'We wanted the film to be like The Godfather meets Richard III'
Elizabeth: The Golden Age is the follow-up to the hugely popular film from almost a decade ago. Director Shekhar Kapur and star Cate Blanchett return, but as we found out it was one of the film's other leads who was keen to get the sequel on screen. Geoffrey Rush talks to Cassam Looch about the complexities of bringing such vivid figures to life, and of the effects that time and age have had in the passing years on such familiar characters...
Rush: I was very keen to be in the sequel. I was in the middle of the Pirates [of the Caribbean] films, and Shekar had emailed me about the script. It was a question of getting Cate to fly in, and me from Melbourne and Shekar from Mumbai so we ended up with a two-hour window to sit down and talk about it. I was always keen because I couldn’t think of any other precedence. With ‘Pirates’ it was a logical progression that if it was successful they will do another one, but here it was the idea of doing it for another reason, that there was more drama to explore in Elizabeth’s extraordinary reign. Also the idea of being older and looking at the encroaching mortality of these characters was intriguing to me, The Godfather series is the only other example I can give to you where actors get to explore that in a similar sort of way.
With Blanchett is widely tipped for another Oscar success this year, and you consistently proving to be one of the most in demand actors in Hollywood, one wonders if the ‘sequel’ had been on the cards since the release of the original in 1998?
Rush: No, I just think what dominated people’s thinking at that time was that the producers were trying to dust off a genre that had been dormant for a long time. The English historical epic hasn’t been done since Man for all seasons or Glenda Jackson playing some of these roles on TV or even something like Cromwell ... you know its been 25 years since those types of films so I think everyone was just working hard on getting one right. And of course hope it was a success. As a point of fascination we were also showing a 24-year-old woman taking on the responsibility of leadership. That was a lesser known part of her life, whereas this one has all the big guns, including the cloak. I love the way that its handled here, the way Shekhar makes it a security alert and an encounter that she will always remember. In a way we wanted the film to be like The Godfather meets Richard III.
In terms of your character, as you mentioned earlier, we see him physically aged from the first film. When you think of the term ‘golden age’ we know that it was when Elizabeth was in her prime, but would you say that (Sir Francis) Walsingham is in decline due to his age?
Rush: Absolutely. We filmed my death scene on the first day of shooting, which was a real help in terms of knowing where the character was going. I talked through with the director, he always said that Elizabeth was immortal, but the other characters like Walsingham and Raleigh (Clive Owen) exist on a more mortal plane. Thematically as she ascends others fade, so we calibrated very carefully things like the colour of my beard and the physicality to the point where she berates him at one point and says ‘Go home to your wife, you can barely stand up’. I wanted to see this man almost die of heartbreak and stress, even though it was testicular cancer but I’m not quite sure how to play that!
So is he trying to hide his own ailments from Elizabeth?
Rush: Very much, there are scenes when they all have to rush around in a state of war and I played on the idea that I can’t these younger men around me like Lord Hatton see that I’m getting out of breath. Of course you’re also hoping that they don’t re-order scenes in the edit. I think the other great dimension that was brought in was the idea of challenging this man who has such an assured belief system. You know when they open up the political files in the archives after about 30 years or so and you suddenly go ‘is that what was going on at the time, they never told us that!’ You see how many tears were shed, how much blood was spilt and there is something very timeless and deeply contemporary about that and the comparisons with the Whitehouse or Downing Street are as vivid as the day.
What projects do you lined up next?
Rush: I’m about to start shooting a Korean Western ... enough said! I’m really looking forward to it, it’s one of those opportunities that come along and I thought the script was fantastic. I’ve got no idea how I’m going to approach it, but I thought it could be a real shot in the arm. It’s a real graphic novel style film, and it’s being shot in Auckland, which is great! I think every so often you have to do something like that to revitalise yourself.
Obviously the passion is there, but when you do a sequel is it harder to get into a film the second time around?
Rush: Kind of, I mean when we were nearing the end of Pirates and we could see on the daily call sheets the title being Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl we realised that once the colon there was going to be another one. As I mentioned before it was kind of inevitable for that sort of film if it’s a success but for the dramatic genre it is different. I don’t think there is anything else that I’ve done that could possibly come out in sequel form, I mean everyone jokes about it, we talked about doing Shine 2: The Happy Years, but I don’t think that’s going to happen!