Kristin Scott Thomas

Kristin Scott Thomas0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Kristin Scott Thomas0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and three, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:23

My Costaway this week is an actress. Told at drama school that her best chance of playing Lady Macbeth would be in an amateur production, she took her disappointment off to France and became an au pair. There, her talent found more encouragement than it had at home, and by her mid-twenties she was landing parts regularly in British and French films. She went on to win a BAFTA for her role as the chain-smoking Fiona in Four Weddings and a Funeral. And then came the two parts that won her international fame, playing opposite Ray Fiennes in The English Patient and Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer. Now she's polishing up her stage credentials. In 2001, she enjoyed a hugely successful run on the French stage in Racine's Berenice. She lives in France and she's married to a Frenchman. And she's currently to be seen in Chekhov's The Three Sisters in the West End of London. This is what I always wanted, she says. I got sidetracked into being a film actress. She is Kristen Scott Thomas. It's been a wonderfully successful sidetrack, Kristen. Do you really prefer the stage? I don't know whether I prefer it yet because I've only done two productions really. But it is so different. It is so different. Somehow it's more exhausting being on stage, but it's also you have an immediate satisfaction which you don't get working on film. The sort of satisfaction comes months later. But the immediacy of the theatre is much more exciting. But much more draining, I would have thought. Yeah, it's incredibly draining. The thing that I discovered, especially doing Berenice, which is a big tragedy.

Kristin Scott Thomas1:40

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas1:44

Yeah, that's much more exciting.

Kristin Scott Thomas1:47

Yeah.

Presenter1:52

Was coming in and out of it, because for two hours or two and a half hours every evening you were in this intense state where you have to dig up the strongest emotions and feelings. And then the rest of the time you have to sort of try and be a normal person. And it's just going backwards and forwards from acting to not acting, which I find incredibly difficult. But the impressive thing for us, of course, is that you, whom we regard as quintessentially English, starred in Berenice in French. All the 17th century Racine's rhyming couplets. Yeah, it was mad, mad, mad. Difficult to shine, surely.

Kristin Scott Thomas2:22

Rhyme rat

Presenter2:28

It was a completely insane thing to do. I I was w actually working on a film in in Los Angeles, and then a French um chap called Lombert Wilson called me and said, Did you want to do it? and

Presenter2:40

I immediately said yes, without really thinking. But you've said there's something about doing it in in France, in French. There's a sort of safety in it, though. It's almost as if you're not in touch with me. Exactly because you're in the middle of the night.

Kristin Scott Thomas2:50

Exactly because you because

Presenter2:52

Because I'm English I feel I can get away with it somehow. You have a kind of excuse to be more mysterious and it somehow removes it from criticism because it's foreign, because it's got an added twist to it, it's got a different take on it or something like that. I d I don't know. But now you're here in London doing the Three Sisters, no safety net whatsoever. You know, an English actress on English stage.

Speaker 43:05

Nothing about that.

Speaker 43:08

S

Kristin Scott Thomas3:10

No, nothing.

Presenter3:13

And also hugely draining'cause there's so much despair at the end of the play you break down into the most terrible, agonizing tears.

Presenter3:23

Quite imp impressive again. I sound as if I'm sort of paying you endless compliments here, but pressing that tear button, it's not just the acting, it's the real tears. That's is that just a trick? Um no. What happens is that is it's rather disappointing actually. If I explain it to you, you'll probably be very disappointed, but what happens is you

Kristin Scott Thomas3:30

And it's not just

Presenter3:42

Physically, your body sort of prepares for something and you just have to say the line, and tears come out. Your body develops sort of

Presenter3:49

Automatic thing. Trigger mechanism. Trigger.

Kristin Scott Thomas3:51

Choice.

Speaker 43:52

Boop.

Presenter3:53

Which is absolutely extraordinary. I mean, you discover so much about your sort of physical being when you're working on the stage. It's it's incredible, which you never would ever get anywhere near working on film.

Speaker 43:58

When you watch

Presenter4:03

Tell me about your first record.

Presenter4:05

My first record is So What from Miles Davis's album Kind of Blue. And the first time I heard this was it's very romantic. I was I just met my well, future husband. I was very young and we were driving to and he's French and we were driving to his grandmother's country house in Normandy by the sea and it was very dark and it was this old

Presenter4:28

Peugeot Quatsen Catre with a leaking roof and you know, we were both madly in love and this was on the tape deck and it just reminds me of sort of the smell of old leather and being

Presenter4:40

tremendously in love and and going to the seaside and it just being perfect.

Presenter5:45

Miles Davis and so what? So, Christine Scott Thomas, you're married to a Frenchman. You live in France, but we think of you as being very English. The image we really have of you is I think we believe you are Fiona from Four Weddings and a Funeral, you know, the the rather aristocratic woman who has this unrequited love for Charles, the Hugh Grant character.

Speaker 45:50

Use

Kristin Scott Thomas5:57

Temple

Kristin Scott Thomas5:59

Bing Z

Kristin Scott Thomas6:00

Good.

Presenter6:04

Any of you in her? I mean, any similarities there? Uh yeah, I mean, I've got a bit of a forked tongue sometimes. Um

Kristin Scott Thomas6:06

Any simple

Presenter6:12

But no, I I love that character because I just I I just love the idea of her sort of unrequited love and and sort of declaring it and being rather gauchely put back in one's place. And being from feeling and I love the idea of playing a character who felt superior, or gave the impression that she felt superior, but in fact didn't feel up to the mark at all. I I like that. So it relates to the past. I wondered if that's what you brought to it, because of course she could have been played as a just a sort of doe-eyed hanger-on who was always sort of gay. No, I don't think so. It was in the writing, it really was. It was a very cleverly written piece that really spot on.

Speaker 46:34

I wondered if that's what a classic

Kristin Scott Thomas6:36

Yeah.

Speaker 46:42

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas6:43

Two in the

Presenter6:48

But that kind of distance and slight aloofness she had despite the fact that she was going unloved, as it were, i is something that she has in common with other characters you've played. As we know, Lady Brenda in a handful of dust or or um That was the killer, really, that one, because that was the first one I did. And that's the one that put me in that sort of English rose.

Presenter7:10

aristocrat inverted commas section and I've

Kristin Scott Thomas7:13

And I've

Presenter7:13

I had a bit of trouble getting out of it. Do you want to get out of it? Well, it is a bit limiting, really, because there aren't that many films with a few. I mean, Catherine Clifton in the interior. Yeah, that's true, for example. She was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful role. And there's always that passion underneath as well, isn't there? In Lady Brenda as well. So, do you say, hey, stop casting me, can we get out of this? Please let me play a tart. Please let me be downstairs, not upstairs, as I got it. Well, exactly. In Gosford Park, when I got the script, there was nobody else on board apart from Maggie Smith, and the thought of doing another film with Maggie Smith was just irresistible. And I desperately wanted to do a film with Robert Altman, and it was sort of at last he sent me a script about time. And then I read it and I was so disappointed.

Kristin Scott Thomas7:21

What do you think is fancy?

Kristin Scott Thomas7:23

Yeah, but

Kristin Scott Thomas7:24

Yeah, that's a true example.

Kristin Scott Thomas7:38

It's not

Kristin Scott Thomas7:39

It's not upstairs, as it goes up.

Presenter7:58

To be put, you know, yet again in a little blonde wig and a and an evening frog. You know, I wanted to have the maid's apron, but no. So and sometimes you think, well, if the glove fits, wear it.

Presenter8:09

Are really? Are you that complacent about it? I suppose that's a good question.

Speaker 48:11

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas8:11

No, I don't know.

Presenter8:16

In Gosford Park, that role was the last time I'm ever going to do it. And I did it with a sort of vengeance, and I think it.

Presenter8:22

Shows

Presenter8:25

She's perfectly horrible. So you you'd like to be a tart or shout four letter words at the top of your voice, would you? I'm not particularly the four lettered words bit because I think that

Speaker 48:26

Oh.

Kristin Scott Thomas8:29

Yeah.

Speaker 48:30

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas8:30

But yeah.

Presenter8:34

Sometimes people sort of do roles that are radically different from how they're usually seen and I think it's sometimes a mistake. I think you have to find your own balance in that. But sometimes I wish I didn't have to play people who are quite so frosty.

Presenter8:49

But perhaps I make them frosty. I don't know. I mean I don't know.

Presenter8:53

Record number two.

Presenter8:55

Record number two is a very unfrosty record. It's Train in Vain by The Clash, and I love this because well, I just love it. It's just a great, great, great song. You can't help but feel sort of uplifted and encouraged by it somehow. It's a good song.

Speaker 49:12

He's there, fireman.

Speaker 49:15

Can I tell you?

Speaker 49:17

Yeah.

Speaker 49:19

Is that you love?

Speaker 49:23

Can you love me?

Speaker 49:25

No.

Speaker 49:27

What are some things you can't explain away?

Presenter9:38

The clash and train in vain. The opening scene of uh the English patient is you, Christine, as Catherine Clifton, dead, strapped into a nineteen forties well a tiger moth, isn't it, light plane, which is about to crash, but will be brought down.

Presenter9:52

As a girl who lost her father and indeed her stepfather in plane crashes, that must have been difficult or not, or did it inform it? It was difficult to have to get in a plane and pretend I was dead.

Presenter10:06

Because, you know, immediately you sort of think, Oh, God, I wonder what it's really like to be dead in a plane, or I wonder what you think before you die in a plane, and all those things sort of.

Presenter10:13

Bring back

Presenter10:15

Thoughts that I'd rather not think about.

Presenter10:18

Yeah, it was tough. That was that was actually tough. But that came as a total surprise. I mean, people looking at my biography and looking at the thing, Oh, I see the link, I see the link But I didn't didn't feel it at all, you know, when I I I just wanted to play that woman who was

Presenter10:30

Madly and wrongly and mistakenly in love and and abandoned. The thing that drew me towards that film wasn't particularly the death, but more of the being abandoned. Which also has to do with my childhood. I mean, of course, the nature of the childhood. Presumably, as an actor, everything that you have experienced informs the way in which you are. Absolutely. So there's no problem in that. But what you're saying is you don't like to have it overstressed. No, I don't like to have it overstressed because I think that everybody has their own baggage, their own stuff that they bring.

Kristin Scott Thomas10:43

But

Speaker 410:43

Absolutely.

Kristin Scott Thomas10:48

Presumably as an

Speaker 410:52

Absolutely.

Kristin Scott Thomas11:01

Sure.

Presenter11:03

Mine happens to be quite dramatic, I suppose. Very dramatic, and if you don't mind my rerehearsing it briefly, because there will be people who don't know, which is that, first of all, your father when you were five when I was five and my stepfather died when I was eleven in practically identical circumstances.

Kristin Scott Thomas11:13

I have a

Presenter11:18

They were flying with a fleet air arm and they were both killed on exercise. The first time you were five, the second time when your stepfather died you were eleven, they must have been two completely different experiences. Completely different experiences but at the same time the second echoing horrifically the first. And being a l that little bit older.

Kristin Scott Thomas11:23

Second.

Kristin Scott Thomas11:25

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas11:27

It's a completely different experience.

Presenter11:36

Having to deal with it by not dealing with it, because in those days, this was a long time ago. You just didn't deal, and you just sort of went on. And I think that nowadays people have.

Presenter11:45

Grief counselling and God knows what else, and I think that that is probably quite useful.

Presenter11:51

I don't know. We didn't. We just sort of I went back to school. Awfully hard for your mother, too. Yeah, I was the eldest of five. She had five children, all under eleven.

Kristin Scott Thomas11:55

Because you were one of five. Yeah, I was the eldest of five.

Presenter12:00

And this is her second the second time she was widow. Which I I mean, ha now, being the mother of three children, I have no idea how anyone could deal with that.

Speaker 412:03

I mean it had

Presenter12:09

Yeah.

Presenter12:10

None whatsoever.

Presenter12:11

Record number three. Record number three. Um, this is Elizabeth Schwarzkopp singing Morgan from Richard Strauss's Leader. Why do you want this? Well, my mummy had a record of this. I remember the picture of it. It was a big L P and I just loved it. W it was always faintly frightening and

Presenter12:30

mysterious and so beautiful.

Presenter12:34

And I don't know why, because she had all sorts of other records, but this was the one that was the most exotic, I think, in a way.

Speaker 412:40

Kisha.

Speaker 413:00

Yeah.

Speaker 413:23

We are living still.

Presenter13:39

Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, singing part of Strauss's Morgan with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Sell. You've said, Kristen Scott Thomas, that as a girl your idea of bliss would have been to appear on a a television talent show from Blackpool.

Speaker 413:52

Either those would be a non-

Presenter13:55

And there I d I there was a show called I can't remember what it was called now, but it was a televis it was a this talent show where children would come on and do magic tricks or tap dancing and all your own, man. I just loved it and I used to watch it in secret'cause I wasn't really allowed to watch it.

Speaker 414:04

Four.

Kristin Scott Thomas14:04

Your own, man.

Presenter14:09

I think it was because it was on the other channel. What would you have done if you'd been on it? What did you do? Oh, I don't know, but I was just fascinated. I would have loved to have done anything.

Kristin Scott Thomas14:14

Oh, I don't

Presenter14:18

Sing something from well, I was very fond of the the I think the first film I was ever taken to see was The Sound of Music by my granny, and I just thought that was heaven and and I was very into being a nun and all it this is all sort of linked into show business and being a nun.

Speaker 414:32

Yeah.

Speaker 414:35

Yeah.

Presenter14:37

You're not the first actress to say, I'm sure it's very famous.

Speaker 314:39

So I'm sure it's very famous, yeah.

Presenter14:41

And you were sent off to Cheltenham Ladies' College. Did you act there? Did you I think I had drama lessons there, but only as a sort of extra a kind of pretend extra. But no great starring roles. No, no, no, no, no. I mean I had sort of pretend you're a tree type stuff. And you were bottom of the class in most things.

Speaker 314:44

Yeah, but

Kristin Scott Thomas14:44

Ah

Kristin Scott Thomas14:51

But

Kristin Scott Thomas14:52

No, no, no, no, no.

Kristin Scott Thomas14:57

Nice things.

Kristin Scott Thomas15:03

But if you took it.

Kristin Scott Thomas15:08

Great.

Presenter15:11

No, there's there's no chance of that. No.

Presenter15:14

So it was all a bit miz at Cheltenham? Um yeah, well it wasn't a very good time for me. It was a good school.

Presenter15:21

You know, they they were doing their best with me, but I don't think I was very

Kristin Scott Thomas15:23

But I don't

Presenter15:25

Good at being a good pupil. So you didn't shine, you went off to the central school of speech and drama, and this is sort of enter a real dragon now.

Kristin Scott Thomas15:28

Window to the same

Presenter15:33

Well, yes, actually it's a bit unfair to say that, because I'd gone to that school under false pretences because I'd claimed that I desperately wanted to be a drama teacher, which was a lie.

Presenter15:42

And unfortunately, I had to deal with classes of actual real children and do training periods and things like this, and it was all just too much. And I wanted to change and go into the acting course. And suddenly, I got called into the head teacher's office and got told that I could never be an actress, of course, and I was completely misled. And if I wanted to play Lady Macbeth, I would have to join my Amateur Dramatic Society. And upon that, I sort of burst into tears, aged 18. I thought it was a bit cruel to say that. Rushed for the room slammed the door

Presenter16:11

I'm left for Paris.

Kristin Scott Thomas16:12

Yeah.

Presenter16:13

Went home, packed your bags in your little flat. Is this right above the fish and chip shop? Yeah, above the fish and Western Daniel. Got on the hovercraft. Tragic, tragic.

Kristin Scott Thomas16:14

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas16:17

Yeah, but

Presenter16:22

Intending never to return. Yep. And you never did. Oh, I never did, yeah. No.

Speaker 416:24

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas16:24

Uh

Presenter16:26

Didn't. I then found myself a job as an au pair girl, great family, and she w worked at the opera. She was the sort of musical link between television and opera, and they had loads of opera singers there all the time. And suddenly the idea of being an actress sort of came back to me because I thought

Presenter16:43

you know, they're not all mad, they're not all because I I had this sort of idea that

Presenter16:47

You had to be somebody special to be an actor or something. You had to be a sort of special.

Presenter16:52

Pers I don't know, different from a normal person, anyway. And um But she told you you could when she said, Well, why don't you try?

Presenter16:58

Oh, well, that's a good idea. No one had ever said why don't you try before.

Presenter17:02

Record number four. Now this is um a rather obscure composer called Zelenka, and this is part of his Missa de Fili, and I'm not sure how you pronounce that because I was never good in uh Latin.

Presenter17:16

And it's part of the Gloria where and it's a v it is pretty unheard of, maybe justifiably so, I don't know, but I think it's great.

Presenter18:20

Part of the Gloria from Zelenka's Misse dei Filie, sung by the Stuttgart Chamber Choir and played by Tofelmusik of Canada, conducted by Frida Berlius. You've talked about having started your acting in France being a kind of cheating in some way, or gangly. Yes, cheating all the time, according to you. Well, no, I'm quoting you, that you got him by the back door. Why do you say that? Well, because I did. I was at drama school there. I was at drama school for three years and I started to work. I had very small parts in films and.

Kristin Scott Thomas18:37

Again

Kristin Scott Thomas18:39

We'll do it.

Presenter18:54

one or two very small parts in in plays and then

Presenter18:57

Suddenly I I I was doing a Marguerite Duras play in the South in Burgundy, and I got this call from the casting director saying Prince is coming to France and he's going to make a film and they're making it in English, so they're looking for English speaking actresses. So I whizzed up to Paris,

Presenter19:13

I think that

Presenter19:17

Which absolutely stunned me. Would I be interested in auditioning for the leading role?

Presenter19:22

And I thought it had all been cast, of course it had been cast, but they decided to recast.

Presenter19:26

And so I did, and then I got it. And it was extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary, because this is at the time when Prince.

Presenter19:34

was really at the height of his career, and I was.

Presenter19:38

really straight out of drama school actress doing

Presenter19:41

This very quite sort of highbrow theater. But that's not packed noise. This is a really good break. No, it was. It was a fantastic break. But, you know, it didn't come through.

Kristin Scott Thomas19:44

Yeah.

Speaker 419:44

Does not

Kristin Scott Thomas19:44

Pack doors. This is a

Presenter19:50

working my uh way up steadily through bigger and bigger parts in B B C dramas. You know, it didn't happen like that, it happened um sort of overnight sort of thing. But isn't it also because by then what really happened to you in Paris was you discovered who you were and what you really wanted to be. So all these contradictions start getting ironed out, don't they? Again one reads about you that as a child you were

Kristin Scott Thomas20:04

Really wanted to be in that.

Kristin Scott Thomas20:08

Yeah.

Presenter20:12

You say you were shy, others say you were bossy, you say at certain points you were frightened about things, other people say you were very pushy. You know, there's all sorts of contradictions, but really it was just you finding out exactly who you were. I think so, yes. That's my analysis. That's your analysis. Well, I'll buy it. The thing about that particular film was it was wild. I mean, it was so weird to go to a limo in Nice and being asked whether I would like to fly my hair and make up people. I'd never stayed in a hotel before I stayed there in my life. It must have been so exciting. But it was terribly exciting, yes. And then it's it was sort of odd because it didn't feel like real work to me. And I learned everything on that well, not everything, but uh and really great teachers because they had the most amazing crew. And yet the script was sort of very odd.

Speaker 420:19

Source of

Kristin Scott Thomas20:23

Thanks.

Kristin Scott Thomas20:25

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas20:41

Am I lied?

Kristin Scott Thomas20:43

Put it

Presenter20:59

And half the things I had to say, I think

Presenter21:02

Take a deep breath and say this, just get on with it. And then, of course, the film didn't do very well, but it gave me tremendous exposure and it was my first paid job, really. You were launched. And you know, thank you. Thank you, Prince, because it was just such an exciting. I mean, I'd been listening, while I was in my field in Burgundy, I'd been listening to his records, you know, thinking this is really great and it's fantastic. And then suddenly you're there. It was real fairy tale stuff, the sort of thing that you think never happens to you and then hope it has.

Presenter21:32

No wonder he's here. He's number five. Yeah, Girls and Boys, which is actually the soundtrack from this film.

Kristin Scott Thomas21:34

Yeah.

Presenter21:38

In which I dance, which is not to be missed.

Speaker 421:43

Tried so hard not to go insane

Speaker 421:48

Birthy fly looks like praise

Speaker 421:52

I love you, baby, I love you so much.

Speaker 421:56

Maybe we can stay in touch.

Speaker 421:59

Meet me in another world space and joy.

Speaker 422:04

Who's every day, Mama Girls and Boys?

Speaker 422:07

Uh

Presenter22:10

That was Prince and Girls and Boys from the soundtrack of Under the Cherry Moon, starring my castaway Kristen Scott Thomas. And a few years after that, of course, you got offered a handful of dust, Lady Brenda in that new won the Best Newcomer Award for that.

Kristin Scott Thomas22:21

Baby

Kristin Scott Thomas22:24

Yeah.

Presenter22:26

A lot of your best roles have been adaptations of books, haven't they? That, of course, is Evelyn Waugh, English Patient, Leon Darty novel, Horse Whisperer, Angels and Insects, Antonia Pyatt and so on, Somerset Morms, The Villa. Do you prefer having a book? Is it better than having a screenplay? Because you can dig in there and find it. It is quite a bit of a picture. I've actually done so many, I can't think that I've ever done any original screenplays. I mean, I've hardly done any at all.

Kristin Scott Thomas22:28

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas22:32

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas22:42

Because you can

Kristin Scott Thomas22:44

It is I mean

Presenter22:52

Or four weddings, you know.

Kristin Scott Thomas22:52

Yeah.

Speaker 422:52

For wedding

Presenter22:53

Four weddings, yeah, that's true. But you read The English Patient, didn't you, and then lobbied Antony Mingafully so much. I remember reading it, getting to the end and having to start again because I couldn't bear not to have it any more. When I heard they were going to make a film of it, I thought, I have to write in, I have to write it. But I wanted to be Hannah.

Presenter23:10

The nurse the nurse.

Kristin Scott Thomas23:10

Announce the noun

Presenter23:11

The Juliet Pinoche. The Juliet Pinoche, I didn't see myself with Catherine Clipton at all.

Kristin Scott Thomas23:12

Yeah, you know.

Presenter23:15

And then I read the screenplay and thought, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think I want to be Catherine Kifton. I thought you wrote I am the K. No, but that was afterwards when I'd read the screenplay, but yeah, and that's how I got I think that's how I glinched it, I think. Bill, tell me the story, because it's a good story. No, what happened is that I begged and pleaded, and because I had a a sort of mutual friend with Anthony, I managed to get a um lunch date with him. So I

Kristin Scott Thomas23:21

No, but that was afterwards.

Speaker 423:26

Go on, tell me the story, because it's a good story.

Presenter23:35

put on my best dress and went to London and had a disastrous lunch with Adeline McGill, where I ran myself down for about an hour and a half saying what a useless actress I was, etcetera, etc. Usual thing, and then realised as I was leaving that I'd just completely messed it all up. So I wrote him a letter saying please don't take any notice of lunch, just give me audition, I am the K in your book.

Presenter23:56

Which is of course um you know, from his screenplay. Well, indeed. Then he did give me an a an audition and I auditioned with Rafe and it was it just sort of worked. They were fantastic because I think it was quite difficult to hire me really because I was a An unknown in America. You were not bankable and now Gamingdala fought hard. And they fought very, very, very, very hard and ended up using me. And but there were other people who he had to fight hard about it. I wasn't the only one. No, no, quite right. Well, he had to fight hard for the film as a whole. For the film as a whole, yes. And then you lobbied Mr Redford for the Horse Whisker.

Kristin Scott Thomas24:12

You were not

Kristin Scott Thomas24:13

Not backing.

Kristin Scott Thomas24:20

No, no, quite right.

Kristin Scott Thomas24:24

Nice.

Presenter24:28

Yeah, I know. You read it and thought this is me? I read it. Well, I really wanted to make a film of Robert Redford because I think he's the most fantastic director. And that part just had me written all over it. I don't know I just felt that this was something I could do. And you said that he made you a brave actor or braver as an actor. What do you mean by that?

Kristin Scott Thomas24:29

How do you really

Kristin Scott Thomas24:44

What do you mean by that?

Presenter24:46

Because he really got through to me about there being an audience eventually. Because when you're actually filming, there's only really a camera. But um.

Presenter24:56

Behind the camera, there will be people watching it eventually. So you have to make it all bigger, and you have to think about the number of people you're waiting for.

Presenter25:03

He made me a lot braver, yeah. I suppose it's easy to forget there's an audience on the other side that you are just doing it for the camera and then it blocks, it stops there. Well, especially something like that when it's really about the whole adventure of doing the picture.

Kristin Scott Thomas25:09

Yeah.

Presenter25:13

One of the reasons for doing that particular film, The Horse Whisperer, was the idea of going out to Montana.

Presenter25:18

'Cause I just loved it out there, and I knew I would.

Presenter25:22

And the idea of working with um actually I have to say

Presenter25:25

I was very keen to do it and when I signed my contract and actually got there I suddenly realized that I'd have to deal with horses and I can't stand horses.

Presenter25:35

A major oversight here.

Kristin Scott Thomas25:38

It wasn't.

Presenter25:40

So Mr Redford made you braver. Mr Grant made you laugh a lot. Side-splittingly funny. Really, really funny. What about Mr Fienn? Oh, he's just lovely.

Kristin Scott Thomas25:44

Ouch

Kristin Scott Thomas25:47

Um really really funny.

Presenter25:51

Yeah.

Presenter25:52

He's the sort of actor you can you can completely trust because you know that whatever you do he's going to come back at you and he's never going to be thrown. And so you work together, you g move forward together.

Presenter26:04

Because it can go in so many different ways. And if you're doing it together in parallel, it's so much more exciting. And then there was mister McKellen. In Richard the Third, you were his rather dissolute Lady Anne. What did you learn there?

Kristin Scott Thomas26:17

Yeah

Presenter26:18

That was actually incredibly good fun making that film.

Presenter26:22

I think it was quite difficult having to spit at um Serena, as he's called.

Presenter26:27

It's been an incredibly successful sidetrack, as we said at the beginning. But anyway, pause for record number six. Tell me about this one. Oh, so record number six is Guide Me, O Thy Great Redeemer, which is a wonderful hymn.

Kristin Scott Thomas26:33

Mm-hmm.

Presenter26:38

Sung, I think, by a lot of men in rugby grounds, I love crowd singing.

Presenter26:45

And the next best thing to a crowd singer is a choir singing. I think it's very important on your desert island to have lots of voices.

Speaker 427:09

For me.

Presenter27:39

The Blynaven Male Voice Choir and the Regimental Band of the First Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and Cumronda, guide me, O thou great redeemer.

Presenter27:48

In the meantime, you met and married a a Frenchman, um, very romantically, as you said, and you've produced three children. How how old are they?

Presenter27:56

fifteen, twelve, and two and a half.

Presenter27:58

Big gap, husband, obstetrician, presume gap organized.

Presenter28:04

No, the gap wasn't organised at all, actually. The gap was because I suddenly got so busy and

Presenter28:09

I would have preferred to have three children in a row or even more, but it didn't happen that way. I had to go off and well, I didn't have to go off and work, but I'd Hollywood called And, you know, when you're making films, there's just you just have to keep them going. So how difficult has that been, the working mother bit? Oh, it's a nightmare. Yeah. Well, any working mother is a nightmare. It's very, very difficult, but

Presenter28:33

Wouldn't do it any other way.

Presenter28:34

Are they bilingual? The case are they? Yes, I see. And you live a as a family in Paris, just off the Boulevard Saint-Michel, I think. And so when you're there, you're Madame Olivaine doing the shopping. And you wouldn't give it you wouldn't swap it for anywhere else, obviously. Um I love it there. I just love it there. It's such a beautiful city and it's it because it's small.

Kristin Scott Thomas28:35

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas28:41

Uh

Speaker 428:41

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas28:44

Yeah.

Speaker 428:44

Only then

Presenter28:54

It's not like London, where everything's so spread out and vast and frightening and so intimidating. There are so many people here. I can't believe it.

Presenter29:02

I just find it quite terrifying to see this sea of people moving up and down the pavements. I just it makes me nervous. So I I prefer Paris, which is more of a potager, it's more like a kitchen garden, really.

Speaker 429:13

Hmm.

Presenter29:14

But you move around in it really reasonably anonymously, do you?

Presenter29:18

Yeah.

Presenter29:18

I mean, sometimes.

Presenter29:20

You know you get

Presenter29:21

stopped and or looked at sort of rather bizarrely.

Presenter29:26

If I'm going out to lunch or something like that and I'm in a public place, I don't mind it when people come up and say that's that's fine. But when I'm doing something that is evidently private, like buying a pair of knickers at a department store, then I really resent it.

Presenter29:39

Record number seven.

Presenter29:40

John Martin is a is an amazing, amazing singer and guitarist. This I think comes from his maybe it's his first recording or his second, one of his very early recordings. And it's Spencer the Rover, which is a traditional song, but it's such a beautiful rendition. Yeah.

Speaker 329:57

My Spencer

Speaker 330:04

As valiant a man as ever left

Kristin Scott Thomas30:04

Duck.

Speaker 330:13

Go home to where you finally forsake

Presenter30:23

John Martin and Spencer the Rover. So what next, Christine? Back to Paris after the check-off when presumably you can really then start to choose whether you want to do

Speaker 430:28

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas30:29

Uh

Presenter30:32

stage or cinema or each

Kristin Scott Thomas30:32

Uh

Kristin Scott Thomas30:33

Yeah.

Speaker 430:33

No one

Presenter30:35

Are you? Ah. So it's become a sort of equal life. The opposite thing from what you're doing. But you know what you don't want to do? You don't want to be an aristocrat. You don't want to be cool. You're going to be able to do any more lighting. You're going to be in the 30s sort of lounging around in the desert. I don't want to do that anymore. No, thank you. Meantime, we dump you on a desert island. It's very unsatisfactory. I know, I'm very worried about it. When do I have to leave? Right. What will you do there? Will you reinvent yourself? Will you cope?

Kristin Scott Thomas30:38

A sort of equal layoff.

Kristin Scott Thomas30:41

But you know what you don't

Kristin Scott Thomas30:44

You don't have a cool day anymore nineteen thirty sort of

Kristin Scott Thomas30:54

I know, I'm very worried about it.

Speaker 330:56

Right.

Presenter31:01

What will you miss? The children apart, of course, because of course. Oh, that's impossible to think. But what would you miss most out of the life that you lead? I don't really know what I'd miss because I've never really th

Speaker 331:04

Oh, that's impossible to think.

Presenter31:12

sort of thought about it for real. I mean, I was getting a sort of talking about doing this programme to friends and things like that, and I was getting very sort of anxious about it. And somebody said to me, But, Kristen, you you don't actually have to go.

Presenter31:24

What on earth am I going to take? But but is there a part of you that would like to escape, would like to go? Yes, there is. Yep. But not for long. You'd escape. You'd be back.

Presenter31:34

Yeah. I can only be on my own for about, I would say, maximum twelve hours. Yeah. I find that's thing of a thing about working is that I when I

Presenter31:43

I love ta I love saying, Oh, I'm not going to work for the next few months and then after a while I really need to have uh conversations with people and I need any sort of artistic stimulation or whatever you like to call it, but I need some kind of argument to happen. I I I need that. You like arguing actually.

Kristin Scott Thomas31:59

I do know.

Presenter32:01

I'm sure it's not true.

Presenter32:08

Hmm, we don't know.

Presenter32:09

I'm not the one to ask. We're not convinced. Last record.

Kristin Scott Thomas32:10

Yeah.

Presenter32:14

So this is a Brahms trio, number one in B major. It's a lovely piece of music because it's it can be melancholy when you want to be melancholy and it can be very sort of

Presenter32:24

Um invigorating or

Presenter32:27

When when you need to

Presenter32:29

Yeah, pull yourself together.

Presenter33:24

Part of the Adagio from Brahm's trio number one in B major for piano, violin, cello played by Andrei Previn, Victoria Mulova and Heinrich Schiff. Now if you could only take one of those eight records, Kristin, which would be.

Kristin Scott Thomas33:36

It would have

Kristin Scott Thomas33:38

Yeah.

Presenter33:39

Hmm it's very special. It is.

Kristin Scott Thomas33:40

Yeah.

Speaker 433:40

Very special.

Presenter33:41

What about your book? We give you the Bible and we give you Shakespeare? Well, it depends when I have to go. If I have to go now, then I have to take the book I'm reading now, which is Spies, Michael Frayne's novel. absolutely riveted by.

Presenter33:56

But timelessly speaking, if you did. It'd probably be Jane Austen, something, some some Jane Austen.

Presenter34:03

But there aren't very many choose one.

Presenter34:06

Because it's so quintessentially English. Yes, I think there you go. There you go. Sorry about that.

Kristin Scott Thomas34:08

Yeah.

Kristin Scott Thomas34:10

Yeah.

Presenter34:12

And what about your luxury? My luxury, oh, having a toss-up between a pair of Christian Louboutin mules and a mosquito net. Uh-uh.

Presenter34:20

Oh, you can't do anything practical, so decision made, you know. Whose mules? Christian Luputin.

Kristin Scott Thomas34:23

Pooh

Speaker 334:24

It was mule.

Kristin Scott Thomas34:24

Uh

Presenter34:26

Ah, he's a very beautiful French shoemaker. I mean, his shoes are beautiful, not him.

Presenter34:31

Kristen Scott Domers, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Kristin Scott Thomas34:42

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.