gentle, determined, honourable man.

18 June
6pm Royal Court for run-through(ish) for – Aung San Suu Kyi benefit.
7.45 Show. Thanks to Philip Hedley’s20 brilliant sense of balance and
organisation it was genuinely enjoyable. Mark Thomas (great), Richard W.,
David Hare, Glenda Jackson, Miriam K[arlin], Tim [West] & Prunella
[Scales], Kate Williams,21 Fascinating A.;22 jiving Lindy Hoppers, Glenys &
Neil K. jiving together at the beginning of the evening before Glenys’
terrific speech. Amazing woman in support of amazing woman.

23 June
10.30 Car to Wicklow and Annette Carducci’s23 set.

26 June
9am Pick-up to Carlo Manzi [costume supplier] for second fitting.
27 June
1pm Rehearse.

30 June
9.45 Voiceover to Chechnya documentary. Andrei Babitsky. Reporter
Extraordinary.

2 July
7am Pick-up. Day One. Gissing.24
A house in South Street, Mayfair. Lunch in Berkeley Square. In and out
of a front door with the Sultan of Brunei’s cook slamming windows and
yelling at having her Sunday disturbed. Probably can’t blame her. But as
Mike says, London is full of eccentrics. (Just you wait .  .  .) Sonya25 gets it
together remarkably for someone cast on Friday.

11 July
9am Pick-up. And a day of tap-dancing. Figuratively in the morning with
Sonya’s stripping scene.
Literally pm with the roomful of tap dancers and the rest of us crashing
about in our suits, ties and cufflinks.

13 July
How did today turn into such a pain? How quickly I lose my equanimity.
Concentration becomes silence and at the end of the evening I wind up
standing in a corridor defending my ‘perfectionism’ to the beleaguered
director.

26 July
7am pick-up.
Today was the day of Matthew [played by Mike Binder] & Gissing
throwing each other around the office – but, no real rehearsal; crew
watching; no stunt person – so, injured knee which I discover at home later
when it just won’t bend.
NB Harry Potter is offered . . .
6 August
7.45 pick-up for Scene 86. 5 page horror. Umpteen angles, same speech
over and over. Not finished at 9pm. Back tomorrow. But in amongst the
humidity and tiredness, some welcome laughter with Caroline [Holdaway],
Juliet [Stevenson], Owen [Teale], Allan [Corduner].

8 August
1.30 Train to Stratford to see Mary McGowan and Sandra Voe in Henry IV
Part 2.
4pm To Mary’s house. She is furious at her sudden physical decline.
Utterly reliant on the Zimmer frame but of course still the woman who says
to a midnight drunk intruder (‘I was in the kitchen, couldn’t sleep, reading
Seamus Heaney’) – ‘Would you like a chocolate?!’
7.30 Swan Theatre. Henry IV Part 2. Desperately middle of the road
production. High spots fudged → Hal’s rejection of Falstaff is an
anti-climax . . . W. Houston26 a charismatic young actor who could easily
just tread the pernicious water of vanity.
10.43 Dinner at the Duck. A triumph of wheelchair manipulation and
Mary was having dinner at a place she ‘never thought I’d see again’.

11 August
12.30 Pick-up to N1 Dance Studios to learn dance for Sharleen’s27 video.
Wrap party for Gissing. Chinawhite’s. These things have to be stage
managed, otherwise people sit about moaning that it’s no fun. Sadly, they
have to be told how to create fun. Once they had been herded out of the one
penny-pinching room we had been ascribed it all loosened up. But this film,
although full of crazy invention that might just survive, was never a model of
organisation . . .

12 August
8am Rima off to Heathrow and Tuscany. What the fuck am I doing staying
behind?

15 August
Talk to Paola a.m. and hear of Juliet’s brother.28 This is after Fidelis’s29 tale of
a drug-crazed, blood-stained break-in.
1pm Nick Kent comes by and we have lunch at his local
pub/restaurant/garden and then to his really beautiful flat. Not so much
Kensal Rise as Provence via Jamaica. Then a phone call saying his godson has
been arrested for snatching a bag . . .
5.30 Pick-up to the car park near Southwark Bridge for the start of the
Texas video. Drive-bys on the bridge before heading off down the motorway
via 20 bikers and finally ending up in a dawn promenade walk in Brighton.
Then to the ghastly Thistle Hotel from 8am.
P.S. Somewhere in here spoke to Judy Hoflund about HP and the usual
negotiating shenanigans.

16 August
Sharleen fuming about the hotel (condom on the carpet last night .  .  .). I
point out that it will ready her for Poland on Friday. We take off for Beachy
Head at sunset.

17 August
During the night, more motorway drives, eventually fetching up at the
petrol station in Bordon (which I hadn’t previously noticed). Called Claire
and Amy [A.R.’s nieces] to say we were coming but not until at least
midnight.
Actually 1.30am. The rest of Texas gathers. They are a really great bunch.
Together for 14 years and still enjoying each other, supporting each other.
Sharleen clearly a powerhouse but always checking for Johnny’s30 ironic,
vulnerable eye.
We tango’d at 4.30–5.30am. Hard to connect brain and legs.
Back to London to put things in bags and generally get ready for the off
to Heathrow.
10.50 → ROME → Corrado driving me to Argiano. Judy Daish solves
the problem of getting him back by suggesting he drive her hire car back.
Perfetto. Can’t deal with Warner Bros shenanigans. Plus there’s a Sesti
extravaganza for Cosimo & Paloma31 – fairy lights, dinner for 50, Tuscan
choir, Keith sang, I spoke some Berowne32 pushed by Sarah (the page
flipped open almost at the speech . . .) – a gorgeous evening, generous souls
singing to each other.

23 August
6.30 Pile into the car and drive to Siena to get to Il Campo before dark. To
the Patio Bar where, around 8pm, I called LA and said OK to HP.
9ish Dinner at Le Logge.
Home at 3am.

24 August
Around the pool and feeling a bit nothing about HP which really disturbs
me – or is it because I’m reading Martin Amis’ Experience which charts A
Life . . .

28 August
12.30 Collect Conor from Buonconvento station.
Lunch in Montalcino. Drive to Montepulciano to find Ant M., Carolyn,
Max plus Sydney Pollack & Bill Horberg [film producer].

5 September
To local winemaker S. Palmucci. High above S. Antonio Abbey – the most
spectacular position. (Nearly rivalled by the 5 star hotel currently being
developed in a nearby 11th C. castle . . .) & the most spectacular wines – his
instructions to pickers was an education in itself.
8pm Dinner in the house. Wonderful fresh gnocchi from yesterday in the
bread shop.

6 September
A day by the pool.
Talking to Judy – the bargaining goes on . . . (HP).
Lightning in the mountains.

10 September
Perfect day. Still, sunny. To the pool. Finish HP 1, start 2. There’s no
denying . . .
11 September
2pm Romano arrives and the goodbye is as swift and painless as I can make
it. Which is not swift and painless enough. This is another way to live. And
the Sestis know how to pull work and pleasure together in the most
passionate, blazing, sharing way. Life is lived, worked and celebrated. And
invented, daily. Guided by nature.

21 September
HARRY P. TAKES OFF.
10.30 Car to MBA for costume fitting/discussion. Measurements from
hell after a month in Italy. Waltz around each other – higher collar? Blue
fabric? Thinner arms? And off to Leavesden Studios. Chris Columbus
[director], David Heyman [producer], Make-Up Dept. waiting. Wig? Nose?
Discussion and a look at some of the sets and special effects.
3.05 Heathrow to LAX. Dinner at Lily’s, Venice, & back to the Peninsula.

23 September
Bruce Willis tribute, American Cinematheque. 12.45 Lunch at Beverly
Hilton and rehearse entrances. Mad afternoon trying to find a pair of shoes.
6.30 pick-up to Beverly Hilton. Red carpet gauntlet and into Green
Room. Bruce comes in to say hi. The show is fine and the audience laughs.
Drink at Peninsula w. Louise Krakower, Cate Blanchett, her hairdresser
Manny. There is instant rapport with Miss B. What will the future bring?

27 September
2.45 Arrive Heathrow.
6.30 Car → Belinda and on to Empire Leicester Square for premiere of
Billy Elliot. This is what happens when the distributors and press get behind
a film . . . Jamie Bell is quite wonderful – not a sentimental second in his
performance. The film is Stephen Daldry at his most calculating → it is
almost as if he has fed the requirements into a computer. The film could
have been beautiful but its cynical use of the miners’ strike added to a long
list of untruths (the boy in the dress, the snowman, the brother’s change of
heart) make the newspaper headlines – ‘The Best British Film Ever’ – an
insult to Losey, Schlesinger, Anderson, Dean, Powell & Pressburger, Newell,
Minghella, McKinnon and the rest.

6 October
First conversation w. Joanne Rowling. Her sister answers – ‘She’s not here –
can I leave a message?’ Cackling in the background . . . ‘Sorry about that!
. . .’ ‘There are things that only Snape & you know – I need to know . . .’
‘You’re right – call me tomorrow; no one else knows these things . . .’

7 October
Talk to Joanne Rowling again and she nervously lets me in on a few
glimpses of Snape’s background. Talking to her is talking to someone who
lives these stories, not invents them. She’s a channel – bubbling over with
‘Well, when he was young, you see, this that and the other happened’ –
never ‘I wanted so & so . . .’

8 October
2pm Ruby, Ed & kids → Harbour Club. One of Max’s friends is an
indication of what’s to come. ‘Are you Snape?’

10 October
HARRY POTTER BEGINS.
8.30 Car to MBA for 9am fitting.
11am Kings X for train to Newcastle, and then car to Alnwick Castle and
a (3 hour . . .) make-up for camera test. Criss-crossing of pluses and minuses
– pale face = v. ageing; false nose-piece needs heavy make-up etc. General
atmosphere is friendly and a mite chaotic.
7.45 To the tapas restaurant with Sean [Biggerstaff] and Robbie Coltrane
for many plates of deep-fried indulgences before going back to the hotel for
some red wine and a bag of chocolates from the mini-bar.
Hopeless . . .
And still awake. TV on, writing this at 3am. Jet lag keeps nipping at the
ankles.
Finished Actors, Conor McPh. script. V. superior comedy. Very not PC.
Actors are idiots and script peppered with ‘cunt’.
12 October
am Call from Judy in LA which stills the roundabout for a while. Present
needs, other people’s requirements, destiny, that stuff . . .
12.30 pick-up to the set and putting Snape together. Ultimate result –
tighter arms, legs, waist, bluer hair, no contact lenses. But Snape seems to
live.

13 October
10.30 pick-up. Make-up – I may need valium . . . Costume.

27 October
11 Angel’s – fitting for Victoria Wood Show.

20 November
7.30 pick-up. Victoria Wood Christmas Show.

28 November
7pm Leila Bertrand & car and → Madonna concert w. Sharleen Spiteri and
Richard Ashworth.
Back home, a call from Jim Kennedy and – WE HAVE
EXCHANGED!33

30 November
12.30 British Council for Helena K.’s lunch for Mary McAleese – President
of Ireland. Other guests – Greg Dyke, Cherie Booth.

5 December
To Harrods for the 10% browse or, in this case, purchase of refrigerator.

6 December
8 Madame Melville – Vaudeville. This was a delight. Delicate, shaded comedy
of a rare kind and beautifully directed by the author, Richard Nelson. Irène
[Jacob] is quite wonderful and Macaulay Culkin is, as they have said,
brilliantly cast.
 Later Orso. Mr Culkin is extremely bright, aware of himself and his
situation in a touchingly courageous way. ‘I was expecting to get slaughtered
so I had nothing to lose . . .’

7 December
12 To 38WT [Westbourne Terrace] w. Caroline [Holdaway]. Which turns
into something traumatic during the day. Caroline’s eye is definitely beadier
than mine and by the time she leaves she has depressed me somewhat.
Caroline is right – get the basics right before moving in. Her basics are
going to cost a bit of a bomb, however, so we shall see . . .

8 December
10ish The Ivy. It gets noisier & noisier, some of the food was cold, its days
may be numbered  .  .  .  Jerry Hall & Mick Jagger there and we chatted
(difficult in that decibel-level) as they left.

11 December
7am pick-up. Back to Harry P. The Great Hall with Maggie Smith, Zoë
Wanamaker, Ian Hart, Richard Harris – all in their ways sweet, funny souls.
But this is Tick Off The Shots filming – no big speech about the scene and
what we’re all thinking. Maybe there isn’t time . . . Maybe . . . Too many
people involved in the decisions. A hat has been made for Snape. A hat? For
Snape? Fortunately Chris Columbus is also a sweet, funny soul and you kind
of guess what he’s thinking, what he wants. Certainly if you step outside that
he’s in sharpish. So it gets done. And it all looks just fine.

12 December
Here’s hoping that the intense thought processes are making it on to film . . .

14 December
10.30 pick-up. Hogwarts singalong.

15 December
More Great Hall. More turkey. More Hogwarts song.
18 December
Troll in the bathroom day.

20 December
The first faxed estimates for the work at Westbourne Terrace . . .

22 December
Stay-at-home evening. Is this a flu I see before me?
Talk to Judy about the Harry Potter deal memo which is unsignable.

24 December
4–7 Helena K. & Iain H. Reggie N[adelson, American writer] talks of
meeting Clinton on the Portobello Road and advising Hillary of
knockdown cashmere prices. ‘You’re talking my language,’ says Hillary.
Reggie moves ‘like Linford Christie’ to meet them in said shop.
12 Midnight service at All Saints.

25 December
3 Mary Elizabeth and Pat. A lovely day with the O’Connors. Food, music,
children . . . Late-night thoughts are all of moving towards an alcohol-free
month . . .

29 December
7.45 Edna O’Brien. In 4 hours or so Edna tells us tale after tale of Beckett,
Pinter – ‘When I see him on Monday he will say immediately “You have
seen The Caretaker, of course” – “No, I have been away” – “Well, then you
have seen Betrayal.” The trouble is writers write from pain and Harold has
closed up all his wounds, so all he can write now are these small things.’

31 December
David + Christine plus family minus Michael. Show on the roads, horses in
the stables.
8.30 Pam & Mel Smith. A lovely way to end a year. Friends, fireworks
and singing Beatles, Elton John, Billy Joel songs around the piano.
1
English actor (1934–2004)
2
English actor (1966–)
3
French director and screenwriter
4
Australian-born British theatrical agent (1908–1991)
5
English actor (1944–)
6
Lebanese-French composer Gabriel Yared (1949–). He was nominated for an Academy Award for
The Talented Mr Ripley.
7
Animated movie in which A.R. voiced a character called Joe
8
Released in 2002, directed by Patrick Harkins and starring Peter O’Toole
9
The setting for Hamlet
10
Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, a village in Oxfordshire. A.R. and Rima bought a house there for Rima’s
sister, Francesca.
11
American writer and journalist
12
Irish actor Patrick Magee (1922–1982)
13
Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui
14
Susan Wooldridge, British actor (1950–)
15
British writer Antonia Fraser (1932–), wife of Harold Pinter
16
American fashion designer
17
1991 film directed by Stephen Poliakoff in which A.R. starred alongside Clive Owen and Saskia
Reeves
18
Welsh actor (1962–)
19
Benoît Delhomme, French cinematographer
20
British film director (1938–)
21
British actor (1941–)
22
Fascinating Aïda, British comedy singing group
23
French film director (1942–)
24
The Search for John Gissing, directed by Mike Binder
25
Sonya Walger, British-American actor (1974–)
26
English actor William Houston (1968–)
27
Sharleen Spiteri (1967–), lead singer of Scottish band Texas
28
Juliet Stevenson’s brother Johnny had been killed in a car accident.
29
English actor Fidelis Morgan (1962–)
30
Johnny McElhone (1963–), bass guitarist
31
Cosimo and Paloma Sesti, architects who helped make livable the house A.R. and Rima bought in
Campagnatico.
32
From Love’s Labour’s Lost
33
Re Westbourne Terrace
 2001

A NEW HOME – HARRY POTTER – JOHN DIAMOND – NEW

YORK – TOM STOPPARD – DUBLIN – DERWENTWATER
PRIMARY SCHOOL – SEBASTIAN BARRY – TOM JONES – MEL
SMITH – TUSCANY – PALIO, SIENA – 9/11 – MARY McGOWAN –
PRIVATE LIVES – LINDSAY DUNCAN – HARRY POTTER
PREMIERE – BILL CLINTON – RIK MAYALL

1 January
And closing the 2000 diary, noting how this has become more of a
notebook, even has a few blank pages . . . Good? Bad? I’m becoming more
self-conscious? More closed?

4 January
NEW HOME – DAY ONE. WE COMPLETE.
6pm to 38 Westbourne Terrace to collect the keys.

5 January
To 38WT to meet Caroline. I can feel the cheques flying out of the cheque
book. It’s still a beautiful space but it needs attention.

9 January
Harry Potter. 10.30 pick-up. Back to school for the January term.

2 February
7.30 The Graduate to see Jerry Hall.
She is an amazing woman. Onstage you get hints of the offstage warmth.
7 February
First alarming cheque goes off to Caroline. Echoes of 12UA.

13 February
Standby from 11am.
Fits and starts. Comings and goings. Somewhere in here I’m not shooting
today, so the day becomes a walking to and fro tour of Bath.
4.45 Pick-up to rehearse the Classroom Scene. Which has a shape thanks
to grabbing a bit of rehearsal yesterday.

14 February
8am pick-up.
This scene put me into a concentration/exclusion zone that I recognise
and don’t like. It leaves innocent people (make-up, the kids) outside not
daring to speak through the wall. But then I decided to get pissed off about
the trailers again. This English class system in all areas. Who even wants to
think about it?
Was the scene OK? Or was I pressing familiar buttons?

19 February
Last day on HP.
At the end of the day Hedwig the owl flies the length of the Great Hall
and drops the Nimbus 2000 in Harry’s lap. Dave, the trainer, hadn’t slept
worrying about it all. Simple, amazing things.

4 March
To John Diamond’s1 funeral service at Kensal Green.
Helena Kennedy suggested we come. I wasn’t sure, once there. It seemed
like such a definite, if wide, circle of friends. But it was a calm, orderly,
unsentimental service. Which is not to say it wasn’t terribly moving.
Dominic Lawson2 read from John’s last written words, some of which were
very funny but the reference to how he and Nigella ‘made each other what
they were’ struck home. She was looking jaw-droppingly beautiful, smiling
and nodding as the crowd filed past. John’s friend Charles Elton told of the
sadness but hilarity in the room as John was in his last hours. Outside a
woman was singing ‘people who need people’ ‘and heaven, I’m in heaven’.
It was like a cue for him to reach for his pen.

5 March
Today Ruby and I were all over the papers (from yesterday), I was a question
on The Weakest Link, the top voice to go to sleep by, and quoted in the
trades re Ang Lee. Something’s afoot . . .

28 March
NEW YORK.
1.30 La Goulue – Natasha. Her mind is like a collection of animals kitten
to viper but all alive and kicking. If only she could lose the anger but who
can blame her? She talks of Private Lives with Ralph Fiennes. Back at the
hotel a message from London talking of – Private Lives. With Lindsay
Duncan . . .

29 March
6.45 Invention of Love. Sitting across the aisle from Tom Stoppard is a bit
worrying given jet lag in the dark but although I understood a third of the
play it was very moving and Bob [Crowley, set designer] did a great job.
Party in the Hudson Theatre. Ms Paltrow walked in on castors . . .

2 April
6am pick-up for 8.25 → London.
Home around 9pm.

5 April
The first big Premium Bond!

26 April
10.40 → Dublin.
Extremely pleasant suite at the Clarence Hotel with a balcony and view
up and down the length of the Liffey.
pm Working w. Alison Deegan3 [on A Little Chaos].
 Sometimes a breeze, sometimes like pulling teeth. But her stubbornness is
valid – why give in until you understand? And occasionally we crash through
to an unpredicted something.

2 May
4pm Derwentwater School4 – what a nostalgia trip. The old junior school
indeed . . . And so much of it glued to the memory box. Strangely, it doesn’t
even seem smaller. Acutely detailed picture of Miss Kendall in her classroom.
Her presence, her glasses, her hair – her habit of using handcream after
lunch. Her incredibly white hands.

3 May
The Royal Court. A day’s rehearsal of Plasticine.
A day and a half for this 33 scene, 33 character play. Well, screenplay.
Somewhere between Trainspotting and Shopping and Fucking. But with a heart
and mind of its own. Vassily5 is from Aids-ridden industrial Urals, and this is
about his life, his town, his country – where simple acts of kinds of kindness
are misunderstood and greeted with abuse.

4 May
4pm Reading.
Heroic stuff from the cast in front of a full house.

8 May
Paul Lyon-Maris tells me that the Abbey/out of joint/Sebastian Barry
concerted worry is that they are second to Private Lives! The Abbey wants to
stick to the original dates, which conflict with HP 2, which won’t declare
itself . . . Here we go . . .
pm Talking to Sebastian Barry who is a little more relaxed than I thought
he might be, but somewhere in here, of course, he needs the money.

14 May
The dreaded Cannes trip is avoided.

26 May
12 → Hay-on-Wye.
6pm – ish. Reception. Meeting Germaine Greer. Every question, every
sentence is a gauntlet? Exhausting after 5 mins.
8.30 Clinton Lecture. World events domesticised. Made Chekhovian, in a
way. ‘Arafat wanted to take his gun into the meeting.’ (‘Never happened’
mutters Chris Hitchens behind me), and when Ian – interlocutor – doesn’t
please him, it’s ‘Ask a bland question, get a bland answer.’ Except that it then
wasn’t . . . particularly when it hit the Middle East. Anyway C.H. left early
loudly opining that ‘there wouldn’t be any drink left . . .’

1 June
Agree to do Amnesty concert on Sunday with Eddie Izzard.

3 June
4pm Wembley Arena. To Eddie’s dressing room and then a rehearsal with
Vic Reeves & Harry Enfield (for the Monty Python sketch ‘The Four
Yorkshiremen’). Then on to the stage to run it through and the first sight of
that space . . .
7.30 The show. Which goes brilliantly. We have to wait until nearly 11. It
is like strolling out on to the scaffold, my script securely taped inside a
Sunday Times Magazine. The others are wonderful and v. funny. I’m too
nervous to corpse. I just stare at them. After, in the bar, talking to Tom
Jones. He quotes Dustin Hoffman saying to him ‘It’s like you open your
mouth and an animal comes out.’

7 June
ELECTION DAY.
10.45 To Jon Snow’s house. Michael Foot there. A lonely figure, victim of
Parkinson’s, but still caught up in it all.

8 June
4am to bed.
1pm Ian McKellen – lunch in the utterly remodelled 82 Narrow
Street  .  .  .  Ian talks about the National Theatre’s amazingly blinkered
approach to choosing a new artistic director and of the prejudice against Jude
Kelly.6

13 June
6.30 One Parent Family launch at Jo Rowling’s house.
Robbie C., Neil Pearson there plus Meera Syal, Kathy Lette. And Jo
Rowling. Who is witty (of course) at the microphone and warm &
vulnerable to meet. The house needs the Caroline Holdaway touch to get it
finished.

16 June
Mel Smith’s 50th. Not. As we found out on arriving and swiftly hid the
present. Pam’s 53rd.
From then on the usual frenetic mix. Fireworks and Mel playing Petula
Clark to Richard O’Brien while Hugh Grant and Patsy Kensit arrive
uninvited. Pam, God bless her, remains unimpressed by anything and 2
seconds after our arrival says, ‘I’ve had a facelift – want to see the photos?’

12 July
2.30 RADA Council.
Could be paranoia, but I begin to feel pressure to write a big cheque.
Cannot explain to them this is not possible or that I have the builders in.

17 July
10 Wallingford – Farmers’ Market.
Getting out of the taxi in the town square as the full pig is roasting and
the bacon is spitting and the ham is being sliced and the English wine is
being poured – all on the same day as Vote 2 for the leader of the Tory Party
and the knowledge that they are going down the IDS7 route leaves one with,
as they say, a particularly nasty taste in the mouth.

1 August
2.05 BA → Rome.

4 August
Today’s marked and controlled by silent brick walls, impasses. Although it’s
the same old story, there’s a danger of real damage.
Reading Private Lives doesn’t help – indulgent, half-mad creatures that
they are.
Pool. Lunch.

10 August
To the Montalcino Market.
A nasty little prod from the Guardian lurks in the cappuccino stop. Why is
it all triumphs and tragedies with British journalists? What’s so wrong with
experiment or then, dare we breathe it, failure? It’s beyond schadenfreude,
it’s as if as a nation we are only happy facing negativity. It’s our national
security blanket. What did you expect? What did I tell you? There, there;
you won’t feel the benefit; you did your best; never mind; take care, now.

16 August
Palio day.
An hour by the pool and then
12am → SIENA and lunch at Le Logge  .  .  .  Then to Colombina
(Francesca) and her beautiful apartment with its windows on to Il Campo
and as it happened right above the starting line. A fantastic view from 4.30
until 7.15 and the start of the race. The bands, flags, horses, all the time the
crowd funnelling into the Campo until the words ‘sea of people’ actually
meant something . . . Typically I missed the start by looking through some
binoculars but the race itself is a fantastic sight. As is the whole day . . . After
dinner we repaired to the Campo for drinks and people watching. Then
through the winning Drago district to the car & my turn to drive home.

21 August
2.30 Drive to Rome.
6.45 → London.

22 August
12 and a message from John McGowan saying that Mary has died. In her
own favourite word a great woman. Her death is a real loss because she was
always levelled, focused and inspired. Cigarettes and wine glass always on the
go, umpteen books open, only filled with life and frustrated by being an ‘old
wreck’. She was, of course, ageless to us.

7 September
7.45 Cab to Euston, 8.40 train to Coventry, cab to Stratford and (eventually)
St Gregory’s Church for Mary McGowan’s funeral. Juliet and Hugh there as
we arrive and Fifi already inside. Atrocious address by the priest, and the
usual interminable mass, but a beautiful, clear and heartfelt eulogy from
John, Mary’s son.
12.15 Drive back with Fifi.
2.30 Rehearsal.

9 September
8 Michael & Sandra Kamen w. Greg – choreographer. Somehow (by a direct
question from Rima really) it becomes an open fact that Michael has MS.

10 September
pm is weird. First a phone call from Jane L. who keeps asking ‘I’m not being
aggressive, am I? I’ve got to tell the hospital if I am.’ She basically delivers a
monologue about what lousy friends we all are considering what she has
been through/is going through, and eventually puts the phone down
without saying goodbye. I wrote her a letter saying she was right. She is. But
she’s also isolating herself proudly but dangerously.
Then water started dripping from the ceiling via Gilly’s [upstairs
neighbour] shower. Jimmy appeared with a mop.

11 September
New York Trade Center Attack.
11.30 Rehearse. Run Act 1.
As the dance rehearsal [for Private Lives] is about to begin the first report
from New York comes into the rehearsal room. Total shock. All rehearsal
becomes an acute, flattening irrelevance but we do it anyway whilst the
mind is in limbo.
 Eventually back home at 7.30 and just watch it over and over on TV as if
to imprint it on the brain, the psyche, the life really . . . That plane was like
watching a knife go into butter.

14 September
11am – 3 minutes’ silence which we shared with Kiss Me Kate cast in their
adjacent rehearsal room.
Supper at home. Watching more coverage. Still trying to understand
something. Cannot remove the fact of 4 million starving in Afghanistan not
to mention the innocents in Iraq. There is such political naivety in the US
that it only takes one image of five Palestinians dancing in the street to
obliterate the bigger picture.

21 September
8pm First preview.
‘This is like drama school,’ said Lindsay somewhere in this long day.
Somehow, from somewhere reserves are . . . tapped and we get through to
huge laughter and applause. Howard [Davies] is glowing with a real pride in
actors’ courage. He loves actors and takes real pleasure in watching them flex
muscles and imaginations – it’s incredibly touching when a director shows
their vulnerability in that way.

25 September
Tonight’s audience feels wild and almost out of order. They want to laugh at
every line.
In Sheekey’s champagne is sent to Nick Hytner – it’s official – he’s the
new NT supremo.

28 September
The show is full of good things – mainly from a lighter, flirtier Lindsay.

2 October
The show is Tuesday Bizarre. Lindsay takes Amanda8 into a scarily
downmarket area during Act 1. I shouldn’t say anything, but do . . . Act 2 is
back on track. The thing is – this play doesn’t work unless we’re talking to
each other. As soon as one of us does a number we’re in all sorts of trouble.

3 October
9.15 Dr Reid to activate MRI scan re BUPA. Talk of removal of sebaceous
cyst & cardiology checks.
10.30 Lister Hospital MRI scan of Rima’s knee. 20 mins in the machine
listening to my choice from the music on offer – Breakfast Baroque.
Shopping for first-night gifts.
3.30 Rehearse.
8pm Packed house and they’re off the leash from the word go. A bit of
control-freakery from the word go.

4 October
Press night. Which goes, seriously, as well as you could expect. Howard
rightly warned us of First Night Froideur – people scrutinising or too
nervous to support too loudly – and we clamped together as a company and
DID THE PLAY. Which is all I ever wanted to do.

5 October
In order to avoid the phone take a dazed (not enough sleep – again) walk to
38WT with coffee and muffin in hand.
Back home and there’s enough information to know that it’s 2 for and one
against at this point. God, how I hate their agendas. 2/3 of their reviews are
written before they enter the theatre.

7 October
Paul Lyon-Maris calls and says the reviews are great. So that strange narrative
is played out and we can get on with the run with an official stamp.

10 October
Show remarkable for inane laughter from person in the front
row . . . Witless, joyless sound that dangerously silences or dilutes the rest of
the audience.
21 October
Dinner in Sheekey’s with Anna & Uri who are so generous about the show.
Given that Anna had said she hated the play, the characters, what they stood
for etc. – it’s a real accolade. Plus it had been a defining image in rehearsals.
To make Anna care . . .

23 October
David Heyman calls to tell me how brilliant I am in HP . . . At home, faxes
about the press junket which is huge and impossible. The D.H. phone call
was, of course, a coincidence . . .

4 November
6.30 HARRY POTTER PREMIERE.
The film should only be seen on a big screen. It acquires a scale and depth
that matches the hideous score by John Williams. Party afterwards at the
Savoy is much more fun.

6 November
66 Harley Street for the beginning of the heart check . . . I like this doctor.
pm On the way in and the E. Standard nominates Howard, Lindsay and I.

23 November
8pm Show. Which is more or less trouble-free apart from the wilder
elements in the front row. And then the dressing room is like a pub → Kevin
Spacey plus friend. The former wearing the backward facing baseball cap.

26 November
11.15 55 Wimpole Street – Blood Test.
11.30 66 Harley Street – Heart monitor (24 hours).
12.45 Savoy Hotel, Evening Standard Awards.

27 November
2pm 66 Harley Street. Treadmill and ultrasound.
4 December
2pm 66 Harley Street. Rodney Foale9 (I like him) and the results of all the
heart checks. All is fine apart from one sheet showing high blood pressure
and meaning less red wine late at night.

5 December
8pm Show. Charles and Camilla in. The snake is called Charles and the first
scene is all about Diana. Of course . . .

15 December
Sheekey’s. In a day of memorable moments . . . it was capped by having Bill
Clinton come over to our table to say hello. I say ‘Mr President’ to remind
myself that he was that rather than another actor, the maître d’ . . .

19 December
Show. From the start Rik Mayall was a big part of the evening. His
wonderful, uncontrolled, joyous laugh led the audience and terrified us. But
we clawed the evening back.

1
English journalist (1953–2001), married to Nigella Lawson
2
J.D.’s brother-in-law
3
Irish actor, writer and printmaker, wife of novelist Sebastian Barry
4
A.R.’s primary school
5
Vassily Sigarev (1977–), Russian playwright
6
British theatre director (1954–)
7
Iain Duncan Smith (1954–), Leader of the Conservative Party 2001–2003
8
L.D.’s character
9
Cardiologist
 2002

HARRY POTTER – CAPE TOWN – MIRIAM MARGOLYES –

WESTBOURNE TERRACE – PRIVATE LIVES, NEW YORK –
TONY NOMINATIONS – LIAM NEESON, NATASHA
RICHARDSON, MERYL STREEP – CHARLIE ROSE – CHER –
PAUL NEWMAN, JOANNE WOODWARD – HUGH CRUTTWELL –
LOVE ACTUALLY – COLDPLAY – KATRIN CARTLIDGE – HARRY
POTTER NO MORE? – ROME – JOHNNY HALLYDAY – DON
McCULLIN – TRUDIE STYLER AND STING

2 January
1.30 Dentist. By some miracle there isn’t too much to do considering it’s
been four years.

8 January
2 Queen Mary’s, Roehampton, to see Hugh Cruttwell1 who, as ever, makes
one ashamed of ever complaining about anything. Now paralysed down one
side and sight affected but brain as sharp as tacks and heart as unaffected as
ever. God bless him.

9 January
2 Dentist. Bleaching. Ouch.
4 Refit the Harry P. costume. A bit of taking in is necessary.

10 January
Dinner with the glorious Tony Benn plus his daughter Melissa, Saffron
Burrows and Mike Figgis. Mike hadn’t seen the show (had to picture me in a
Noël Coward play, somehow).
11 January
8 Show. A disturbance in the audience – loud noises, rustling etc. was fairly
alarming at the start of Act 2. Both of us thinking it’s a madman or drunk
but it settled . . . We discovered later, to our chastened spirits, that it was a
diabetic having an attack and relatives ramming crisps in her mouth.

14 January
Harry Potter 2.
6.50am pick-up (Snape’s study)
(except, of course, writing this with the Sunday wide awake at 2am thing)
Nice to see them all again but it’s a dreamlike thing, as if it has never
stopped. And in a way, it hasn’t – and won’t . . .
Richard Harris is enveloped in flu – a cue for Maggie Smith to encase her
face in a scarf. Through the day little chats about Private Lives, although it
felt like trespassing. ‘That’s when Bob2 was at his maddest.’ ‘It’s wonderful
stuff, though.’
Mindblowing exhaustion by the end of the day. Somehow 1 hour’s sleep is
not quite enough.
Back to the hotel for a club sandwich, chips, red wine, Ground Force3 and
bed.

18 January
6.50 pick-up.
Olivier Award nominations are in the Guardian. Lindsay (twice), Adam
[Godley], Emma [Fielding] & I are all there (plus Howard) but these things
(part experience, part common sense) are actually rather depressing. So many
agendas, so much baggage. Where’s Lepage, Deborah W[arner], Fiona? Does
it mean don’t offend, challenge, upset? Mnemonic seems to be award-free
too . . .

21 January
9.15 pick-up → Harry Potter.
Made up and ready to go – for a day off camera.
 Nothing matters really after the images of the volcano in Goma. People
picking their way across potentially deadly lava to get to homes that no
longer exist.

23 January
Sharleen’s Burns Night. Much piping and dancing and kilts & tartan –
Sharleen, Pat Doyle, Bill Forsyth, Ewan McGregor, haggis, cranachan, as
Emma and me go in.

25 January
8 Show – Coughers from Hell.

28 January
8am pick-up → Paddington.
8.57 → Gloucester.
On the set (Gloucester Cathedral, that is) we block a couple of scenes and
go back to the hotel after lunch (the tent feeling as if it’s going to take off in
the wind). Emma Watson is unwell so there’s nothing we can shoot.
7 Down the bar to find Maggie S. reading. Ken Branagh joins later and
having had Maggie on Cher we are howling at stories of directing de Niro –
or first, casting him.4

31 January
Rima’s birthday. It’s a long time since we’ve been together on Jan 31st.

2 February
8pm Lindsay has been throwing up and looks v. pale. The curtain-up is
delayed. The audience seems drugged.
after – Kate Winslet & friend Plaxie . . . then to Sheekey’s . . . I think I
delivered a somewhat sanctimonious lecture about curiosity V. certainty but
then Kate did spend the evening announcing verdicts on everything from
ex-husband to George Bush.

17 February
12 David, Chris, Sheila & John – after they’ve been to the cemetery. Hard to
restrain my irritation at S. & J.’s habit of thinking that their girls are still
somewhere around 10 years old but resist it I should . . .
4pm Show.
A woman in the front row is very busy with her bag of sweets.

20 February
Booked Cape Town trip.

21 February
And it’s my 56th birthday – how the hell did that happen?

2 March
3pm Show. Jules5 finding it very difficult to say anything more than how odd
it all was. Understandable but sad that she couldn’t be generous towards
Lindsay. What is the point?

3 March
4pm Show. The last show in London. Wonderful that Hugh [Cruttwell]
made it. But the show was hanging on to its coattails. Either the head or the
body was in the process of going on holiday, or walkabout. Somewhere else,
anyway.
8 Sheekey’s. Champagne & supper courtesy of Sheekey’s themselves.

5 March
7am Cromwell Hospital for orthoscopy on knee. Writing this, still a bit
under the anaesthetic. Ivor Slee, the anaesthetist, said (or was it Peter Braid,
the surgeon) you won’t remember anything about it. True. The whole thing
seemed to have taken 30 seconds.
First Conor then Rima come to visit the invalid.

6 March
Woke at 6am. Just for a change. But this 24 hours has been good for script-
wading. The knee is pretty painful but will doubtless improve.
 Hobble, limp to a car at around 11am after the general all-clear. My
instructions are a little contradictory – walk on it, don’t use a crutch or stick,
rest it, use ice-packs.

8 March
Watched Gosford Park. There it is – the script perfectly realised on the screen.
And I felt seriously detached. Maybe it’s a problem when you don’t really
care about any of the characters. Because try as he might Robert Altman
can’t make us see the story through the servants’ eyes. The upper classes will
always stop that. That’s the point.

15 March
5pm → Cape Town.

16 March
The day spent in various poses of complete exhaustion – part no sleep, part
present neuroses, part past recriminations . . . But the body knows this is A
Rest and so it happily caves in.

24 March
Waking to more thoughts of how, when, where of having a house here.
Made more appealing by the fact that the wind has gone and it’s a sunny
morning with a calm come-hithery sea.
Maybe it’s not such a good idea. How often would we get here? Others
would use it, of course, but looking after it?
One of the houses Anna Marie shows us is Christiaan Barnard’s. I didn’t
know he had died. Strange wandering around his home – photos of son and
families intact. As we drive away A.-M. tells sad stories of divorce and
aloneness.

26 March
To the Pringle Bay Bakery for milk and papers and Oscar winners – it all
looks a bit PC to me. A miracle that Denzel Washington mentioned anyone
but himself – and there you have it. Awards. For actors. Hours of free TV
and some designers pushing their frocks.
30 March
Went for an 8am walk along the beach in glorious morning sunshine, a few
mad surfers already in the water for the past hour. Some walkers, some dogs.
Back to the house to pack, clear up, cook breakfast. Ate on the verandah,
the bacon, eggs, tomatoes, orange juice just lasting the weekend.
As I was cleaning the verandah, a sudden whoosh and a baboon was on
the balustrade and then the roof, family members following. A swift door
close and minutes later the whole family was next door. I like to think they’d
come to say farewell, but suspect the smell of bacon was the culprit.
5pm → Johannesburg.
8.45 → London.

2 April
7.15 pick-up – HP.
Up in the Quidditch tower with Miriam Margolyes (about to be OBE
and 20lbs lighter – as she tells me in her fairly inimitable way) and Jason
Isaacs – who has just become a dad for the first time. The usual nodding-
heads-at-numbers scene but quicker this time and we’re out of there by
lunchtime. Which means I can get to 38WT.
Home for supper and more sorting, rationalising. Finding out how much
STUFF I’m surrounded by . . .

5 April
Pack day.
Nigel, Scott and Paul from GB Liners6 arrive at 8.30am and swing into
action. Paper flying, boxes snapping into being all day, a life packed away for
a 5 minute drive tomorrow.
Paul says about 10 mins in ‘I’m sorry if I keep staring – I’m a bit in awe.’
It takes me a while to catch on. And then it takes him a minute to catch on
that he’s staring at someone frazzled, dusty and ordinary.

6 April
THE MOVE.
How could anyone collect all this stuff? Or want it?
 The inevitable walk round – 13 years and a flood of warm images. A flat
full of love and very much loved back.
Sleeping at 38WT for the first time. Of course, in the same way that 44
has been punishing us with warped locks etc. over the past few days, now 38
is testing us – no heat and an alarm that beeps gently every 30 seconds.

7 April
1pm The family.
God bless them. Not an ounce of resentment – just wandering around
smiling.

8 April
Christchurch, Oxford.
Last day on Harry Potter 2.
David Heyman says ‘Are you still doing the play?’ with his usual charming
lack of command of the odd detail. Talk of directors for HP 3 reveals that
Alfonso7 is David’s choice while Chris favours Ken B. I can only sit & stare.

9 April
It is a great apartment to wake up in – especially when the alarm isn’t going
off every 30 secs.
6ish and there’s a potential flood in the utility room.
7.30 38WT – Wet the new flat’s head.

11 April
1.25 → New York.
Watching The Deep End on the plane. Everything Dark Harbor was meant
to be. Tilda [Swinton] amazingly focused and graded performance in a script
that must look awful on the page (to continuing mystery of film . . .). Style
over content in a way but somehow miraculously more than that.

12 April
New York.
Realising I left a bunch of clothes in London . . .
18 April
12.30 To the theatre.
7.30 Dress rehearsal.8

19 April
1pm To the theatre via Bed Bath & Beyond for more curtains and wicker
boxes for Lindsay. As usual – the wrong priorities.
8pm First preview. Gladiatorial – or thrown to the lions.

24 April
8 Show. The shape of things to come. NOT . . . We hope. Bum sound cues
and dozy audience (half of it, anyway).

27 April
Not feeling great. Stomach bug? Not to mention the knee.

28 April
6pm OPENING NIGHT – Tough, but Act 1 seemed OK. Act 2 they
started to disappear. Act 3 they were already home, then they cheered . . .
In the dressing room – Mike Nichols, Lauren Bacall, Emma T., Tom
Hanks, Rita Wilson.

29 April
Reviews all raves, apparently, so now we can just get on with it.

4 May
The days are kicking in and lasting too long.

5 May
6.15 Wyndham Hotel and some champagne with Edna O’B., or the minx as
Lindsay calls her since she tries to prevent us from going to a movie. In vain.
Determinedly, I get into the car and off to 12th Street for The Piano Teacher.
A completely uncompromising film with Isabelle Huppert fearless as ever.

6 May
am Tony nominations in and we have 6. I hate all this, especially since Adam
& Emma are not in the list. And Helen is, but not Ian etc., etc. Divisive,
disturbing, unhelpful.

7 May
6am and awake – brooding, writing this and previous page. Finding
Christina’s note from last summer –
Trust, to go forward, transformation, divine protection, strength, energy,
cancellation of the fear of new things, cancellation of the fear of love,
relationship, wisdom, intuition, reunion [?] of spiritual creatives and body
creatives.

18 May
8pm Show.
After which we discover that Nicole Kidman & Tobey Maguire arrived ½
hour late. Why come in?

19 May
6.00 Bill Evans [press/publicity] calls with winners losers news.
7pm Café des Artistes w. Lindsay & Bill Evans.
9pm Drama Desk Awards. Our producers are smarmy as ever. Lindsay9 all
dignity intact.
Later Café Lux. Natasha & Liam across the room beckoning me to the
losers’ table.

20 May
6.30 About a Boy. The kind of depressing English film where single mothers
and Amnesty workers are ugly people in oversized sweaters.

26 May
6.30 → Liam & Natasha.
2 hour drive upstate to their glorious house and dinner with John
[Benjamin] Hickey & Jennifer [Carpenter] from The Crucible plus – oh,
Meryl’s in there . . . as in Streep. Who turns out to be fun and gossipy. But
it’s hard – who else looks like Meryl Streep? So you can’t quite lose the
stare . . .

27 May
Lunch on a terrace with the boys and us. Tash is the most miraculous
hostess. Nothing is forgotten.
4pm Dan Day-Lewis arrives to play tennis.

1 June
2pm Show.
As we came off stage, Meryl Streep is at the stage door. She loved it. Plus
daughter Grace. After the stage door signings, there was a moment when she
was in my dressing room waiting for me to come back . . .

5 June
10am pick-up → Charlie Rose show. Who turns out to be exactly what one
had supposed – a great and improvisational listener. This could have gone
anywhere.

6 June
8pm Show.
The audience was, as they say, lively.

25 June
Apparently Cher was in. Which accounts for the late start.

16 July
8pm Show – Pits audience and, of course, Paul Newman & Joanne
Woodward in . . .

27 July
8pm Show. Unutterable exhaustion before, during and after. A shame
because the audience was very sharp. Howard watched Act 1 and thought it
all fine. Lindsay’s voice started to return in Act 3. But the combination of
personal dramas, antibiotics and the tail end of the run is starting to take its
toll.

20 August
8pm Show.
10.30 Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward. Thalia.
Hard not to just stare in amazement at this wonderful, generous, ego-free,
open, childlike, utterly on-the-ball couple.

24 August
Supper with Ian Holm . . . Ian does his drunken cowboy – ‘OK you suckers,
this is a fuck-up’ . . .

25 August
Hugh Cruttwell has died  .  .  .  This is a major event for all of us.
Happy/sad/enormous/proper.

26 August
9.30 Dentist. Until 2pm. But Jeff10 has done a really wonderful job – top
half anyway. Bottom half and the lone tooth – gone forever.

1 September
3pm Private Lives – Final performance.
There were a few scary moments but the audience went wild and Jimmy11
held up a board saying ‘I love you very much . . .’
10.30 Café Loup . . . We were sat at a table for 8, right next to the piano.
It had Noël Coward’s songbook waiting. Emma Fielding picked out and we
sang ‘Someday I’ll Find You’ through the red wine haze. IT’S OVER!

11 September
Decide not to fly home until tomorrow. Everything too rushed and the rush
seemed disrespectful. The TV coverage is mercifully restrained and
unbearably moving when it is utterly personal – mothers, fathers, children
holding up pictures, sitting among the flowers at Ground Zero. And the
unalterable sense as the 2,800 names are read out is of world citizens – all
those South American, Japanese, Asian, European names . . . And a year goes
by and still no one talks properly about it all.

16 September
LOVE ACTUALLY – first day.

21 September
11 Tate Britain – Lucian Freud.
Looking at these great paintings it’s as if Wagner, Mahler, Elgar were
playing loudly. Heroic, isolated, exposed people.

25 September
9.45 pick-up.
Em & me after the concert. Difficult, subtle, concentrated stuff. The age-
old problem of staying innocent whilst the head is full of STUFF.
Home via Peter Jones (loo brushes) and General Trading Company (a
lucky find of a Bathroom Rubbish Container). Such is life off its hinges.

28 September
8.30 Danny and Leila.
And, as Rima says, Danny talks more and more as mouthpiece of the
Daily Mail.

4 October
Greg Wise was on set but there was no chance to talk.

13 October
2pm Sweet Sixteen.
Ken Loach’s latest and another move towards populism, it seems, although
Martin Compston is a remarkable and fine young actor.

21 October
8pm Duncan’s car to pick me, Beatie Edney and Adam’s girlfriend Lucy up
to go to Wembley Arena for Coldplay concert. They were really wonderful
– every song close to being an anthem already and incredibly moving to see
that many people knowing the lyrics. In the bar backstage, Gwyneth Paltrow
[married to Chris Martin of Coldplay] introduced herself (more beautiful
offscreen) and then [we] met the group in the inner sanctum with Richard
Curtis.

25 October
2 Brydges Place. Happy-sad talk of Ruby’s envy of touring around with
friends in a play.
And then there’s a cheeky visit to Sheekey’s to find a cab, where they sit
us down with a bottle of champagne . . . Both Ruby and I can feel a wheel
turning. The fascination of ‘showbiz’ is ever-thinning. The opportunities for
only REAL work have to be nourished.

26 October
2.30am Before sleep.
This beautiful home must become a breeding ground, a meeting place
(although it is probably not rough enough yet), so it has to be inhabited and
filled with positive energy, good spirits, rough and tumble.
To Conran to try to find sofa material. Failed.

1 November
The day ends, stupidly, with a row about cleaning brought on by the fine
layer, again, of white dust everywhere. Mop and bucket at 1am.

10 November
7pm Royal Court.
Katrin Cartlidge12 memorial. Gut wrenchingly moving and challenging
(so what am I doing?) but a real sense of a person still here somehow. Brave,
generous Peter [Gevisser] K.C.’s husband singing; her wonderful letter to
Time Out berating a journalist about a Vanessa Redgrave interview.

17 November
9.10 Bowling for Columbine.
This film has you shaking your everything in a numbed not disbelief. It’s
all too true and so well argued. A country kept ignorant and ever fearful
resorts to the gun in the name of freedom.

25 November
8.30 Dinner w. Ruth & Richard Rogers – plus Edward & Marianne Said,
Daniel Barenboim & Elena, Alan & Lindsay Rusbridger . . . Daunting might
be the word. Said, charming, Barenboim alarming, Rusbridger, as ever, it
seems, devoid of questions or curiosity or life, really. His wife is like Mrs
Mole full of nervous smiles.

3 December
Belvedere Restaurant.
Mel Smith’s 50th birthday party. Without Pam. Which casts a bizarre
shadow.

4 December
Talking to Paul Lyon-Maris about HP exit which he thinks will happen. But
here we are in the project-collision area again.
Reiterating no more HP. They really don’t want to hear it.

7 December
ROME.
3.30pm To the Opera House for rehearsal w. Johnny Hallyday13 – and
Mel Smith who finally made it from his film set. Mr Hallyday (remembered
well from youthful days in Paris) is charming and very face-lifted but
nothing to what is coming up.
6.30 pick-up Opera House for European Film Awards. Polanski,
Almodóvar, Wenders, Jeanne Moreau, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh (with whom
we shared a car) & dozens of extremely beautiful Italian actresses.
Later dinner at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni. Mel and Pam hosting a table.
Mel somewhat perplexed by the non-response. Why? He misjudged it
spectacularly. What can you say? His script was disastrous.

8 December
7.35[pm] → to London. Jeremy Irons was in the lounge. Nice to see him &
chat of Ireland and last night.
11 December
8.45 Sabrina [Guinness] plus car → 5 Cavendish Place for Mick Jagger’s
dinner party.

16 December
Edna O’Brien calls – ‘Have you seen Breath of Life?’14 She’s already appalled
and it’s only a question. ‘No, I haven’t.’ ‘It was so terrible, I thought I might
(pause, hesitancy, groping) . . . explode.’

19 December
12 Don McCullin15 – doing portraits now. And strangely the shyest most
nervous man – in an incredibly endearing way as he talks of his imminent
new baby – ‘What am I doing? I’m 67’ – or his ex-wife – ‘She’s taken
everything – I’ve got to start all over again – I’m off to photograph the
Kurds next week . . . this light is fantastic . . . one more roll and I’m out of
here . . . sorry to take so long . . . Judi Dench next week . . . I’m no good
with women . . .’

21 December
Trudie & Sting’s Christmas party. Byzantium meets Fairyland. They have
built a red, ruched theatre where Richard E. Grant read ‘’Twas the Night
Before Christmas’, Zenaida Yanowsky16 & Andrew Muir danced The
Nutcracker, the Razumovsky Ensemble played the Brandenburg Concerto and
Vasko Vassilev17 prodigied his way through the Carmen Fantasie. Around and
about all that was fantastic food and beautiful wine & Krug champagne. But
perhaps best of all was the chance to talk to Elton John & David [Furnish]
about S.A.F.E. [Sponsored Arts for Education, Kenyan charity] and elicit
their support.

24 December
11.45 Finally make it to the church in St Petersburgh Place – a congregation
out of Fellini by Francis Bacon through Ken Loach. But a great organist and
very superior choir really letting rip on ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’.
30 December
12.30[am] Watched an hour of Winter Guest on Channel 4. And back into
the editing room with that. Amazing how distance lends not disenchantment
but maybe internal rhythms change, too little courage (at times), horrible
sound – beautiful acting.

31 December
Selfridges for the presents still to get. Slight sense of panic.

1
Principal of RADA from 1965 to 1983
2
English actor Robert Stephens (1931–1995). Husband of Maggie Smith, with whom he appeared in
Private Lives in 1972.
3
Home improvement TV series
4
Re Frankenstein
5
Juliet Stevenson
6
Removal company
7
Alfonso Cuarón, Mexican film director (1961–)
8
After its highly successful London run Private Lives transferred with the same cast to Broadway. It
opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on 28 April and, after 127 performances, closed on 1
September. The reception was generally enthusiastic with one reviewer purring over ‘the mutually
sublime Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan’. The latter won a Tony for Best Leading Actress while
the production was given the award for Best Revival.
9
Winner of Best Actress
10
Jeffrey Golub-Evans, New York dentist
11
American theatrical producer James Nederlander (1922–2016)
12
English actor (1961–2002)
13
French singer (1943–2017)
14
Play by David Hare
15
British war photographer (1935–)
16
French ballet dancer (1975–)
17
Bulgarian violinist and conductor (1970–)
 2003

MARTIN BASHIR, MICHAEL JACKSON – HARRY POTTER 3 –

DANIEL RADCLIFFE – TONY BLAIR – JAMIE CULLUM – ROYAL
FAMILY – ANNIE LENNOX – JOHN McENROE – NO-WINE
MONTH – PAUL McCARTNEY – EMMA THOMPSON – LOS
ANGELES – MOS DEF – SOMETHING THE LORD MADE –
ANTIGUA – HARVEY WEINSTEIN

6 February
Selina comes up trumps with tickets for the Stones concert in LA and alerts
us again to the Beijing event . . . mmmm
1pm Freddie Findlay, now 19, comes round for lunch. Fairly quickly we
get to the point. He has been in drug rehab, is now clean for 93 days and his
agents have dumped him. That golden 12-year-old still visible behind the
eyes, but an alcoholic father and a manic depressive girlfriend are his present.

8 February
11am Phyllida. Late because she went to the wrong address and then
wandered up and down Westbourne Terrace looking at doors and in
windows until she hit upon the right one. Still one of the most beautiful
women on the planet.
Watching Martin Bashir’s documentary on Michael Jackson. Disgraceful,
self-serving journalism. How much did that cost? Compare M.J.’s actions
with those of a million pederasts & paedophiles a day or the thousands of
kids dying daily in S.A. from Aids. Make a film about that with your
concerned face.

9 February
1.30 River Cafe. Ruthie & Richard Rogers, Andrew Marr & wife Jackie
and children (the eldest at Latymer). Lovely, Sunday afternoon chatter (but
not with this lot).

14 February
8am and the phone rings. Judy Daish. Orlando Sesti has been killed in a car
crash in Spain. 22 years old. In a way it is like we have been robbed as much
as he has. One of those people you watch slightly from a distance – they live
life the way you wish you could.
pm. And the madness goes on. Rima’s father has died. Not that it wasn’t
expected – he was 97. But he was their father and the creator of all that
Horton-ness.

15 February
12 Duke of York Theatre.
For the march.1 Except that we didn’t make it to the Duke of York – no
taxis anywhere. We walked to Piccadilly . . . and joined the march there. At
Hyde Park (having seen 1m people behind us) there was Bruce Kent & Tariq
Ali at the microphones but Minnie Driver & Tim Robbins to remind us that
celeb rules, really.

27 February
→ Bournemouth for Rima’s dad’s funeral.

9 March
4pm Old Vic/Hugh Cruttwell’s memorial.
That it happened was what was important never mind the material
although Greg’s speech was wonderful as was Geraldine’s.2 And the massed
voices on ‘A Little Help From My Friends’ was the abiding echo.

13 March
6.30 pick-up – HP 3. Day One.

3 April
These pages filled with nothing about the war but now they are 15 miles
from Baghdad with threats of chemical warfare ahead this seems like a
marker point. Rumsfeld has become a hated person (Bush seems like an
irrelevance now).

7 April
I don’t seem to write much about the war mainly because there is hardly a
face I believe. Blair, yes, but his agenda is sooo hopeful and idealistic. Forget
Bush – just take one look at Rumsfeld and Cheney. What would you sell
them? Buy from them?

14 April
7am pick-up – Harry Potter.
Top table stuff w. David Thewlis, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith,
Warwick Davis.
More of the same really. But what else can you do except get the shots – a
choir, 300 children, 1 speech. People reading in the background.

2 May
8.40 pick-up.
Corridor with Dan Radcliffe.
He’s so concentrated now. Serious and focused – but with a sense of fun. I
still don’t think he’s really an actor but he will undoubtedly direct/produce.
And he has such quiet, dignified support from his parents. Nothing is
pushed.

12 May
1pm Mark Meylan [voice coach].
There are definitely new notes in the vocal range. I hear it speaking,
shouting, singing and the title of Kristin Linklater’s book is all too
appropriate – Freeing the Natural Voice. I feel as if I have never used any
natural voice, that this noise that people impersonate and which always
depresses me is nothing to do with me. Press on.

17 May
6pm Car to Chequers . . . Real sense of the shiver of history going through
the gates.
7.30 for 8. Arrive to find Ben Kingsley & wife, Peter Hain, Principessa
Strozzi, others . . . then Richard & Judy arrive, then Tony & Cherie with 3-
year-old Leo in his arms, in pyjamas.
Dinner for 25. Tony hanging around at the door to talk to me. (Was I the
only known critic?) I mentioned S.A.F.E., Rima in the Lords and blacklists
in the US – not bad for 4 minutes.
On leaving I said ‘Well, thank God you’re in the room with those
maniacs.’3 He raised an eyebrow or two and said ‘Yes  .  .  .  it’s
been  .  .  .  difficult.’ And we drove away, T.B. silhouetted in the grand
doorway in his off-white chinos and blue open-necked shirt.

21 May
Evening completely taken over by stupidly picking up a sauce pan by a
handle that had been perched over a flame for about 15 mins. Even dropping
it as quickly as possible left me with my hand in cold water all evening and
holding an ice bag in bed.

2 June
3.30 Car to St James’s Palace to rehearse with Jamie Cullum and all the
others for tonight’s cabaret/after dinner entertainment.
9.35 On stage in front of the entire royal family – 40 or 50 of them. The
show goes well – Ronnie Barker & June Whitfield walking off with the
evening. But the poem plus Jamie’s wonderful singing and playing was a
happy juxtaposition. Afterwards they all walked in – the pages of a million
newspapers. The Queen, Philip, Charles, Camilla (a kiss on both cheeks
. . .), Andrew, Anne, Edward, Sophie, William, Zara, Peter etc., etc. . . . No
need ever more to wonder . . . And then to the Ritz for much champagne.

3 June
8 Tate Modern Photography Exhibition. Meet Martin Parr – my hero.

6 June
8pm Annie Lennox concert. Sadler’s Wells. One of the great voices and one
of the great concerts. ‘Why’ is now a 20th C. anthem. Annie afterwards
quiet, curious, gentle, shy . . .

26 June
8.30 Zaika – Dinner for Patty and John McEnroe w. Ruby, Ed, Suzanne,
Nicky.
McEnroe is very sweet and loving with Patty [Smyth, his wife] and
endearingly unegocentric and polite in other ways. I’m sure he’s a great dad
and would be a fantastically loyal friend. Who would have guessed? Also –
he doesn’t mind gossip – no one likes Rusedski.

28 June
All day on the sofa, or in the toilet. Thank you Criterion Brasserie, one
assumes.
Not to mention their seats bringing the back ache on again. Eating
nothing but a bowl of porridge later on.

29 June
Amazingly enough, better.

21 July
7.15 pick-up.
Coming out of the hole, fighting imaginary werewolves, etc. Alfonso is
looking stressed. Thank you Warner Bros.

27 July
1.30 Richard Rogers’ 70th birthday party at the River Cafe for hundreds of
close friends . . .

30 July
7am pick-up. Snape/Lupin Classroom.
The day got off to a fabulous start with the screen guillotining on to my
head, a sudden, swift blackout followed by day-long melancholy. Not helped
by my (fairly innocent) ‘Warner Bros won’t have that’ to the Leonardo
Werewolf with genitals drawing. Alfonso was quietly ballistic with me. I love
him too much to let it last too long so I wailed off-set and we sorted it out.
He’s under the usual HP pressure and even he starts rehearsing cameras
before actors, and these kids need directing. They don’t know their lines and
Emma [Watson]’s diction is this side of Albania at times. Plus my so-called
rehearsal is with a stand-in who is French.

31 July
7am pick-up.
Tired, tense, enclosed. Snape-like. Not particularly useful to a joyous
atmosphere on the set.

11 August
8 To Maria Aitken’s4 house.
Edward Hibbert,5 Patrick McGrath, Edward St Aubyn.6 To talk about
M.A. and P. McG.’s script for Some Hope. My point was that at the moment
it has two scripts – Less Than Zero and Gosford Park. It could be those
combined, but not one after the other. They all seemed to take it well. Roll
on a second draft.

24 August
Car to Twickenham and the Rolling Stones concert. Jagger amazing. Energy,
focus, voice. Defying every known force that might otherwise drag him into
retirement.

10 September
Finally manage to start a NO WINE month. Stay-at-home supper.

11 September
Interesting to wake with a clear head.
8.30 Danny & Leila come by for supper. Which was easy & delicious.
Especially the amazingly easy lemon sorbet with vodka.

19 September
5.50 Calendar Girls – Whiteley’s.
 Mostly, I hate The Full Monty/Billy Elliot/Bend It Like Beckham version of
Britain but at least this one is stuffed with friends all being great – Helen
Mirren, Julie Walters, Ceals [Celia Imrie], Ros [March], Ciarán [Hinds],
Geraldine [ James] – and the story has some inherent shape. And it’s true. So
it becomes a real celebration. And it’s better directed [by Nigel Cole] than all
of the above. Clear, witty, honest.

2 October
6 To the Royal Court to Ian R[ickson]’s office to meet Cindy & Craig
Corrie, parents of Rachel. These are two remarkable people. Gentle, sharp,
acute listeners, such grace.

8 October
7 for 7.30. Concert for George [Harrison]. Great music & incredibly
moving. We measure our lives in Beatles songs as well as everything else. His
son [Dhani] is his double. High 5’d with Paul McCartney in the Gents.

9 October
Lunch at Harry’s Bar for Sting CBE . . . Wonderful speeches by Geldof and
Sting  .  .  .  Sting’s (to music) took right on board the moral dilemma of
accepting the award.

10 October
9.45 Pick-up to start the Love Actually junket.
4pm Golden Square – screening of Love Actually. Me, Martine
McC[utcheon] and two of her friends.
Actually, she’s one of the best things in the film. Unaffected, truthful and
direct.

11 October
12.30 pick-up → Dorchester.
pm → 6pm with Emma for TV interviews. She was looking great and
then worked her socks off as per  .  .  .  After a while there was something
more duet-like happening. But it’s hard for her to relinquish control.
Fortunately she’s really good at it.
13 October
9.30 → Dorchester.
Somehow, for some reason, Emma was on even greater overdrive. I get
the feeling that she was on a mission to compensate for my lack
of . . . whatever. As the other humiliations of the day dribbled on I became
profoundly depressed. But of course that too is even more inappropriate –
the 2 o’clock smile was paramount, or rather, universal.

15 October
5pm Michael Kamen.
Who was in a haze of cannabis . . . and why not . . .7
The music needs to go through a sieve and come out attached to the right
bits of narrative but he’s working on that.

3 November
8am pick-up.
10.55 → New York. Lowell Hotel.

7 November
11.55 → Los Angeles. Four Seasons Hotel.

12 November
Jimmy Kimmel Live.8
‘So this is a chick flick?’
‘No, it’s more of a dick flick.’
I got beeped but we were away with the horrors of Toby Keith singing
‘American Soldier’ only minutes away. I’m on the sofa with a stand-up, a
boy trumpeter and one of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Slightly scary.

20 November
Hugo Young’s memorial service.
Which in a way I am grateful for. An hour or so in Westminster
Cathedral. Some great words, some great music, some space to think about
Michael, Gilly, Hugo.
22 November
7.30 Royal Academy of Music. Memorial service for Michael Kamen.
Annie Lennox sings ‘All My Trials Lord’. David Gilmour and Bryan
Adams sing. The brothers – Lenny, Paul & Johnny – speak. I speak. The girls
– Zoë & Sasha – speak. And most memorably, Michael’s father – it’s like
something Shakespeare forgot to write.

28 November
The last week has left me wiped out from putting myself on a kind of hold.
No release due to the peculiar pressure that is induced by having to speak at
two services. Add to that a skittish relationship with jet lag . . .

29 November
2pm → Baltimore.
5.55 pick-up → Harbor Point Hotel.
pm Watching The Italian Job to see Mos Def. Who can act. Very well.

1 December
Wardrobe [for Something the Lord Made]. Everything is too big.
pm Read through the script.
Mos is an absolute natural and v. smart, but it’s not clear how focused.
Move room! Hooray!

2 December
7.30 pick-up.
Into makeup for camera tests. Some of which make the heart sink. ‘More
shading – he’s sick.’
Gentle manipulation of the script.

4 December
8pm Back at the hotel and a note from Pam Shriver inviting me to the
Roddick/Blake charity match in her ‘hometown’ tonight. Any other time –
but I’m whacked.
8 December
4.15am pick-up.
FIRST DAY.
Which turns out to be an 18 hour day by the time I get back to the hotel.
With a painfully aggravated cartilage pain which keeps me awake.

9 December
10.15[am] pick-up.
Somewhere in here the little speech about letting the actors rehearse.
Hotel at 11.30[pm].

10 December
Robert [Cort] the producer (Central Casting) and I have another of our little
chats. He talks, I listen and then say no . . .

11 December
What amounted to a row with Joe [Sargent, director] over his total inability
to let a scene play to the end without talking about a move, a bit of business
or some ill-judged notion. Of course he feels threatened but I’m in a no-win
situation. And Mos is up there in the handlebars.

12 December
Robert comes to the trailer to deliver one of his monologues. He does them
often. This one was all about how I was a Rod Steiger (v. temperamental by
the way) and how he could help. All the best notions but if he’s not insisting
on a process being honoured – what’s the point?

13 December
Freezing cold day.
A walk to the mall in the harbour to Barnes & Noble, thinking mainly
‘but books are heavy’ so found my way to the CDs. Elvis Costello, Keith
Jarrett, Youssou N’Dour, Mos Def.

15 December
Bits and pieces day.
 Full of my new passivity.
Of course all it produces is something more bland than it needs to be but
it keeps people happy – ish.
Although I think the crew relish the challenge.
Bob C.9 upset that no one seems happy about Saddam Hussein’s capture
(he’s a Republican).

16 December
Joe calls with tomorrow’s 4.45 call so a planned dinner out is off which
leaves me watching Diane Sawyer’s interview with George and Laura B. And
this is a president. Diane did well, short of being rude – but those little eyes
can narrow beyond belief and that little smile can look the smallest, meanest
sneer. What a small human being this is. And a tadpole next to the shark of a
wife.

19 December
11.30 pick-up – was to have been a day off.
12 Long, long wig-cutting session. Plus – a total rewrite of the last scene
is handed to me – no warning, no discussion. Totally unactable, written by
committee with no awareness of silence or what it is that actors do.
Fuming, fuming until I speak to Eric [Hetzel, executive producer] and we
get back to what they had chucked out. A pity that it has to get to me saying
‘I’m not saying these words.’

22 December
Glorious sunshine all day for umpteen exterior scenes which looked an
impossibility on the call sheet. Somehow we made it with a lot of fleet-
footed tap dancing on all fronts. What with the holidays, it was all v. good
for company morale.
5ish Rima has arrived.

24 December
More sunshine. From where?
11 Car to Washington.
Rain, fog. That’s more like it.
 For what it’s worth, sitting in the car I feel I am turning some sort of
corner. The past few days – what with rewriting two scenes – that made me
surer about adapting a book at some point and letting new things in the
door.
Bring it on 2004.

27 December
4.30 → Dulles Airport for the 7am → San Juan.
1.40 → Antigua.
4.30 Eventually make it to the jetty – Barbara & Ken [Follett] waiting to
escort us to their truly fabulous house.

28 December
Rima & Barbara are perfectly matched at Scrabble and she sorted out the
remaining clues in the Times crossword.
7.30 To the Hotel for Barbecue Night. Said hello to Harvey Weinstein
who didn’t seem thrilled to be discovered – or it’s my paranoia.

30 December
6.30 Another cocktail party – more incredibly rich people in a house lifted
from the Hollywood Hills via pharmaceutical millions.

1
Against the Iraq war
2
English actor Geraldine McEwan (1932–2015). She was Hugh Cruttwell’s wife.
3
Members of the Bush administration
4
English director and actor, married to novelist Patrick McGrath
5
British-American actor (1955–)
6
English novelist, author of Some Hope
7
Michael Kamen had multiple sclerosis and died from a heart attack on 18 November 2003.
8
Jimmy Kimmel Live! is an American chat show renowned for its unpredictable nature.
9
Robert Caswell, screenwriter