Empress Coaches, in St Leonards, were used in the new Bridget Jones film, Mad About the Boy

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Empress Coaches, in St Leonards, were used in the new Bridget Jones film, Mad About the Boy. Owner Steve Dine, who is also in the film, tells us more.

Transcript

00:00As a company, we've been going, well, we're in our 96th year now.

00:05Empress Coaches, we're the longest continually operating independent in, well, I think the

00:11south coast of England.

00:13Recent years, the business has changed a lot since COVID.

00:15We've got a small fleet of vehicles, fixed modern.

00:19We've got a vintage coach, and we also have a Hurst limousine that we operate.

00:25We do quite a bit of work, local private hire, and stuff for groups and club societies.

00:32But also, we do, from time to time, get involved in the world of film.

00:36The most recent one, of course, is Bridget Jones.

00:39Yeah, we had a call from the film company, I think it was about April time last year.

00:45They were very interested in hiring one of the coaches from us.

00:48I thought it would be our classic coach, our little 1967 Bedford.

00:52That's always popular for film work, but it wasn't.

00:55It was actually our modern 33-seat coach they wanted.

00:59The livery was of interest to them, so we had a call initially to go up to Elstree Studios.

01:08Up there for the day, they checked the coach out, they liked it, went round the whole thing,

01:13put up some runners alongside to check camera angles, things like that.

01:18The next call we had, when it was agreed they wanted it, was to go up to Hampstead

01:23in London.

01:24We had a day up there filming.

01:26That was all the exterior scenes outside the fictitious Callsworthy House School.

01:33That was good fun.

01:34That's when I got to meet Renee for the first time.

01:36She was lovely, a really nice lady.

01:40Funny enough, when she introduced herself, she jumped on the coach,

01:45Hi, I'm Renee.

01:46I jokedly said, Hi, I'm Steve, I'm your coach driver, and she laughed.

01:50I think she thought I was one of the actors.

01:52I don't think she realised I actually was the coach driver.

01:56That was a good start.

01:57That was funny.

01:58We did all the scenes that were needed there at this location.

02:03Funny enough, it wasn't very far away.

02:05It was actually a school.

02:06It was half-turned, so they were using it for the filming, because obviously the kids

02:10were off.

02:11Interestingly, just down the road from where we were filming was where they filmed the

02:15early scenes for the Railway Children, that 1970 film, where there was the family in London

02:23there.

02:24That was quite interesting.

02:25We were quite close in location.

02:26I wouldn't have had a look at the area there.

02:30The next time we were needed was up in Cumbria, where they were filming up in the Lake District.

02:36That was good fun, lovely locations.

02:40We had a very early start one day.

02:42We were filming up on the Kirkstone Pass, where they wanted me to try and drive as fast

02:47as I could up and down the Kirkstone Pass, which was, again, the scenery was fantastic.

02:54They'd hired a helicopter from London that had come up, and that was flying overhead,

03:02swooping down and around to get the scene that they needed there.

03:08The child actors could only work restricted times, so for that part of the filming they

03:13used a lot of dummies that were all set up in the coach.

03:16We set them up the night before inside, so it all looked like there was a coachload of

03:20school kids for the film work.

03:25After that, we cut to a different location, and there's the scene where I actually get

03:29my speaking part.

03:33That was good fun as well, because we got to work with René and Guetel, if I've pronounced

03:39this correctly, lovely actors.

03:43We filmed the scene, which, funnily enough, they didn't even say to me the cue to say

03:48the scene.

03:50It was only when they were doing their first take, and the actors looked at me and said,

03:55and I thought, oh, this is it, it's my speaking part.

03:59So again, there's about 27 takes they wanted to get it from all different angles.

04:05It's surprising how much film that they do take, just to make sure they get that one

04:10little bit that they want, which is seconds, isn't it?

04:13When we'd finished filming up on the Kirkstone Pass, because we'd started early in the morning,

04:20we'd got everything we wanted, but of course traffic's a tourist area, so the traffic starts

04:24to build up.

04:28We got down to the bottom of the pass, and some of the crew were in a pub car park there,

04:32where they wanted to sort of get the extras off the coach, and that left me with the dummies

04:37on board, and the props people said, ah, before you disappear to the next location, they said,

04:42we need the wigs off the dummies.

04:44So basically, they thought, well, don't let them get ruined, where they're going to be

04:49transported to next before they come off the coach, then the child actors would then eventually

04:53be on the coach, and we're doing the filming for the last scenes, where they're all jumping

04:58up and down on board the coach, that was a great laugh, too.

05:02So I'm left on the coach now, with a coachload of dummies, all children, and they're all

05:08bald.

05:09We've got off, I've gone off down the road now to get myself to the next location, and

05:13sure enough, I barely got out onto the lane.

05:16The coach comes the other way, and we're caught up together, and the other driver sort of

05:23put his coach into the side as much as he could, and I thought, well, I'll have to squeeze

05:27through.

05:28And of course, as I'm trying to inch past the other coach, I've got a whole coachload

05:32of holidaymakers looking at me, and all I've got is a coachload of bald dummies on board,

05:39which looks a bit weird, really, but luckily, it didn't have our logo on it, it said Coolsworthy

05:43House on all the logos, so I thought, they'll have to soak that one up, thinking, what the

05:47hell is this?

05:48It just looks strange.

05:49But there you go, that's the sort of thing that happens in the film work, anything goes

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