Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [117]
3 March
Mary Nighy who is to play the Princesse de Lamballe, Marie Antoinette’s favourite, came to see me. She told me to my pleasure that the producer Ross Katz was most enthusiastic about filming in France: ‘They have châteaux out there! We don’t even have to build them.’ Pale and pretty, not exotically dark and beautiful like her mother Diana Quick; interesting to see Bill Nighy’s wonderful raddled face transformed into that of an English Rose. Very bright, as she seeks information. But of course she’s not at all my Princesse de Lamballe, who was six years older than the Queen, already a widow; and rather dull.
Suddenly I realized that she wasn’t my Princesse de Lamballe any more: she was Sofia’s. Did I mind?
8 March
The next visit, although extremely enjoyable, was even more disconcerting. Jason Schwartzman arrived from Paris (where he had left his beloved dog – I liked that pet-devotion which reminded me of Marie Antoinette and Mops). Bizarre-looking at first sight in bright chocolate brown suit, three piece, yellow open-necked shirt, longish black Beatle-style hair and black stubble. Quite short. Eloquent big black eyes (I had no idea that he was Sofia’s cousin, the son of Talia Shire, the heroine-actress of the Godfather series). He told me he was half Polish-Jewish and half Italian. Well, Louis XVI was half Polish too. Otherwise, except for the marked black brows, there is no resemblance between this lively, attractive man and the fat slob who was Louis XVI. We get quickly on to his eating, how he’s had to put on twenty-four pounds and wanted to do it ‘organically’ as he’s a vegetarian. He has a list of questions in an exercise book. His main thrust is that Louis XVI was a shy romantic, pulsing with love for Marie Antoinette, not an obese oaf with sexual problems. I don’t give in. He complains that he spends most of the film eating – except when hunting, which he likes: ‘I have to eat mounds of pheasants and things which they don’t make in tofu.’ His accent to me is very Californian. And Mary Nighy very English. Whereas Kirsten Dunst is LA Valley Girl. What will happen about all that? Will it all be dubbed, as Bill Nighy speculated when I bumped into him?
29 March
Château de Millemont, somewhere near Paris, bought in a wrecked state by an American for film companies to use. My first visit to the set. Astonishing! A large painted backdrop outside the window makes it clear that this is Versailles. Marie Antoinette’s bedroom is an exact replica of the one there: the bed, plumes and all, is perfect. Except that there are huge black cables and cameras everywhere. Me to Sofia: ‘Think of all that did – and did not – go on in that bed.’ I sit amidst swathes of feathers, gilt and taffeta, much created by laser, in a chair marked MARIE ANTOINETTE and while waiting for the shoot, I read Tommy by Richard Holmes, the story of the ordinary British soldier in the First World War. This tale of mud and blood seems peculiarly inappropriate to the scene before me. In my usual terror of being caught without serious reading matter I had stuffed it into my handbag. There is even a taffeta dog basket for Mops – and I later glimpse Mops himself being taken for a comfort break.
I love the scene in the canteen; men in white wigs, embroidered waistcoats and knee breeches sit indiscriminately among people in jerseys and jeans, with production mobiles trilling. Since no one pays any attention to their eighteenth-century fancy dress, these characters give the impression of