The biography of Winston Churchill, told in The Dark Times, has become one of the most exciting and interesting stories of this season. The film was nominated for the Oscar six times, including in the category "Best Film". Churchill's secretary and one of the main characters of the picture was played by British actress Lily James.
The actress carefully prepared for the role and admits that she experienced incredible feelings:
"My heroine is Churchill's personal secretary. The period of its work was not hard, the Prime Minister faced a difficult choice. It was necessary to decide in which direction relations with Germany would develop, whether it was necessary to continue the war or conclude peace with the Nazi dictator. Elizabeth took notes, wrote telegrams and outlined the speeches of the prime minister. Before the shooting, I practically did not know anything about my heroine. Then I read her book and learned a lot for myself. She admired Churchill and was devoted to him until the last, despite the pressure from outside, still continued to work, and did it admirably. After the election failure at the end of the war, Elizabeth wrote to her mother about how they sobbed together and how she sympathized with him. Even when the city was bombed, she remained at her post and continued to work. And after the victory of the alliance in the war, Churchill told her: "Miss Leighton, congratulations, you have successfully fulfilled your role!" The responsibility to history was great. I knew that the picture would be seen by Elizabeth's family, who died in 2007. During her lifetime she opened a museum named after Churchill and, of course, I went there to ask the curator about the details unknown to the general public. I wanted to penetrate deeper into her feelings and feelings, to convey her excitement and pain. She was a grip in the work, she was fully dedicated to the work she believed in and, I hope she could convey all this in the picture. "
The profession of the secretary is a special art
To play a secretary is not so simple as it might seem at first glance. Good and skillful typing - a special art. Preparing for the role, Lily entered the typist's courses and studied for six weeks typing:
"Here I am faced with a small problem. When working with a typewriter, it turned out that my fingers are too small and the letters on the paper were very light. But I was persistent, besides, I was very lucky with the teacher and together we were able to overcome this difficulty. Now I'm good at typing and even asked my mother to give me a car for Christmas. My young man says that I will never need it, but in my dreams I sometimes see how I type my poems on it. On the set, Gary Oldman and Joe Wright joked with me and said that I was too involved in the process. But I knew that once the secretary prints the telegrams of Winston Churchill, then this is serious and I must learn to do it well. "
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Work with Oldman and Wright - a dream
Lily James admits that she was not at all surprised to learn that Churchill's role would be played by Oldman:
"I knew that Gary Oldman was excellent. I saw his game, his talent for reincarnation, at times it seemed to me that he could do anything. Ahead of us we waited for interesting and challenging scenes, and I thought: "Lord, will I really be filming with Gary Oldman?" After all, before working on this picture, I did not so often have to work with actors such as Gary. It was a gift, and I had to match it. The work was sometimes extremely difficult, but he never complained. He was just Winston Churchill, and it was impressive! "