Julian Fellowes Reflects on His Oscar Win: Fellowes said that winning an Oscar does add a little extra pressure, however he said he doesn’t mind that particular side effect to an Oscar win. “I suppose in a way it does but as my mother would say, these are the right problems. I think that, clearly, if you're supposed to be good at something and then you do it and people don't like it, then there's more pressure than if you're not supposed to be good at it. But then I don't know. It doesn't seem much to complain about, frankly.
I've been very lucky though because ‘Gosford’ was a big success. I think I can say that. And then ‘Snobs’ was a bestseller, and then ‘Mary Poppins’ was a big success in London. So it's like I've had three bites of the cherry, so I'm not a completely one song show anymore. The difficulty is if you just can't get anything else to move at all. But once different things start coming through and doing quite well, then you're sort of allowed to get on with it a bit more, I think. I think I've been let off quite lightly actually…”
Julian Fellowes on Directing Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson: “What I did was I had a week before we started shooting, which is called the rehearsal week. We didn't really rehearse though. What we did was we just went through the whole film. We talked about things. I'm not very big on changing the script on the day because I think you often make bad decisions. You lose information you need. You repeat lines because you forget that same phrase is in a scene that you're not going to shoot for three weeks, but actually cuts in next door. But I don't mind at all changing it before when there's time to digest the changes and make sure they're what you want.
I say, ‘I don't mind changing this. I'm very open to this but at the end of this week, what we've got is what we'll shoot.’ So that concentrates the mind. We go through it and we talk through the whole thing very carefully. Particularly because quite a lot of what I write, what the characters are actually saying, is not really what's happening in the scene as other stuff that's happening in the scene. So, of course, it's doubly important that they know what is supposed to be happening in the scene.
…The rehearsal process is really internal. They're walking in the garden, they're shopping, they're driving the car and suddenly they think, ‘Yes, that's how that scene is going to work. That's what I have to do. I have to come in at that level.’ And you're not standing there. They're doing that when they're putting the kids to bed. And really you get to the day when it's your job to make sure that you have the shots you want, that the setting is what you want and so on. [You] kind of stand back and let them do it. Make sure you can photograph it, but let them do it."
Julian Fellowes on Writing for a Specific Audience: “I don't think I do. I think I write, well, I think I've said I write films I want to see. I think I write films for grown ups. And I hope grown ups come to see them.
Of course I understand studios. They have films to market and they have obligations and so on, but that's different. If I was head of a studio, I'm sure I would think very differently. But in this instance, I think adults need films. I think we need adult films and we somehow need the finances of filming to allow us to have some adult films. That's really what I hope I'm doing. But the danger of writing to a market that isn't yourself, there's always this trap that you're going to end up with ‘Son of Easy Rider’ and it's not really going to please anyone. And I think it is a danger, that of trying to aim at some specific audience that isn't you. I'm sure other people are very good at it.”
