Only three women have ever been nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards, but this year alone can boast three more that are in the running: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker, the previously-nominated Jane Campion for Bright Star, and Danish director Lone Scherfig. Scherfig has gotten great buzz for her work helming An Education, and while the film's been a great launchpad for star Carey Mulligan, it's also shone a spotlight on Scherfig, who initially gained notice for directing Italian for Beginners and Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself.
Movieline recently caught up with Scherfig to debate several important matters: London vs. Paris, Sundance vs. Berlin, and British food vs...well, actually, there was no debate about British food. It was tough to make a case for it.
So I was just talking to Carey Mulligan, and she said you were obsessed with these British snack cakes while making the movie.
You mean Battenbergs?
Yes!
Well, I like props. It's not just Battenberg! Sometimes you can make a scene if you use the furniture correctly. It's just one of the many tools you have, in this case Battenberg. The cake is...ugh, it's hideous! Yellow and pink-checked.
Is that exclusive to the period era of the movie, or do they still have those in England?
Yeah, they do, unfortunately. [Laughs] They still have them. But it is typical for the period. English food is not great.
Having grown up in Europe, did London and Paris hold the same allure for you as they do for Carey Mulligan's character Jenny?
Yes. London still does. I genuinely think London is the greatest city in the world, and it's fantastic to shoot in.
What makes it great to shoot a movie there?
Well, it's complicated in terms of traffic and all of that. But the architecture, the choices you have, and primarily the quality of actors you can use are fantastic. I'm hoping to go back and shoot a film there in the near future. And the language! Even if I'm not in English, there is a richness and detail to the language that we don't have in my own language. You have more words, quite simply. Ten times more words.
Is that daunting?
Yes, it's hard, because I don't have the precision I have in my own language. Like, some of Alfred Molina's lines are so hilarious, and that type of person you wouldn't find in any other country. That class system, that sense of people taking themselves so seriously...it's horrible to live in, but it's great to get comedy out of. It's such a pleasure even to hear Carey talk now. When you take the train back and forth between London and Paris, as we did, London is much more beautiful, much better maintained. Except the sights we shot in Paris were so wonderful. It's such a dream that I would shoot the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. I was a film student in Paris when I was Jenny's age, eighteen, so it was great to go back there.
When you went to film school in Paris, did you find the city to be as heady and dazzling an experience as Jenny did?
Nooo. [Laughs] I'm not that old!
I didn't say you were!
I mean, we had television when I was a child. [Laughs] I did grow up in a city, an old city, and it's probably more exotic to go to Paris if you grew up in the Midwest.
Was Peter Sarsgaard attached already to play Jenny's suitor when you came to this project?
Yes, and it's part of the reason I came to it. It's a brilliant piece of casting. There is this vulnerability that Peter has that really suits the part, and he's a fantastic co-actor. A big part of the reason that Carey is as good as she is, is that she has such great support. I have to say that as we shot, I knew that all these really good actors were going to come in. "On Monday, Alfred Molina's coming in. Then, Tuesday, you'll shoot all your scenes with Emma Thompson." They all were impressed by Carey as well. They got a lot back from her, she was inspiring to work with. She, too, is a good co-actor.
You know, after I saw the film, I kept thinking of the song "She's Leaving Home" by The Beatles. [Editor's Note: Yes, I realize I'm obsessed.]
Yeah! I thought a lot about "Mother's Little Helpers" when I did it. I talked to Marjorie [the real-life inspiration for Mulligan's mother in the film] a lot, and you're right, she's like a Beatles character. We did the music at Abbey Road Studios, which was great.
Did you feel a sense of the history there?
I did, because you're in that same room! You walk across that same zebra crossing, and it says "Abbey Road" on your mug. The acoustics are great.
It's almost like Sargaard's character is foreshadowing this mod, Beatles revolution.
As [screenwriter] Nick Hornby puts it, it's almost like the future is coming into that home. While this film is taking place, both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones are in the recording studios, recording their first albums. You can see, almost coming out of the carpets, this future that Jenny wants but can't see. Everything changed right after the film ends, which is great for the audience. You know that she's going to be fine, that there will be a career for her. She will get an education and it will qualify her, for instance, to write this story.
The film was such a huge hit at Sundance, though it arrived there with little in the way of expectations. Did you have any notion of how it would do, and were you blown away?
For me it was the other way around! The other films I've done have been at [the Berlin Film Festival], and I thought, "Why Sundance when we can get Berlin?" I was a little sad that the film was not going to be released in Berlin, because for me as a European, Berlin is a big deal. I didn't know Sundance. I didn't know Sundance, but once we'd been there, I understood that it was a much better strategy. The film found a home. I know that some distributors are a little bit afraid of Sundance because it can also ruin a film, but it turned out to be a very good idea.