Miss Potter Movie, Poster, Trailer, Rene Zellweger, Ewan McGregor

"Miss Potter"
First Look
In Select Theaters December 29, 2006
Wide Release January 19, 2007

Miss Potter Movie Poster

Beatrix Potter has delighted generations of children with her books. But she kept her own private life locked carefully away. Oscar-winning star Renée Zellweger is now bringing her secret story to the screen in "Miss Potter," the first film directed by Chris Noonan since his charming 1995 movie, "Babe." It is set in the high summer days of late Victorian and Edwardian England, during which Beatrix develops her natural skills as artist and story-teller. When she finally publishes her debut book, "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," she becomes a writing celebrity. It also leads to courtship and her first love with publisher Norman Warne, played by Ewan McGregor. Their relationship and his marriage proposal in July, 1905, was to change Beatrix's life for ever.

It was a love which she could not announce - or even talk about. In high-society London, her parents had insisted she keep it from friends and neighbours. They considered her proposed wedding a mismatch. Warne, they said, was from 'trade' and demanded that she carefully reconsider their life together. Beatrix allowed herself to be persuaded to leave her fiancé and London. It was supposed to be a time for reflection and calm. But, instead, she faced tragedy and loneliness and returned, with a different outlook. She became a woman of strong views and independence. She also built up a farming dynasty in the Lake District - a dynasty over which she took charge long after her writing career virtually ended in 1913. It established her as a woman ahead of her time. Despite becoming the world's most successful children's writer and a wealthy landowner and prize-winning farmer, she never forgot her first love.

STARRING: Rene Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson, Barbara Flynn, Bill Paterson, Lloyd Owen
DIRECTOR: Chris Noonan
STUDIO: The Weinstein Co.
RATING: PG (For brief mild language)

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"Miss Potter"
Behind The Scenes

Beatrix Potter
1866–1943

Beatrix Potter was born in 1866 in Bolton Gardens, Kensington, at that time a peaceful, leafy suburb of London. Her parents both came from wealthy Lancashire cotton families, the new “middle” class that has made its money during the Industrial Revolution. Her father Rupert was a barrister but led a leisurely life, spending his days with friends, artists and politicians at his gentleman’s club. Her mother Helen’s life revolved round taking tea with lady friends and organizing the household and her retinue of servants.

Beatrix had one brother, Bertram, who was six years younger than she was. Despite the age gap, they were close friends and shared a love of the countryside, animals and drawing.

Beatrix was brought up in a manner appropriate to her middle class Victorian background. She was cared for by a nanny and educated at home by governesses. Fortunately her parents encouraged her to develop her artistic talents and were tolerant of her enthusiasm for natural history. They took her to art galleries and exhibitions, and arranged for her to have drawing lessons. Meanwhile she and Bertram kept all kinds of pet creatures in their schoolroom at the top of the house, including rabbits, mice, lizards, newts, a snake, a bat and a frog. The children studied and drew these creatures with scientific precision. Every summer Beatrix’s father, who enjoyed fishing and amateur photography, rented a large house for three months in Scotland or the English Lake District, and here Beatrix had the freedom to explore the countryside and observe plants and animals in their natural habitat.

Once her formal education was over she was expected, like most young women of her class, to stay at home with her parents. She occupied herself with her painting and with the study of natural history. She was particularly interested in studying and researching fungi. However, as an amateur and a woman she found it hard to break into the scientific establishment of the day and finally abandoned the attempt to have her work taken seriously. Instead, with the help of her brother she managed to start selling her pictures of animals in imaginary scenes, for greetings cards and book illustrations.

She was always happy to use her artistic skills to entertain young friends. Her last governess, Annie Moore, had married and had a family. When she was away from London Beatrix would send the Moore children delightful illustrated letters, full of anecdotes about her pet animals. In September 1893 Beatrix was on holiday in Perthshire, Scotland, and she sent a special story-letter about her rabbit Peter to the eldest of the Moore children, Noel, who had been ill and needed cheering up. This story was to become famous as Beatrix Potter’s first book, “The Tale of Peter Rabbit.”

It was several years later that Beatrix decided to try to turn the letter into a little book. She sent the manuscript to at least six publishers but it was not accepted and she decided that the best thing to do was to publish it herself. In December 1901 she arranged for it to be privately printed in an edition of 250 copies which she sold through friends and relations. It did so well that she had to order a reprint.

The book’s success encouraged Beatrix to hope it might still be possible to find a commercial publisher to take it on. Frederick Warne & Co., one of the firms who had rejected the manuscript the previous year, agreed to consider it again and decided they would accept the project if Beatrix was willing to re-illustrate the whole book in color.

“The Tale of Peter Rabbit” was published by Frederick Warne in October 1902 and it was an immediate bestseller. All 8,000 copies of the initial printing were sold in advance orders before publication, and by the end of the year there were 28,000 copies in print.

Frederick Warne and Co. naturally wanted more books by their new author and Beatrix was happy to oblige. Over the next three years she wrote and illustrated seven more tales and all were equally well received. She was established as the firm’s bestselling author.

The firm was at this time run by three brothers, the sons of the original founder. Beatrix became friendly with the whole family. She visited their homes and met the children of the older brothers, and she got on very well with their sister, Millie. Her closest relationship, however, was with the youngest, unmarried brother, Norman, who was her editor. They worked together on the development of her books and she valued his advice and appreciation. In July 1905 he proposed to Beatrix, and, in spite of the opposition of her parents who considered a publisher was a “tradesman” and therefore an unsuitable husband for their daughter, she was determined to accept him. Sadly, however, the marriage never took place. Norman fell ill with a form of leukemia and died within a few weeks of their engagement.

Beatrix was naturally devastated by this tragedy. She had, earlier in the year, used some of her newly acquired income from books to buy a farm called Hill Top in the Lake District, the area of England she loved best. After Norman’s death she spent as much time as she could in her new home, taking solace in country pursuits and in working on her books.

For the next few years she continued to produce new titles at the rate of one or two a year. In 1913 she found love for a second time with Cumbrian solicitor William Heelis. After their marriage Beatrix settled in the Lake District permanently, and writing and painting gradually gave place to a new career as a sheep-farmer and land conservationist, working with the newly formed National Trust for the protection of threatened countryside. With her husband’s assistance, she continued to buy farms and other property and by the time she died in 1943, aged 77, she had acquired 4,000 acres of Lake District land which she left to the National Trust, to be preserved for the benefit of the nation for ever. Her legacy to children everywhere was the series of twenty-three little tales known as “The Original Peter Rabbit Books.”

About the Production

“When I first read the script of MISS POTTER I felt I knew exactly who Beatrix Potter was,” said actress Renée Zellweger. “I understood why her growing up informed the woman she became. I understood why she became more and more reserved because of the restrictions placed on her.”

Renée Zellweger embarked on a voyage of discovery when she accepted the invitation to play English writer and artist Beatrix Potter. Knowing the characters that Potter created from her fertile imagination—Peter Rabbit, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Jemima Puddleduck, and friends—but little of the woman herself, Zellweger immersed herself in a wealth of research. “There are so many contradictions in terms of what she hoped for in her life, and the choices she made. It made for a fascinating journey to find the best way to be accurate, to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Nothing was easy, nothing was blatantly obvious, nothing was really clear.”

MISS POTTER is directed by Chris Noonan and produced by Mike Medavoy, David Kirschner, Corey Sienega, Arnold Messer and David Thwaites. The executive producers are Renée Zellweger, Nigel Wooll, Louis Phillips and Steve Christian. The production is designed by Martin Childs and Andrew Dunn is the director of photography. The costumes are designed by Anthony Powell and Robin Sales is the editor.

“There is nothing over-produced or over-rehearsed about Renée’s performance,” said director Chris Noonan. “There’s real spontaneity. You know she has an anarchic, subversive sense of humor, and when you learn more about Beatrix Potter, you discover she had real wit, and was far earthier than you might suppose.”

Those who immediately think cuddly bunnies and nursery plates when they hear mention of Beatrix Potter’s name, are in for a major shock. Miss Potter was an artist of infinite skill, her botanical drawings would have been accepted all over the world had she been a man. She was an independent free thinker who fell in love with her publisher, Norman Warne. She left a publishing legacy that has enchanted every generation since. She left vast swathes of England’s beautiful Lake District to the nation, in bequests to the—then infant—National Trust. And it is because of Beatrix Potter that the Lake District remains as intact and glorious today as it was when she first saw it over a hundred years ago.

“I don’t think many people know a great deal about her life,” said director Chris Noonan. “A vision of Beatrix that I’ve had from the beginning is a modern woman placed into the suffocating social environment of the turn of the 20th Century.”

Australian Chris Noonan entered the frame to direct MISS POTTER in spring 2004. The more he read, and researched, the more Noonan became fascinated by the woman, her life and her achievements. Signing Noonan for the project was inspirational—the director of BABE had waited a decade before choosing his follow-up movie. “I was offered every project under the sun, but I just couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for them. And when I did find something, the producers didn’t want to concentrate on what I found interesting about it.”

MISS POTTER had a somewhat meandering journey to the screen. Richard Maltby Jr., Tony award winning writer of musicals including “Ain’t Misbehavin,” “Fosse” and “Ring of Fire” wrote the screenplay in the early 1990s.

“I knew Beatrix Potter because I had young children at the time,” Maltby explained. “We had the books. I read the blurb about her and it said she was unmarried. She wrote the books, moved to the Lake District, and after that she wrote no more stories.

“I found it quite fascinating that a woman artist with such a rich fantasy life should give up writing.” Maltby found a biography about Beatrix Potter while on vacation, and read it and was further intrigued. Because of his background in musical theatre, his first instinct was “Miss Potter: the musical,” only to discover that in the late twentieth century nobody wanted to make a musical.

The screenplay came to the attention of producer David Kirschner. Kirschner started collecting children’s literature when he was eight years old, graduating as an older person to collecting first editions (not just Beatrix Potter, but also Peter Pan and other English Classics). How could he not be drawn to MISS POTTER?

For almost a decade he and his producing partner Corey Sienega, struggled to bring the project to fruition. Then a chance meeting between David Thwaites of Phoenix Pictures and Richard Maltby’s agent at the Sundance Film Festival in 2003 upped the stakes. “Richard Maltby’s agent said, ‘You’re English, you’ll like this script,’” recalled Thwaites. He took the screenplay back to Phoenix Pictures where his colleagues Mike Medavoy and Arnold Messer also responded well.

“It seems to me that the instinct you have for a script is based on how much you enjoy reading it the first time. MISS POTTER was just a really lovely story and it was unusual, because it was about a character that was well known, but little known,” Thwaites said.

The partnership between David Kirschner Productions and Phoenix Pictures meant that, at last, MISS POTTER was confidently looking towards production. The first people whose blessing was needed was Beatrix Potter’s publishers, Frederick Warne & Co, guardians of the Potter imprint. Although now part of the massive Penguin publishing group, Warne & Co operate independently within Penguin. They approved the screenplay and were fundamentally involved in the production from the very start, offering help, advice and a massive amount of informed research material.

Maltby’s screenplay tells Beatrix Potter’s story. It tells of her love for her publisher, Norman Warne and her striving towards an independent life at a time when her expected place in society was as a conformist wife. It praises her talented pen—both as writer and artist. It tells of a woman whose life was a fascinating mix of professional achievement and private grief. She was a woman ahead of her time.

Beatrix Potter’s conventional, social-climbing Victorian parents did not view their daughter’s adolescent stories about animals and the accompanying drawings as having particular merit. They were even less enthusiastic about her affection for a man “in trade” and hoping for a more acceptable liaison, insisted the relationship remain a secret. To her mother in particular Beatrix was a mystery and a profound disappointment. Her father shared Beatrix’ artistic bent and was a talented amateur photographer at the dawn of the new technology. A wealthy man, he was able to indulge his hobby. It is almost certain that neither parent really understood the scale of their daughter’s talent.

Producer David Kirschner recalled the process of arriving at Chris Noonan as director. “A host of directors had been interested in the project. For me, the animation and Beatrix’s imagination, and seeing the characters from the point of view of this lonely, brilliant woman was what separated the film from a traditional view of a Victorian love story to something a little different.

“I must confess Chris Noonan was not part of my original directors list, but when I heard he was interested, that was fabulous. I have probably seen BABE more times than he has—I’m the film’s biggest fan. What he has brought to the film is his gentleness, sensitivity and an element of the fantastic that is never cloying, never sentimental.”

The producers were delighted when Noonan accepted to direct MISS POTTER. They trusted his instinct and believed if anyone could tease out the marrow in Maltby’s screenplay, it was the genial Australian. Renée Zellweger recalled that it was about a year after she became involved. “I can’t remember now who suggested him, but it just seemed so right. When you read the script it’s almost impossible to believe it isn’t fiction—did this woman really lead such a colorful life of highs and lows? It’s almost Dickensian! It might go really saccharine if you chose a director who played into that melodrama. Fortunately there’s no danger of that with Chris Noonan—he underplays it all, looks for the honesty rather than playing for the drama. He always looks for the reality rather than the fairytale.

“There was a scene we were shooting one day, and I kept saying to Chris, ‘Please tell me it wasn’t corny,’ and he said, ‘Oh, no! I don’t do corny.’ There was this complete confidence from him from the get-go. It’s wonderful to work with someone who has that sort of clarity of vision because it becomes very easy. He’s probably the nicest man on the planet… he never raises his voice. At the same time he has fun and a child-like curiosity—he’s always looking around, discovering, talking to everyone. It’s the perfect partnership—the woman who created these beautiful stories that resonate with children, and Chris with his curiosity and gentle manner.”

While executive producers Nigel Wooll and Louis Phillips set to work bringing in creative technicians to meet Noonan, casting director Priscilla John started to assemble a gifted group of actors who might fit.

The first choice of all concerned to play MISS POTTER’s secret sweetheart, publisher Norman Warne was Ewan McGregor. He and Zellweger worked together on DOWN WITH LOVE and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and were actively looking for another film to do together. McGregor, recently a celebrated Sky Masterson on the West End stage in “Guys and Dolls,” plays Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas’ three prequels to STAR WARS. “Getting an actor into a role is a courtship,” explained Chris Noonan. “Ewan has the personality and charm that Norman Warne must have had. He’s playing Norman as a slightly awkward character. The chemistry between Renee and Ewan works wonderfully for the film.”

Double Oscar nominee (for BREAKING THE WAVES and HILARY AND JACKIE) Emily Watson plays Millie Warne, sister of Norman, friend and confidante of Beatrix. It is Watson’s first role since giving birth to Juliet, aged five months when filming started.

“I find it unbelievable that I have such a cast,” enthused Noonan. “I’ve always wanted to work with these actors. When I met the cast together and we discussed their characters and how they saw them, and how I saw them, I told them all that I just couldn’t believe my luck. People I’ve admired all my film going life assembled round the table… it was amazing!”

Playing MISS POTTER’s parents are two of Britain’s most consistently excellent acting talents, Barbara Flynn and Bill Paterson. Anton Lesser plays publisher Harold Warne and Phyllida Law is cast as Mrs. Warne, the publishers’ invalid mother. Lloyd Owen plays solicitor William Heelis. As the 11-year-old Beatrix there is Lucy Boynton and young Bertram is played by Oliver Jenkins.

As the whole ensemble began to take shape with stellar names both in front of the camera, and behind it, critical choices were made.

Oscar winning production designer Martin Childs took up residence in the office opposite Chris Noonan at Pinewood Studios—both with their doors open, leading to a freely flowing dialogue as decisions large and small were debated.

“The first thing I do is to soak up the period, looking at contemporary paintings, and finding little clues that help. Because this story takes place in several time frames I tried to find out whether there were any handy developments in technology that we could use. Electricity was becoming commonplace in people’s homes and that enabled us to establish a different look for the interiors—when Beatrix is a child in the film, the interiors are lit by oil and gas lamp; when she is an adult, interiors can be lit by electricity.

“A similar sort of revolution was happening outside—a hundred years ago there were cars, which there were not when Beatrix was a child. Little things like that become a shorthand for establishing the period. Even the less observant viewer can pick up on the fact that there is electricity, and there are cars, not just the clip clop of horses hooves.”

Martin Childs is an enthusiast and it is no surprise that he and Chris Noonan instantly bonded into the greatest of chums as they put meat on the bones of the project. They were joined during pre-production by another great talent—the triple Oscar-winning costume designer Anthony Powell. Powell, with his genius for research came across a wonderful collection of photographs by Beatrix father, Rupert Potter, and these became a template for everything that followed.

“I’ve had enormous freedom on this film,” Anthony Powell said. “When you work with the production designer and the director it becomes like a tennis match, and you toss out ideas and bat them back and forth and after a while it’s difficult to remember who thought of what. I did huge amounts of research, not just of the Potter family, but the whole social history of the period.

“What appealed to me about the film was that I thought the script was absolutely charming, and the sort of script that doesn’t get written anymore. When I heard that Chris Noonan was going to direct it, I knew I wanted to do it because BABE is one of my all time favorite films.

“I suspect that Beatrix was very dominated by her parents for a long time until she realized her drawings had commercial value and she was earning her own money and was independent of them. I think that until that point her mother bought her clothes and she had very little say over what she wore, although when you see pictures of her even as a small child, there is an extraordinary expression of determination on that little face. You can see you could only boss her around to a certain extent.

“Beatrix’s clothes were terribly simple. I felt she cared nothing for convention or what people expected her to do or how they expected her to look. She was well brought up so obviously she wouldn’t go to a meeting with the bank manager or the publisher looking a total mess, but equally she didn’t look like the girls and women of her age.

“Renée Zellweger has tremendously strong ideas and that has made it a curious and interesting experience,” commented Anthony Powell. “I’ve gone for a contrast between the way Beatrix looked and the way other women looked. In the late 19th century and early 20th century it was the full flowering of the belle epoch. Women tended on the whole to be overdressed, over coifed, over hatted, and I’ve tried to make that point.”

Powell says that every film has its challenges and his job is finding solutions. Fortunately he had the resources of John Bright and his company Cosprop who have a unique collection of antique clothes and copies, the quality of which is such that you really can’t tell what is antique and what is a copy. “In many cases if they are original 19th century clothes they are too fragile to use, but they can be used for inspiration,” he said. “I managed to get a huge amount from stock and we have made lots of things. Because Cosprop has such a huge diversity of stock you can usually match your vision pretty closely. When I first talked to Chris Noonan I said I would like the film to have a documentary quality rather than a designer quality.”

With the selection of production designer and costume designer made, Chris Noonan chose Andrew Dunn as his director of photography. Dunn is a quietly authoritative figure whose previous films include THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE for Nicholas Hytner, STAGE BEAUTY for Richard Eyre, GOSFORD PARK for Robert Altman and MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS for Stephen Frears. Noonan’s choice of editor is Robin Sales who worked on many of the Richard Sharpe action films for television before making the break into movies with Mike Leigh’s lavish TOPSY-TURVY, about Gilbert and Sullivan, and JOHNNY ENGLISH.

Executive producer Nigel Wooll, one of the most experienced producers in the British film industry, steeped in the challenge of eliminating slack in a budget while never sacrificing quality, set in motion the parameters for the production. Having had a successful experience working in the Isle of Man during 2005 with his film KEEPING MUM, Nigel, following discussions with Louis Phillips decided to repeat the experience with MISS POTTER. The island—while playing no actual part in the story—provided interior locations and a sizeable portion of the budget.

Martin Childs and his construction crew faced the awesome task of building the sets for MISS POTTER within sheds in the middle of Isle of Man fields. Sound stages at studios they were not, but Childs’ team rose to the challenge and out of horizontal rain, sleet, snow and mud, gradually the Potter home emerged. “At the risk of sounding negative there is always one set of circumstances that is different from the rest,” recalled Martin Childs “With MISS POTTER it was, ‘let’s shoot the film in the Isle of Man rather than on sound stages.’ I designed the sets I wanted and the challenge for the art director was to fit those designs into the barns they found in the middle of fields… We got there in the end, but it makes you realize how much you take for granted in a real film studio on a real sound stage.”

MISS POTTER commenced principal photography March 7, 2006. In the first two weeks of production, the cast and crew moved at a brisk pace around London and the Home Counties.

“The key to transforming London is road surfaces,” commented Martin Childs. “In order to make it look acceptable we actually made road surfaces older than historically accurate. Apart from that, we generally found parts of London without too many parking meters. Most of the buildings we are using are protected or private, so they look right.”

Thus The Reform Club, situated at the heart of ceremonial London, is cast as itself when Norman goes to ask Mr. Potter for his daughter’s hand in marriage. The Club is also transformed as a bank, for a scene where Beatrix asks her bank manager if she can afford to buy a property in the Lake District.

The famous Bluebell Railway where the age of steam lives on, if only for tourists, was home to the unit for three days for a poignant farewell scene as the Potters leave London for the Lake District, and Beatrix said goodbye to Norman Warne.

“The Bluebell Railway has no similarity to Euston Station in London, which is where the Potters would have left for the Lake District,” explained Martin Childs. “You can’t achieve what we were trying to achieve in a big, urban railway station—there are too many people, too much going on, and too many shop fronts to hide. So we went to the Bluebell Railway where there are some good, period trains and we just shot as close as we could, and as wide as we dared, and used a heck of a lot of smoke and steam and rain! We put in a few buildings to block out the countryside. It’s a sweet, rural station and that is its charm…”

The production, inevitably, worked hand in glove with the National Trust, using many of their houses, and much of their land. Thanks to that organization and the film offices in Cumbria and the Isle of Man, meticulous planning, attention to detail, and goodwill meant that no serious request was denied the filmmakers.

The National Trust’s Osterley House provides three excellent locations in one venue—as Hyde Park complete with horses and carriages, as an art gallery visited by Beatrix and Millie Warne, and as a tearoom where Beatrix and Norman speculate about how much profit Beatrix’s books might make.

Traditional London Squares in Lincoln’s Inn and Hammersmith provided the frontage for solicitors’ establishments and the exterior of the Potter home. Fake snow, carriages and the clip clop of hooves completed the illusion of a bygone age, and residents emerged with their digital cameras to record the moment when Hollywood created movie magic.

A magnificent street of Queen Anne houses, surprisingly sited in a less than salubrious West London suburb, provided the exterior of the Warne home, while Kingston-upon-Thames offered up a fabulous period conservatory for the Warne garden for a scene where Beatrix takes tea with Mrs. Warne, Norman and Millie Warne. She and Millie decide there and then to become best friends.

One of the most memorable days was the one spent at the Type Museum for a scene where Beatrix goes with Norman Warne to visit the printers and see the first copy of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” come off the presses. The Type Museum has been conceived as a working museum of the word. Its collections span the whole history of type making and printing.

Real printers who operate the old printing presses for the demonstrations held at the Museum, were cast as printers in the film. One of them had actually been apprenticed with Frederick Warne & Co, publishers of Beatrix Potter’s books.

The Museum houses arguably the most comprehensive collection of type and printing presses in the world. Among their valued items is the original type used for the first printing of the Declaration of Independence (1776). The Museum’s archives span 400 years of printing and if it wasn’t for materials held in these archives 95% of the books and magazines in the world would not exist.

But the heart and soul of the film, is the Lake District and it was there that the final two weeks location took place, providing a fitting climax to an epic journey. Beatrix Potter spent much of her life in the Lake District, arguably the most contented part of that life. She left her land and property to the National Trust, and it was they who paved the way for the film using properties owned by Beatrix Potter for the film.

In fact her first home, Hill Top, was not suitable for filming, so another of her properties, Yew Tree, was substituted. Martin Childs explained: “Hill Top is fabulous but it’s a very well known place attracting tourists from all over the world. Not only is it full of tourists but the National Trust could not close it down for the length of time it would take to shoot scenes there.”

Yew Tree was transformed into Hill Top—a dry stone wall was built, a prolific kitchen garden was planted, the cottage was washed with a very natural pale sand color, a porch was built round the front door and glazing bars were added to the windows.

The National Trust was extremely helpful and after initial consultation, permissions were forthcoming. The tenants who live at Yew Tree and put up with having a film crew on their doorstep for weeks on end, were so entranced with the dry stone wall that they want to keep the cottage looking as it did during the filming.

“It’s great for me,” said Martin Childs. “I trained as an architect and that dry stone wall is the first real building I’ve ever done. Everything else has been dumped on a skip at the end of filming.”

The Lake District fulfilled its promise as a magical location. And at last, the sun came out, bathing the proceedings in golden light. It became easy to see why Beatrix Potter herself found peace in the lakes and valleys of this loveliest of English regions.

As Renée Zellweger said, “Beatrix Potter was a great naturalist and a brilliant woman. She was such a smart woman, so clever, multi-faceted. And yet, not many people know about her.” All that is about to change.

MISS POTTER is produced by Phoenix Pictures and David Kirschner Productions and distributed in the US by The Weinstein Company and in the UK by Momentum Pictures with Summit Entertainment handling international sales and distribution. Produced by Mike Medavoy, David Kirschner, Corey Sienega, Arnold Messer, David Thwaites. Executive produced by Renée Zellweger, Nigel Wooll, Louis Phillips and Steve Christian. Directed by Chris Noonan with an original screenplay by Richard Maltby Jr. Andrew Dunn is the director of photography and the production designer is Martin Childs. Anthony Powell is the costume designer and the editor is Robin Sales.

The Actors on their Characters

Renée Zellweger plays Beatrix Potter
For the first half of 2006, Texan Renée Zellweger spoke in an English accent as she starred as Beatrix Potter in MISS POTTER, directed by Chris Noonan.

“It sounds dramatic but it is actually the lazy way to do things,” said Renée Zellweger, gazing out across at Lake Windermere on a perfect spring day. “It means I don’t have to concentrate on whether or not I am speaking properly.”

The intensity of Zellweger’s focus as she neared the end of shooting had diminished not one iota. She had been Beatrix twelve hours a day, six days a week. She had scarcely had a day off during the film’s packed eight-week schedule. And for weeks before shooting started, she had immersed herself in the research she considered necessary before undertaking the part.

“The script for MISS POTTER was so beautiful it’s hard to believe it’s not fiction. Quite apart from her extraordinary professional life, she went through so much privately,” Zellweger continued. “I felt a strong kinship with her, a really strong attachment to the woman and the material.

“In her younger years she tried to conform to the woman she was meant to be, and I guess we all have a bit of that in us. But she was fiercely private and successful in keeping the things that mattered most to her away from public gaze.”

The similarity between actor and subject was not lost on Zellweger. No surprise that she should be first choice to play the iconic English writer and artist, Beatrix Potter, creator of Peter Rabbit, Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, Jemima Puddleduck and their friends. Zellweger earned honorary Brit status thanks to two successful incarnations as Helen Fielding’s inspirational singleton Bridget Jones. She won the best supporting actress Oscar in 2004 for her role as Ruby Thewes in Anthony Minghella’s COLD MOUNTAIN. In 2002 and 2003 she was Oscar nominated as best actress in BRIDGET JONES’ DIARY and CHICAGO.

There was no question when it came to casting Beatrix Potter that Zellweger was the right actress for the part. Producer David Thwaites was in no doubt: “Renée is a chameleon as an actress. It’s very important to her for everything to be accurate. She takes it very seriously, particularly playing a character that lived. The amount of research she does to make sure she doesn’t misrepresent the character is quite staggering.”

Zellweger enlisted the help of the ladies who run Frederick Warne & Co, the original publishers of Beatrix Potter and still the guardians of the imprint. “They have been brilliant at maintaining the integrity of Beatrix Potter. The more I read and researched and the more information I was given, the more uncertain I became about who she was.”

Zellweger realized she had to trust the script and find the truth within it. “When I first read the script, I felt this character, I knew who she was,” she enthused. “I understood why her growing up informed the woman she became. I understood why she became more and more reserved because of the restrictions placed on her by her parents. She was cut off from her peers, from the people you would normally expect her to move around. She was insecure. She was shy. Her journey made perfect sense to me and why she needed these characters to express the things she couldn’t say.”

Zellweger was delighted when Ewan McGregor was cast as Norman Warne, Beatrix’ secret love. She and McGregor had thoroughly enjoyed working together on DOWN WITH LOVE, and she suggested him for the role.

Of course, the lynchpin for Zellweger, was the director. “Because of the highs and lows of this woman’s life, it could easily become melodramatic. Fortunately there’s no danger of that at all with Chris Noonan –he always looked for the honesty rather than playing the drama, reality rather than fairytale. He has great confidence and I like that. He knew how he wanted the story told. And he’s very gentle. We all decided about halfway through the movie that he is probably the nicest man on the planet! It seemed like a perfect partnership—a lady who created these beautiful stories that resonate with children, and Chris Noonan with his curiosity and his gentle manner, and how he handled the telling of the story. It seemed right.”

It is intriguing that Beatrix Potter ceased to write her stories, despite their huge success, once she moved to the Lake District. “Her work seemed to stem from her creative inner voice. The people closest to her described her as merry, joyful, jolly, happy. They said she had a glow, she had laughing brilliant blue eyes. She gravitated towards a different lifestyle and her work took a backseat to her real life as she grew older. It obviously reflects that she was fulfilled, that she found a life that was satisfying on every level.”

This multi-faceted, complex woman, a woman ahead of her time, a high achiever, stifled in her youth by the social expectations for a woman of her class, proved a fascinating voyage of discovery for Renee Zellweger. “It is interesting to read her journals because they are the only firsthand account we have. They are written in code, and yet so self-consciously, that you imagine she knew they would be read.

“There are so many contradictions: she was very introverted and felt discomforted in crowds. And yet she was very assertive! But you have to remember that a lot of the accounts about her were from people who were children when they met her, and memory can become deluded by the years. It has been an extraordinary journey to try to pick through the contradictions and put the pieces of the puzzle together, because nothing was easy, nothing was blatantly obvious, nothing was clear.”

Arguably the most stimulating part of the experience of becoming Beatrix Potter was filming in the Lake District, the place that Beatrix loved so much. “You really can sense the peace she found there, that she craved. The access to all the things she liked most, the things that inspired her, the colors she used in her paintings, the quiet that allows you to sit and take it in. This would feed the woman’s work. You can feel it.”

When the film ended, Zellweger returned to her own voice, and her own life. “Acting has given me more than I ever hoped it would. I had no idea how important it would become to me as a creative outlet. It has been extraordinary in terms of the opportunities I have had, and what I have learned, and seen.”

Playing Beatrix Potter, a woman who instinctively pushed the barriers of her time, has made the woman who played her appreciate the freedoms of her own time.

Ewan McGregor plays Norman Warne
Publisher Norman Warne was the great love of Beatrix Potter’s young life. For Scottish actor Ewan McGregor, both the character and the real life story, were unknown when Renée Zellweger first talked to him about being in the film, MISS POTTER.

“The funny thing is that once I started the film I found Beatrix Potter stuff everywhere,” said Ewan McGregor with a grin. “I’ve got kids and my house is full of Beatrix Potter—and I hadn’t even noticed!”

Warming to his theme, he added: “My parents sent down the complete works of Beatrix Potter when my daughter, Clara, was born. Then I started noticing we had egg-cups, and plates, stuff all over the house!

“But I didn’t know anything about her and that’s why I’ve enjoyed the script so much because you discover what an extraordinary woman she was.”

It was Renée Zellweger who first approached McGregor about playing Norman Warne. “We’d had a lovely time working together on DOWN WITH LOVE but it was very difficult because it was so specifically the ‘60s style of Rock Hudson-Doris Day comedy and if you didn’t get it absolutely right, it didn’t work.

“Renée and I kept saying, let’s do something straightforward together, a drama, something not so technical and tricky. And out of the blue, Renée sent me the script for MISS POTTER.”

Beatrix Potter was well into her 30s when she met Norman Warne. “He was a very sweet man, and I think—unlike his brothers—he was good with women. In our story he’s stayed at home looking after his invalid mother, and he’s spent a lot of time in the company of women, not just his mother, but also his sister, Amelia.

“The real Norman Warne was an editor at F Warne & Co and was more or less in charge. We’ve altered things so that editing Beatrix Potter’s book was his first job, because he’s been at home looking after his mum. I imagine his brothers told him Miss Potter was a tough cookie, and put the fear of God into him.”

As the relationship with Beatrix flourishes amid the disapproval of her upwardly mobile parents, anxious for a “good” marriage, and certainly not to someone in trade, we see Beatrix and Norman falling in love.

“Because Norman has spent time with women, he’s comfortable with them, and probably gave them more respect.”

For Ewan McGregor the role meant growing a handsome moustache and wearing a range of formal Victorian attire that Oscar winning designer Anthony Powell found for him at the celebrated costume house, Cosprop.

“It’s nice for me to be the age I am and playing the parts I do,” McGregor said. “My horizons have broadened a lot, and I think that’s about my age.

“The whole thing about making a film is quite confusing when you’re young and playing leading roles is quite complicated. I used to champion various departments and worry about their problems, and argue their cause with producers, when really I should have been concentrating on learning my lines and doing my work. As you get older you realize people are quite capable of taking care of themselves, and it’s not your business!”

One of his great delights about making MISS POTTER was working with Bill Paterson, an actor he has admired since he saw the television series TRAFFIC in the late ‘80s. “He was phenomenal on that. I find now I’m getting to work with people I’ve always revered. I watched Jim Broadbent when I was at drama school and wondered if I’d ever work with anyone that amazing—and then, when I made MOULIN ROUGE! I did. I felt the same about working with Bill on MISS POTTER.

“Bill still loves being an actor, and I enjoy being an actor more and more each day. I fit in with actors, they’re my people…

“I’d always wanted to work with Emily Watson, so playing her brother was terrific, and we’ve developed a relationship that’s quite close, they are obviously good friends. Millie becomes good friends with Beatrix, and there are a lot of scenes where we knock around together, followed by the ever present Miss Wiggin, played by the wonderful Matyelok Gibbs.

“It’s a classic love story, about a powerful woman who wasn’t prepared to know her place. And it’s been a lovely atmosphere on set, it’s a real actors’ film and Chris Noonan has given us the space to create something in a very satisfying way.”

Between films McGregor spends time being a devoted dad to four children, and indulging his passion for motor bikes. He has quite a collection of bikes—and acquired another from the Isle of Man museum while filming MISS POTTER At the end of each movie he tends to take off for a few days on a bike and just get back to reality after the cosseting that occurs on a film.

This started during MOULIN ROUGE! when he took off for four days during the Easter break and just headed hundreds of miles into the outback. He’s done similar trips in America after BIG FISH, riding from Alabama back to Los Angeles before flying home to Britain.

“It’s a reaction to being on film sets for huge amounts of time. After a while your head is about to burst. On a film all your decisions are made for you and they can’t help but treat you like a child. But the thing about a bike trip on your own is that there’s only you making the decisions, and they are comparatively simple—where are you going to sleep, where are you going to eat and where are you going to buy petrol. It gives you time to reflect.”

His love of biking also resulted in a round the world trip with his chum Charley Boorman, son of filmmaker John Boorman. The pair so enjoyed the experience, and the TV series and book that came out of it, that they are now planning another venture for 2007—a trip from the north of Scotland down the length of Africa to Cape Town. This will also enable UNICEF ambassador McGregor to visit a number of UNICEF projects in Africa.

“I got involved with UNICEF through our LONG WAY ROUND trip because we wanted a charity to benefit in some way from the trip, and both Charley and I are fathers, so we wanted something to do with disadvantaged children. Being involved with UNICEF is good for me because it means when I’m doing publicity, I can often slip in stuff about UNICEF instead of it all being about me, me, me… That makes it all more acceptable.”

And it helps McGregor keep a sense of proportion. So no complaints about the size of his trailer, then? “Come on, there are limits!” he laughed. “I’ve been so lucky. I travel well when I’m working, I’m looked after and I stay in nice hotels. And I don’t want it any other way. But the experience of seeing the reality of people’s lives on the other side of the world is amazing.

“The other evening I was watching David Attenborough’s PLANET EARTH series on television and there’s an image of the world in the end credits. I looked at the top of the planet and thought, ‘I rode around that’ and it hit me in a way that it hadn’t until that moment—I rode round the top of the world!”

Emily Watson plays Millie Warne
“Millie Warne was very forthright. When she first met Beatrix Potter she told her they were going to be friends,” said Emily Watson. “I think Millie decided she wasn’t interested in men, and struck it as a pose, maybe, and as the years went by perhaps she regretted that. She and Beatrix remained friends their whole life—they wrote countless letters to each other.

“Millie represented an independent spirit that Beatrix found really attractive. She was an ally to Beatrix at a time when young ladies were paired off with suitable young gentlemen and that was that. She confirmed to Beatrix that it was all right to be different.”

The Warne family welcomed Beatrix Potter into their warm, literary, and slightly bohemian existence. They provided a haven for her where she could be herself.

“The Warnes were far less hidebound and conventional than the Potters,” said Watson. “They have a lot of interesting friends and their life is all about books. It’s a much more spirited set-up, particularly among the young.”

Playing Millie Warne was Emily Watson’s comeback film after the birth of her delightful daughter, Juliet. “I’ve been wearing a monumentally tight corset,” she admitted, “and it’s been a bit of a blessing, I must say because I now have curves in places I never used to have.”

Wearing a Victorian corset is a discipline that modern actresses find hard to endure although it does help create a very different way of walking, sitting and even breathing. “You have to sit up straight and you can’t walk in the way you normally do.”

One of the most attractive aspects of making MISS POTTER, as far as Emily Watson was concerned, was working with director Chris Noonan. “BABE was one of my all time favorite films,” she recalled. “I went to see it the day after I got married and it has a very special place in my heart. I loved it, I thought tonally it was a really interesting film and it was weird and strange and dark. It was cute, and it was not cute. So retrained, and then incredibly emotional. When he sings to the pig! It’s one of the best moments in cinema and when I heard Chris was directing MISS POTTER that was enough for me.”

Like most of the cast, Emily Watson admitted that her childhood too had been full of Beatrix Potter. “I now have the complete works, thanks to F Warne & Co, and before we started the film we saw an exhibition of the original drawings at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, and they are sensational, they really sing.”

Working with Renée Zellweger has been another blessing for Emily Watson. “Renée is an honorary Brit, there’s no doubt about it. I think there are quite a lot of misconceptions about Beatrix Potter. Everyone knows the images from when she was quite old and living in the Lake District. I think she was a genuine eccentric, where Millie would like to be thought of as an eccentric, but her eccentricity is a little bit affected. Renée has thrown herself into all that in a really great way that is lovely to watch.”

Meanwhile Emily Watson’s return to acting after having her baby proved a happy experience. Immediately afterwards she set off for New Zealand to film CRUSADE IN JEANS based on Thea Beckman’s children’s novel, followed by Peter Weir’s SHANTARAM with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

It is a sure case of motherhood providing creative stimulus.

Barbara Flynn plays Helen Potter
“I think Helen Potter just wishes her daughter to be different. She wants to have the same relationship with Beatrix that she had with her own mother. She wants Beatrix to marry well. Mrs. Potter is so thwarted in this,” said Barbara Flynn about the character she plays in MISS POTTER.

“Helen and her husband come from Manchester, from extremely well-to-do families. Both families were in cotton and there was a lot of money on both sides. They moved to London and lived firstly in Upper Harley Street and then moved to a new house in Bolton Gardens, and that’s where their children were born.

“Mrs. Potter wanted to get on; her social position really mattered to her. She’s very social, she brought her staff from the north and she gave great dinner parties. She met Rupert Potter in the north in Hyde. They met and got married, and her sister married his brother. When they were younger I think they had much more going for them, before the toll of the constant trial that was Beatrix, told on them.

“Mrs. Potter was quite a tasteful woman and I’m sure when she had Beatrix she hoped she would have a daughter who would be the complete apple of her eye, and of course life has a habit of presenting huge thumping ironies, and of course Beatrix was nothing like that. This wonderful child turned into this quite extraordinary human being, forever inquiring into the lichens, the spores, fascinated by everything. She had an extraordinary mind. So the frustration for Helen is really remarkable.

“Helen can’t control Beatrix, she feels an outsider every time she goes into Beatrix’ room. She is probably at her most confused. All she really wants is for Beatrix and Bertram to marry well, because if you married badly you would have nothing, no support systems, no safety net. She wanted Beatrix and Bertram to continue her dream, as we always do for our children.

“I’m not looking for sympathy for Helen—I’m very fond of her because she is every parent. I understand her and I love having the chance to portray her.”

Mrs. Potter continually put forward suitable young men to marry Beatrix – Lord this and Sir that, but Beatrix would have none of it. Eventually Mrs. Potter had to accept that she had an unmarried daughter. The fact that Beatrix was earning considerable amounts of money for her books was just not an acceptable alternative to marrying well. “Helen though Beatrix’s drawings were very pretty. She was a passable water colorist herself, but she didn’t have an artistic soul and the wrong things mattered to her. So I think she appreciated what Beatrix did, but she didn’t elevate it—after all, they were only children’s stories and children in those days were seen and not heard. I’m sure Helen blamed the governess rather than herself.”

Barbara Flynn is full of praise for the actress playing her screen daughter, Renée Zellweger. “She’s completely and utterly immersed in it and that’s quite delightful because when she plays English she brings something no-one else could because she looks at it in a different way. It’s wonderfully fresh. She is extraordinary.”

Like all the women in the cast, Barbara Flynn has to undergo the torture of the corset—and additionally she is aged as Mrs. Potter. “I love corsets. Even when I was the same size as our leading lady, I loved corsets. You have to accept that they help, and I’m blessed with the sort of shape that works with them. And I just love dressing up.”

The hours she had to spend in the make-up trailer each morning was time well spent to prepare for the day, Barbara Flynn found. “It does take a long time, but it’s a useful process that helped me become Mrs. Potter.”

The clothes were crucial: costume designer Anthony Powell always placed the jewels himself. “The amount of thought that goes into it is staggering. Every single piece of detail is done with such relish. Our business is full of the most talented people who do not shout, but just do their craft.

“I felt really privileged when I saw the set of the Potter house. It’s a complete creation of exactly what it should be—the art, the books, the furnishings. The whole environment of the house creates an extraordinary atmosphere that just helps you live it.”

Playing Mrs. Potter was a total joy for Barbara Flynn, even if she endured being aged up. “It takes hours to make me look this old,” she said with some satisfaction. She recalled the importance Beatrix Potter played in her own childhood, and relished the new connection.

“Beatrix Potter has existed in every child’s life in every country in the world. She’s part of growing up. She was the most amazing artist and her appeal is universal.”

Bill Paterson plays Rupert Potter
“I am playing a gentleman of leisure,” said Bill Paterson, relishing both the fact of the statement and the huge set of elaborate whiskers painstakingly applied to his face each morning while working on MISS POTTER.

Paterson plays Rupert Potter, father of iconic children’s author Beatrix Potter. “He was a trained barrister but never practiced. His main preoccupation was photography, and we are talking about the infancy of photography from the 1850s, when it was a very expensive hobby.

“The family money came from the invention of printing on calico. Rupert was the next generation and decided that a gentleman’s life was what he wanted. These were high Victorian times when people made that kind of decision—today they would be ducking and diving to gather more wealth.”

Moving to London with his fiercely ambitious wife, Helen, Rupert indulged his interest in the arts. “Unusually, he moved in fairly bohemian circles and one of the things we don’t think about is the influence the church had in those days. There were Unitarians—an active, free-thinking, liberal protestant church,” explained Paterson. “So on one side you had a middle-class, upwardly mobile Victorian house, and on the other an open house and friends like Lewis Carroll. What would that have done to Beatrix’s young life?

“One of the great questions of the film is why they didn’t support Beatrix more than they did. It’s something I’ve pondered over. Rupert definitely was encouraging. He was a reasonable sketcher himself, and he had a real interest in the arts, and constantly took Beatrix to exhibitions. You can tell from her fantastic journals that they did not lead a narrow life.”

The evidence that Bill Paterson has amassed is that Rupert Potter was proud of his daughter and her remarkable, unusual success. “She was the JK Rowling of her day. Everyone was buying her books—even my friends!”

Like others in the cast of MISS POTTER, Bill Paterson is a paid up member of the Beatrix Potter Society – the gift of Renee Zellweger to them all as they started filming. “I think the strength of the Potter books is that they have not changed a fraction. They’ve remained true and completely intact, the vagaries of fashion haven’t effected the stories at all. Sales may have dipped occasionally but they have remained true, solid and straightforward from 1900 to 2006.

“Beatrix’s writing is honest and open and not at all twee—and the illustrations are a joy. In a different world she would have been a foreign correspondent, her observation and energy and the campaigning she continued to the end of her life. The woman was pure steel—she knew what she wanted and how to make it happen.”

One of Paterson’s abiding passions are maps and he was delighted to find an ordinance survey map for Kensington and Chelsea in the 1860s, about the time that Rupert and Helen Potter moved to a brand new house in Bolton Gardens before their children were born. “The map clearly shows that, unlike the photographs that Rupert took later, Beatrix must have looked out on fields from her bedroom, and in the distance, the village of Earl’s Court.”

Paterson was full of admiration for Renée Zellweger. “In the way of film production, virtually our first scene together was the big confrontation scene. It is only a page long, but we plunged ourselves into that and I have to say I was having to fight for my life—and that’s good, that’s what a father has to do. Renée has colossal integrity and power. If we have done our homework, she has done hers ten times over.”

Matyelok Gibbs plays Miss Wiggin
One of the most enigmatic characters in MISS POTTER is the looming presence of Miss Wiggin, Beatrix Potter’s chaperone. She lurks in the background of Beatrix’s life – she’s at the printers when Beatrix’s first book comes off the presses, she sits at the next table when Beatrix takes tea with Norman Warne, her publisher. She is walking with the couple when Beatrix asks Norman and his sister Millie to join the family and friends for a celebratory Christmas dinner.

The actress playing Miss Wiggin knows all about making mountains from molehills. Director Chris Noonan invited his cast to a pre-shoot day of discussing their characters, and an etiquette and history lesson. There was almost nothing on the page that cast light on the character of Miss Wiggin. Noonan had thought a great deal about the real life characters—Beatrix herself, her parents, the Warne family, who were such a powerful influence on Beatrix.

“I always write elaborate back stories to characters I play,” said Matyelok Gibbs, the actress who plays Wiggin. “I’ve created almost a three volume novel for Miss Wiggin.”

Matyelok Gibbs was keen to tell Noonan about her character. And she was particularly keen that Noonan didn’t speak first, thus fixing an identity on Wiggin not of her choosing.

While the other actors, including Renée Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson, Barbara Flynn, Bill Paterson and Phyllida Law hung on her every word in stunned admiration, Matyelok Gibbs charged headlong into her story of Wiggin. She told of the twin sister who had a much nicer life, even though she married a drunk, the peptic ulcer that plagued Miss Wiggin, the fact that she didn’t like Mrs. Potter… The story went on, the detail caused gasps of delight, and a round of applause at the end.

“I imagine Beatrix had a series of chaperones, and I think Wiggin probably liked being close to success,” said Matyelok Gibbs. “I think she probably admired Beatrix and I think they had a good relationship, although they would never dare admit it.

“To an extent there is a stock figure of the unmarried spinster. They’ve either had to look after their parents, or they’ve had other problems. I’ve tried not to make her funny—although I think she is quite funny, but she’s also quite tragic.”

Matyelok Gibbs has a stern appearance that utterly belies the charm and generosity of the woman. She tells of the producer who scoured Spotlight and told her she was the grimmest looking person in it. And he hired her for the job.

Matyelok Gibbs has spent a lifetime stealing scenes from people with far bigger roles than hers: like all great actors, she has mastered the look, the stillness that draws the eye far more than the flamboyant.

Gibbs – her first name Matyelok comes from her Russian mother – recalled being entranced by Beatrix Potter from a young age. “I had all the books in a pale pink bookcase. My parents always told me to look at the backgrounds of the illustrations because, part from the brilliance of the animals, there was the detail in the background.”

Lloyd Owen plays William Heelis
Born in London in 1966, Lloyd Owen turned 40 the week he arrived in the Lake District to play William Heelis in MISS POTTER. He was delighted to be offered the role of William Heelis in MISS POTTER, and researched the role with a trip to the Lake District. He had a round of meetings with many people who remembered Heelis, including a man now in his 90s who was Heelis’ clerk as a young man before the Second World War. Regaled with stories about the man, Owen was well armed when he arrived in the Lake District to play the part. “It’s a good character, wonderfully written, and if you have confidence in the director, you are halfway there. Then you can relax as an actor.”