Premiere Online – January 2000

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Thurman Gets Edwardian

By Joan Dupont

Thurman and Nolte get bowled over.

On a canopied bed in a romantic Edwardian boudoir, UMA THURMAN is kissing NICK NOLTE. It is the actors’ first scene together, and they are warming to their task: The kiss starts out languid and doesn’t let up.
Director JAMES IVORY (Howards End), amused, takes his time before calling, “Cut.”

The movie is The Golden Bowl, the latest-and most torrid-Merchant Ivory production, and the third based on a Henry James novel. “We’ve always wanted to do one of his big novels in a lavish international setting,” Ivory says. “But the American-based ones [had always been] cheaper.” The Golden Bowl, which has a budget of $15 million, is being filmed largely at Syon House, the London residence of the Northumberlands since Elizabethan times. “But I think that people won’t talk only about the stately mansions in this film,” Ivory says. Today, despite the sedate turn-of-the-century decor, all is not tranquil at the castle. At 4 a.m., security guards intercepted a gang of intruders; planes from nearby Heathrow Airport whine overhead; and now, Ivory announces with a shudder, the 12th Duke of Northumberland, the lord of the manor, plans to drop by, “which may mean trouble.”

The film is about the weaving of dangerous liaisons, starting with Charlotte (Thurman) and her Italian lover, Prince Amerigo (JEREMY NORTHAM). When the prince, who turns out to be not so princely, marries American heiress Maggie (KATE BECKINSALE), Charlotte weds Maggie’s father, art collector Adam Verver (Nolte). The father-daughter pair have their own secret connivance; on hand to witness the double intrigue is Fanny, played by ANJELICA HUSTON. “At first she said no,” Ivory says. “Then we made the part bigger.” The story, he notes, is “very modern, but it wasn’t easy to get the actors to feel the modernness of it. Today, when you have an affair with somebody, you don’t use words like honor; we’ve grown too far away from that.”

Thurman was always Ivory’s choice for the “dashing, glamorous” Charlotte, although there was a time-while she was nursing her baby and then making Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown-when they weren’t sure their schedules would mesh. “She’s like a thoroughbred,” a delighted Ivory says. “She quivers.” She also goes barefoot on the set so that she doesn’t loom over her costars. “I’ve done many period pieces,” Thurman says between takes, “but finally I have something to sink my teeth into. Charlotte is outwardly polished and refined, but inwardly, she’s out of control-passionate and belligerent. She’s a very sensual character, and that will be an interesting exploration for me.”

“Charlotte’s dilemma is a common one,” Ivory says. “A brilliant, gifted woman falls in love with the wrong man. And we’ve all seen the closeness between father and daughter that makes for a monstrous couple. All this is in James, and for once, it has a happy ending.”