[ad_1]
Cross-country communication
Released in cinemas on 28 April and based on the best-selling novel of the same name, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry stars Jim as the 60-something Harold, with Dame Penelope as his wife Maureen. The emotional drama follows Harold as he walks the length of England to visit a friend who’s dying of cancer, while keeping in touch with wife Maureen along the way.
“There are a lot of phone calls in the film – both that he makes to me and that I make to him,” explains Dame Penelope, “but they weren’t the easiest things to do. Jim was in a portable phone box which was taken across the country for filming, and I used to be alerted when they were ready to shoot our phone call scenes. I knew which day we were filming but not the time, so I’d get a call to ‘stand by’! But I was just at home, so I would have to get myself sorted and into ‘Maureen mode’, as it were.
“I had learned the lines but kept the script nearby just in case!” Dame Penelope laughs.
These phone calls offer both characters a means of connection during lonely or difficult times, and often highlight the complexity of Harold and Maureen’s marriage. “I think Harold sort of misjudged the effect his walk was having on Maureen,” Jim reveals. “He thought she’d be quite glad to have him out of the way, and he didn’t empathise about what he was doing.”
“She was furious with him,” Dame Penelope continues. “Maureen was stuck at home behind those four walls, and felt even more separated from Harold. He was having a life, and she wasn’t having a life. So, the phone calls play an enormous part in their relationship.”
[ad_2]
Source_link