Hatcher admits most playwrights steer clear of adapting their work for the screen and prefer to distance themselves once Hollywood gets involved. But Hatcher felt it was important for him to do the screenplay. It was Hatcher's script and the way the story was impossible to categorize that brought director Richard Eyre to the project. "I'm that person who's always confused in the video story because I don't know if I want to watch a romantic comedy or a drama - I just want to watch a good movie. To me, this script was impossible to categorize, somehow indescribable."
INTERVIEW WITH JEFFREY HATCHER:
What’s was the most difficult part of adapting your play into a feature film?
There are lots of things that were tricky but the biggest jolt I think was combining two characters to create the character that Claire Danes plays. Two women in the play were melded. One was a dresser for the lead character who had always loved him and worshipped him from afar. And then there was this actress who was the first woman on the London stage. I thought it worked well on stage but a number of people over the years have suggested, “Well, you know, it might be better if you combine those two.” I would pooh-pooh them and then the producers and Richard Eyre, the director of the film, all came up with the same idea. I thought, “Well, obviously it’s a good idea and I’ve just been too stupid to see it!” So I took them up on it, and that’s what I did.
That’s a very drastic change.
It was a huge change, but it was also a simple one. I don’t mean to sound cavalier about it but something about combining the names sometimes made things work out perfectly. I had to rejigger the top of the plot a bit, but after that things moved fairly smoothly.
Somehow I think I must have made the mistake in the play of bifurcating one idea and everyone else suggested putting it back together again. See that way Kynaston could have affection for a woman who later, at least in his eyes, stabbed him in the back. And it made it a lot more twisted and a lot more interesting. So for my money, I think it was a great idea.
What do you think about the casting of Claire Danes?
Claire was great. You know I was kind of surprised because I didn’t know her to be able to do English accents, for one thing. And she hadn’t come to mind immediately, I will confess. Richard said that she had wanted to audition. And you know, a lot of actresses of Claire’s stature just won’t. “Just give me an offer or I won’t do it.” She auditioned for Richard and he said, “I think she’s going to be able to give us everything we need.” I was very taken with her. And I like her a lot as a person. She’s very pleasant and fun to be around.
Age-wise, there’s a big difference between Danes and Billy Crudup in real life. Was that built into the story or does it even really matter?
I hope it doesn’t matter. Billy’s around 35 or 36 and Claire’s around 24 or 25. No, it didn’t really matter to me. I don’t know that they come across as having that much distance in age. I mean, I thought of these people as contemporaries in terms of age, but obviously he was the one with the power. It was more an issue of who was on top and who was on the bottom – not in a sexual sense.
Well, actually, that holds true in a sexual sense in this film…
I guess so (laughing). But rather that she was the servant and he was the master, and eventually that would turn itself over.
There’s no real record indicating the actress Margaret Hughes ever worked with Ned Kynaston, is there?
No. There was a Margaret Hughes who some scholars believe was the first woman to act on stage in London. Making her a woman who was also Kynaston’s dresser, that’s complete fabrication. And there isn’t really any evidence that they had a relationship except for this fact: Margaret Hughes’ patron was Charles Sedley, a famous London fop. He and Kynaston had a horrible relationship and one time Sedley hired some thugs to beat up Kynaston in the park, which is in the film. But I figured if Sedley was Margaret Hughes’ patron, and if Sedley had a nasty rivalry going on with Kynaston, it might not be unbelievable that Margaret Hughes was at the center of it. So, again, it’s fabricated but there’s a possibility there.
PAGE 2: Jeffrey Hatcher on Kynaston's Sexual Preferences and Bringing Kynaston's Story to the Screen
