VENUS
An Interview with Screenwriter Hanif Kureishi
By Stacey Chapman

December 27, 2006

VENUS, starring international movie legends Peter O’Toole and Leslie Phillips, is about two elderly chaps who accept their downswing in life and reminisce about their wild pasts in their favorite café. Their mundane routine takes an unexpected turn when a rambunctious and troubled niece Venus, played by newcomer Jodie Whittaker, is shipped to stay with one of the men.

Academy Award nominated screenwriter Hanif Kureishi pens this frisky, heartwarming tale and shares with blackfilm.com his experiences of being associated with this Oscar-buzzed film.

Q Peter can be terrifying. Was he terrifying, terrifying or was he just terrifying because he was Peter?

Well he is a frightening man in the sense that you are frightened of him. He never did or said anything particularly frightening. In fact, he is a very intelligent man, a very witty man, a very experienced man, and a man who loves to tell stories.

Q Was there any sign of the “Hell Raiser” from the set at all?

No, but he fell over halfway through the shoot and broke his hip. We had the whole crew waiting 3 or 4 weeks so (Peter) can get out of bed again. It wasn’t because he was drinking; it was because he was frail. It was really a nightmare.

Q Can you talk about Peter’s comic timing?

He is a fantastic, experienced actor and Roger is the directors’ actor, I guess. Actors love to work with Roger. He is more interested in the actors than in the cameras, and he’s with the actors all the time.

Q There’s some pretty racy dialogue in the movie that older bodies might be taken aback by.

The older audiences love that stuff. I mean, we’ve been showing the movie here in New York and Los Angeles to all older audiences and they don’t want to be patronized. They swear, they’ve done bad things, they’re not children. I wanted to have fun with it. You know, you sit around with your mates in the café and everybody is swearing. That’s what I wanted to capture.

Q So many times in this country, our older actors are not treated with the respect that they deserve. The scripts are just not up to par.

I’ve always been served well by actors. I mean my first film had Daniel Day-Lewis and Shirley Anne Field. What I do is try to make a space for the actors. You write the script and you think if the actors are good in this, this will really work, and they really want to do it. The actors want to do it.

Q Roger Michell likes to work with actors, but you like to work with Michell. What is the rapport there?

I like Stephen Frears, Patricia Roe. (Directors) take you on. You have an idea and they go “What happens if you do that?” And you go, “Yeah, I would never have thought of that.” Most of the journey of Venus came from Roger. It’s the fact that you can do so much with someone else that you can’t do on your own.

Q It seems like a special rapport with Roger….

When you worked with someone, you can say stupid things all the time and have many bad ideas. You say, “Why don’t we do that?” And you go, “That’s a terrible idea. What about that?” and “What about that?” And finally, you find a little idea that is a good idea and you work from that.

Q How have your perceptions of London changed over the years?

London is now more or less completely multicultural. There are waves and waves of new immigrants in London. The neighborhood where I live, it’s now almost entirely Polish, for instance. All the food shops are Polish. The houses are Polish. The Romanians and the Bulgarians are on a “come up” in the city with the European Union. It’s constantly in motion.

Q What do you think about the Oscar buzz surrounding this film?

It would be great if Peter O’Toole wins an Oscar for this film and if Helen Mirren wins an Oscar for THE QUEEN. It would be fantastic for really good British acting, I mean that’s what we can do and we can’t all afford to make big movies, apart from JAMES BOND. On the whole, we can’t do that stuff. All we have are good actors talking to each other.

Q One of the things that you pioneered was addressing that multicultural issue in London. How do you feel about that now looking back with MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE and SAMMY AND ROSIE GET LAID?

It was MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE that was really the breakthrough which was a film we made quickly and cheaply, but it showed that you could make a film about a certain ethnic community and reach a big audience.

Q Are there any younger writers that you see you may have influenced or that you have a kinship with?

Zadie Smith and movies like BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, EAST IS EAST. They all came out, but I am not responsible for their talent. You open the door and you show that stuff can be successful.

Q How did Corrine Bailey Rae get involved?

Roger went on a long drive to Whales with his daughter and she said she wanted to get this record. So he bought it and played it and by the end of the journey he thought maybe this would fit into the film, because it’s a young woman’s music. It’s about Venus. I think it works very well because it gives you a lift. I love her music.

Q What are you working on now?

I’ve been writing a long novel for five years, called ‘Something to Tell You’. It’s about my life in London. It begins in the early 70’s with an Asian family coming from Uganda. It’s really about race, immigration and Muslims. It’s about sexuality. It’s a big box of a movie in a sense. It’s really everything that I have thought about.

Q Have you ever experienced writer’s block?

I had a lot of writer’s block before I had children. Once I had children, I had to rev up my writing because your day is limited, because you have to pick up kids from school. Secondly, you have to make money out of this game. So the writer’s block was forced to disappear because I have to produce stuff. I feel guilty sitting in the house all day and doing nothing. You know I have to pay for these kids to go to school. It really revved up the career I found.

Q When do you know you trust yourself?

I don’t ever think you are certain. You’re always fiddling around. It’s a nightmare. The whole process of writing is a nightmare. Try this, try that, try this and try that. It’s an endless process of doubt.

Q The name Venus is such a bold name to align to your film because Venus is the ideal. What was the implication in your mind with that name?

It started off as a joke because the working title was something like ‘Everything Is Forgotten Gradually’, and Roger said, “Look, this isn’t going to look good on the marquee” and I said, “Why not, it’s a fantastic title.” In my study, I have a picture of the Velasquez Venus and it suddenly occurred to me. Why don’t I write a movie called Venus the Demeanor? A demeanor in England is a bad rough girl, and it was a joke and Roger said, “That’s immature Hanif, even for you.” So the idea became VENUS and the
idea of that girl copying that picture.