“One of the best scripts I’ve even been sent.” So said Gemma Jones at the Q&A that followed a showing of Tom Browne’s beautifully wrought film, RADIATOR. The BAFTA winner was in conversation with co-star Daniel Cerquiera who co-scripted the movie with Browne himself.
When she read that script, Jones was determined to play the part of the ageing Maria, the long-suffering bookish wife of semi-invalid, bullying husband Leonard, played by the late Richard Johnson who worked on the film at the age of 86. “Richard was just wonderful to work with, so up for everything, great sense of humour. His death in June this year was such a shock.”
It was the honesty and depth of the part that Jones admired in the script. Put-upon but loving, caring but remote as a mother (to Cerquiera’s character), the part gave her every opportunity to create a fresh look at old age. A question from the audience asked why there were so few good films portraying old age in an honest and sympathetic way.
I did my best not to look too closely at Tom’s mother…
“It’s a good question and a bit of a mystery. I still feel that I am up for glamorous and sexy parts,” commented the 72 year-old, “but usually I am asked to play the part of dementia sufferers.”
There is a rare sense of raw honesty in the portrayal of the old couple battling against the decay of ageing and a lifetime of avoiding true feelings. How so? Cerquiera revealed a very surprising open secret: “The story is autobiographical… it is all about Tom Browne’s own parents and was filmed in their actual house in Cumbria.” Browne and the crew used the recently deceased couple’s decrepit and shambolic cottage (a metaphor, of course, for their lives), in which to film. Browne’s own brother Luke was locations manager on the film. According to Cerquiera, Luke was more spooked than his brother by being in the family home.
“It was a very strange feeling working in the actual house Tom’s parents lived in,” admitted Jones. “But I did my best not to look too closely at Tom’s mother – I deliberately didn’t want to see her photograph or know too much about her. My job was to create the character in the script.”
RADIATOR was shown on 5th September and will screen again on 9th September 2015 at the Cambridge Film Festival.
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