STEPHEN ON STEPHEN

Prior to the release of his latest film, Mrs. Henderson Presents, I interviewed maverick British director Stephen Frears at the Governor Hotel in Portland. He looked as haggard as hell and he couldn't wait to get to the airport to fly home for the holidays. Still, he graciously answered all my queries. Here's an edited version of our conversation:

You never know what to expect from Stephen Frears. The Oscar nominated British director has brought us a vicious costume drama (Dangerous Liaisons), a Freudian film noir (The Grifters) and the occasional bomb (Mary Reilly). No stranger to gay storylines, he helmed Prick Up Your Ears, the biopic of queer British playwright Joe Orton. And in 1985 he made the landmark film My Beautiful Laundrette, which depicts the romance between a young Pakistani man and a wayward bloke played by Daniel Day-Lewis (CQ).
His latest - the Oscar nominated Mrs. Henderson Presents- concerns an outspoken widow who lures audiences to her musical theater with live female nudity, the slight but entertaining film stars Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins and gay singer Will Young, who launched his career on the UK equivalent of American Idol.

Me: In one scene Will Young’s character announces to Mrs. Henderson that he’s gay. She’s bigoted in many areas, so why do you suppose she’s so titillated by this?

Stephen Frears: People are wise in unexpected ways. Although she’s such an outrageous woman, she’s always rather humane, isn’t she? Embracing.

Me: How did you make the cast feel comfortable during all the nude scenes?

SF: You just have to be very very straight with people. Just say “If you don’t want to do it, don’t take the job. It’s not going to go away.” It’s the underhandedness they don’t like, someone trying to get some advantage over them.

Me: The film is set in the 1930s. How is it relevant to modern audiences?

SF: I don’t know that I think of it in those terms. It’s meant to be entertaining. It makes you cry. If I were to try to claim a sort of relevance it would be false.

Me: Everyone’s talking about Brokeback Mountain as a revolutionary gay film. My Beautiful Laundrette also strikes me as revolutionary.

SF: Well it was. When Laundrette became as big a success as it did, you could see that it somehow caught some spirit of defiance. It got absolutely sensational reviews. They said, “This just changes everything.” Homosexuality wasn’t presented as some kind of terrible illness. Some sort of problem.

Me: Do you have any dream projects on your mind?

SF: No. Absolutely not. I don’t work like that. I like the surprise. I like people sort of ringing me up. I like opening a script and going into a new world. If I knew what the world was it would be much less interesting. I would like NOT to know about the next film I make.
This is very hard work. The responsibility gets greater, and it becomes quite oppressive. It’s given me a very very interesting life. Much more interesting than I ever expected. So I’m very very grateful to it, and also I get enormous pleasure from it.