Julian Fellowes spoke about his career as an actor, screenwriter and director in a talk at the BFI on Wednesday. He told of a friend who was in The Omen with Gregory Peck, who saw that the great actor had written “NAR” every so often in his script. She assumed this was a code for how to interpret the scene but eventually asked him. “It means no acting required,” Peck told her. “If you go full tilt for every scene, the audience gets sick of you.”
Fellowes also spoke about actors bluffing in order to get a part. The biggest bluff in period dramas, apparently, is when actors are asked if they can ride. “They all say ‘Yes’ and think they can just have some lessons,” Fellowes said. “I used to say to the director: ‘If it’s important, ask if they are happy to jump — because at that moment the self-preservation button kicks in’.”
Gyles Brandreth, who hosted the BFI interview, has known Fellowes for more than 60 years. “We shared a bath when we were two or three,” he said. “He is the only Oscar winner with whom I have shared a bath. That’s certainly what I tell my wife.”
Rearguard action
Andrew Rosindell, MP for Romford, is a bit slow. He tabled a question recently asking the culture secretary what plans the government has to commemorate the centenary of the battle of Gallipoli. The answer came back that the centenary was last April, and two events to mark it had been attended by the Queen and the Prince of Wales. Maybe Rosindell was miffed not to be invited.
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High office
Dame Margaret Hodge, the first woman to chair the public accounts committee, spoke to King’s College London on Wednesday about her five years in charge of parliament’s spending watchdog. She found it daunting to enter her office for the first time and see the portraits of her predecessors, dating back to 1861. Two had been assassinated, three had gone to prison, one had the unfortunate first name of Ughtred and then there was Harold Wilson, PAC chairman from 1959-63. Why did he do this, she wondered, at the same time as being shadow chancellor? It turned out the PAC job was the only one in opposition at that time that came with an office, and Wilson wanted somewhere to drink beer with his cronies.
There are many reasons to mark the centenary of Wilson’s birth next week, but a Labour MP gave an unexpected one yesterday. “Under him, we won the Eurovision Song Contest three times,” Chris Bryant said. And only once under the Tories, though I’d take Bucks Fizz over Brotherhood of Man.
Legal appeal
Most legal briefs are rather mundane, but there was a stir around the Inns of Court this week when it emerged that a London lingerie designer is to name her latest underwear set after Amal Clooney. Alice Holloway is bringing out the Alamuddin collection, after the human rights lawyer’s maiden name, to sit on the shelf next to lingerie named after Angela Merkel, Michelle Obama, Tilda Swinton and Salma Hayek. Does that make Mrs Clooney the first barrister to become a silk before being appointed a QC?