When interviewing Kristin Scott Thomas, the woman who for many audiences represents the living portrait of English upper-crust serenity, Led Zeppelin isn’t exactly the first name you expect to crop up in the conversation. And yet, halfway through our Transatlantic chat, that is exactly what happens.
“Seeing the guys, well into their sixties, just getting up on stage and doing their thing … it’s just so inspiring,” she says, referring to the British rock gods’ reunion concert that took place in London a year ago. “And spanning generations too — my son is into them. It’s a reminder that you don’t stop being interesting or relevant at a certain age. I’d love to do that.”
As entertaining as the idea of Thomas belting out “Whole Lotta Love” to a screaming arena of thousands is, it’s a weirdly apt comparison. Where many actresses her age recede (albeit not usually by choice) into mumsy bit parts and dreary disease-of-the-week movies, Scott Thomas, now (incredibly) 48, has recently been taking on the most challenging, intriguing work of her career to date.
As if to prove the point, she is speaking from New York, where she is tackling one of the theater’s greatest female roles in her first ever Broadway gig. Her witty, ferocious interpretation of Arkadina in Chekhov’s “The Seagull” earned her an Olivier Award for the play’s original London incarnation and is now garnering breathless raves Stateside.
It’s her recent film work, however, that has made 2008 a banner year for the thesp. Two highly entertaining, highly contrasting supporting roles — as a worldly lesbian in the smash French thriller “Tell No One” and an icy matriarch in period comedy “Easy Virtue” — are mere appetizers to her staggering, career-peak performance as an introverted, grief-ridden ex-con, reconnecting with family and society alike, in Philippe Claudel’s superb debut feature “I’ve Loved You So Long.”
Whew. A fortnight and 60-odd films later, I have reached the end of the London Film Festival. It came to a rousing close today with “Slumdog Millionaire,” a film for which I can only echo the enthusiasm that has been expressed nearly everywhere else — a fresh, thrilling, beautiful marriage of classical (even fairytale-style) storytelling and edgy stylistic verve. Plenty will be written about this beguiling work in the months to come, but for now, I’ll just say that it satisfies and surprises on just about every level.
The British Independent Film Awards are an odd, under-the-radar institution that frequently like to avoid the obvious and champion the underdog. Last year, for example, they bypassed the starrier likes of “Eastern Promises” and “Notes on a Scandal” to award their top prize to Anton Corbijn’s magnificent, under-rewarded “Control.” The previous year, they were even more daring: Best Film justly went to “This Is England” over “The Queen,” while Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker — gasp — lost to the unknown leads of Andrea Arnold’s “Red Road.”