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IR Interview: Haley Bennett & Thomas Napper For "Widow Clicquot" [Vertical]
The Inside Reel
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7/30/2024
Actress/Producer Haley Bennett & Director Thomas Napper talk to The Inaide Reel about approach, tone and location in regards to their period piece on the inception of Veuve Clicquot in the film "Widow Clicquot" from Vertical.
Category
🎥
Short film
Transcript
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00:00
It is so that we might uncover the secrets of ourselves and that with any luck, 100 years
00:22
from now, someone will know that we were here.
00:29
Because we had talked about perspective and perception with your previous character, but
00:33
with this character, it's multi-tiered in so many ways.
00:37
Can you talk about approaching her psyche both with Francois and then as she creates
00:43
this whole dynasty?
00:45
I mean, one of the things I love about the film isn't the fact that it is a story.
00:55
It's a feminist story.
00:57
It's one of the themes, and female empowerment is one of the themes of the film, and it is
01:02
about the rise of an icon and an entrepreneur and the grand dame of champagne.
01:12
I feel that what I loved about, and I developed the film, so what I really wanted to hone
01:20
in on was this kind of intimate story about a young woman, Barb Nicole, and her heartbreak
01:29
and her abandonment and her grief and her failures and her need to bottle time in order
01:36
to examine it and to tend to her vines.
01:42
Welcome to the vineyards of Versailles, the most beautiful in all of Champagne.
01:50
My darling, I think we might have found the secret to perfect happiness.
01:55
I am hopelessly, unequivocally yours.
02:02
Francois willed the vines to me because he knew I would never sell.
02:06
I will be continuing to care for them myself.
02:09
Wine is a very difficult vocation, my dear.
02:11
You underestimate what it will require of you.
02:13
I know what it requires.
02:14
I've been in the fields for years.
02:16
You have one chance.
02:17
One.
02:18
And the story is really about love and how when we shine a light and when we shine love
02:24
onto something, it grows, and the film is really about, for me at least, is about nurturing
02:36
and how the creative process has the ability to heal us and to transform us.
02:43
And so, I mean, those are a lot deeper concepts than a glass of champagne.
02:51
However, I love to drink champagne, but I guess what you would expect from a historical
03:00
biopic like this, and those are parts of this, you know, that's very much a part of
03:04
her journey is her inventions, her interest in viticulture, her obsession.
03:14
I think I really like stories about people that are obsessed with things.
03:18
I'm quite an obsessive person myself, so I was able to infuse that into this character.
03:25
But yeah, there was a lot to explore, and she is a very multifaceted character.
03:33
There's something I want to show you.
03:38
Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Moscow.
03:41
If Napoleon's embargoes are still a problem, I want to stay ahead of him.
03:46
Of Napoleon?
03:47
Mm-hmm.
03:50
So you're a criminal at heart?
03:52
These borders are arbitrary, and they could keep changing.
03:55
Why not begin a trade that ignores unrest, wars, that exists on its own, stateless, around the globe?
04:08
If you choose not to distribute for me...
04:10
My dear, if I choose not to distribute for you, you won't find anyone who will.
04:15
And if I decline your offer, you must never tell anyone of this plan, not a soul.
04:23
Thomas, what Hayley was saying about bottling time, making films, and Hayley knows this,
04:30
and Joe obviously knows this too, is it's about bottling time.
04:33
How do you capture lightning in a bottle?
04:35
How do you know the performance is exactly what you want versus the visual behind it?
04:40
Could you talk about that and finding that balance?
04:43
You've obviously done it both in your feature films, but also in your second unit work.
04:47
Could you talk about that and that approach?
04:50
Yeah, I mean, following on, I thought Hayley's answer there was fantastic,
04:54
the, you know, how she moved through that answer.
05:01
Widowclicko is fundamentally about time.
05:05
It's a kind of, almost a study of how a person changes through time,
05:11
how their life changes as they move from being a young person to being,
05:17
in her case, a middle-aged person.
05:19
And the film itself is really about, for me, when I was making it,
05:25
I kept feeling like it was a ghost story.
05:30
It isn't necessarily a ghost story, but it was the idea that
05:34
someone's experience could be encapsulated in a place.
05:40
And when you were talking right at the beginning,
05:41
you said about locations and being in fabulous locations.
05:45
We were given this absolute gift of a place to make the film,
05:49
which is Chateau Beyrou in Chablis.
05:52
And the house was incredibly atmospheric.
05:54
It had these incredible kind of spaces that led onto other spaces
05:59
and long corridors and wooden rooms.
06:01
And it had a real atmosphere.
06:04
And whenever you moved around the house,
06:05
it creaked and kind of groaned and had all these noises.
06:08
When anyone was moving in the house,
06:10
it sort of was a bit like a movie, a place you would shoot a ghost story.
06:16
These fields do not need replanting or starting over again.
06:20
I disagree. They need to struggle to survive.
06:25
I want our champagne to have structure, depth.
06:31
I do admire you trying to run things as you want, as a woman would.
06:35
If we lose these first shoots to frost, we lose the harvest.
06:40
No one can force me.
06:43
A woman is not capable of running this vineyard.
06:47
When I have proceeds, I will send them to you.
06:50
A woman is forbidden to run a business under the law.
06:52
Her vineyard should be placed in the hands of an experienced executor.
06:56
Is this the plan all along?
06:58
No, madame. It never occurred to them you would succeed.
07:02
And it felt to me as we were making it,
07:04
that it was a journey into someone's remembrance of things past.
07:12
So like a Proustian, almost like a Proustian story,
07:15
where the past is being re-examined and looked at through the film.
07:21
And we're able to understand and build the character
07:24
from their memories of their own life.
07:26
And so that was really what we were constantly battling and engaging with
07:32
when we were making the films.
07:33
How do we link these elements together?
07:35
How do we link these things together to edit the film in the scenes?
07:41
So the film moves between the past and the present.
07:44
And there's one moment where Hayley is playing Barb as a woman,
07:50
and she's walking next to a sheet.
07:52
And then she hears her husband praying and then passes through the sheet
07:59
and then moves into the past.
08:02
And I think that's a very good illustration of what the film is trying to do.
08:07
It's trying to understand a person through this kind of dialogue
08:10
between the past and the present.
08:12
And they're feeding each other and making the story move forward and evolve.
08:17
So you're getting this kind of picture, a multifaceted, as Hayley said,
08:20
a multifaceted picture of lightning in a bottle.
08:24
So many obstacles ahead, so much at stake.
08:27
But there is hope, however unpredictable.
08:31
Your instincts have always been so good.
08:33
Why won't you listen to yourself now?
08:36
I don't want to.
08:39
No one can sell abroad due to Napoleon's embargoes against his enemies.
08:43
I want to stay ahead of him.
08:44
Of Napoleon?
08:46
So you're a criminal at heart?
08:47
Human beings are compelled to create, to lay down our lives however best we can.
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