Emma Thompson on Finding the Right Tone: “…The thing that was most difficult about this film was the tone. How did we make the tone proper? And writing the tone, and listen, remember five years into the process I said, 'I can't write 10 pages a day.' I was writing 10 pages a day and this was the tone. It's funny because it wasn't like, 'This is the story.' It was like, 'This is the tone.'
It was to do with the way that it all started. For instance in the narration, originally it wasn't Colin [Firth]. It was Mrs. Brown, as is common in stories about children and death. The point about death being present… One of the things that we were doing when we were putting the film together was finding exactly how much of that we could use and where it worked, because children understand much better than we do that life and death exist together simultaneously.
As you grow older and try to make sense of it all, which is why we tell stories, we try to sort of pack ourselves in with something so that we feel safer and therefore in doing so, our tectonic plates start to solidify and nothing shifts anymore. But children are always moving. They understand that sometimes death comes and it can be like that. They're not angry about death. They're angry about no communication. No time and no listening. They're angry about the really sensible things. So finding those layers and where you could sort of bring in some slapstick. Even in the slapstick scene, what was underneath that was a profoundly predatory sexual woman. It's quite kind of barren, really, in a way, and I like all that. I think that children absolutely understand it.
We could've done it very wrong though. I don't know what guiding principle made it come together at the end. But it is that very long, slow process where as you write you just shave a little there and add a little bit on there. Then as you shoot it, we would shoot Nanny McPhee being funny, being serious, being menacing, being dramatic. We would shoot in a lot of different ways so that we'd have those choices. And Colin was extraordinary. He's a terribly funny man. One of my great delights was watching him develop a tone of his performance and develop his extraordinary slapstick, physical comedy that he could then drawback on and become gorgeous and romantic at the end. Everyone has this very strong flavor and marrying everything together in the right way, of making the stain white, took us a long time. You can't just say stuff and go, 'Well, that's fine for kids.' I'm not interested in writing like that. I'm not interested in making something that's just quick, quick, quick. Kids these days want something sharp and hard because they're used to MTV and you think, 'No, they're not.' I actually sat in audiences with children who've perhaps not had the kind of educational upbringing that has developed, but nonetheless they sit pinned like butterflies to the back of their chair to that story because it contains thing matter to them - and that matter to their parents as well.
I think that I was very pleased when I worked out that Mr. Brown’s message was the most important one of all. I loved that moment. If my daughter is being naughty I have to go, 'Okay, what have I done?' For instance if I have to come and see you guys, she doesn't like it when I have to go away. Fair enough. But learning how to be still and listen and really think about things, which is what we should be doing as we get older. We tend to just kind of get quicker and quicker. 'Yeah. I know that one.' Actually, I find that I'm going slower these days in an effort to understand.”
