Original subtitles

If I was putting a personal ad such as the newspapers carry from time to time in the

hope of meeting somebody I would say something like unfortunately lonely actor

writer seeks kindred spirits whose interests include the tactical use of the

longbow in the hundred years war. It is always best to come in from right or left

field or behind whatever not do what is expected simply to survive and also to

preserve interest in oneself and what one's addressing but what makes me the happiest

in whatever function I'm trying to perform at the time it's very difficult to say of

course it depends for us acting because it depends very much on the part the

writer all the concomitant things that make for a good film or a bad film because I've

given up theater I don't do theater anymore. On the other hand I was immensely happy my

really my last sort of major effort on the stage was in Paris in 1999 2000 playing Churchill

in French to an audience of 3750 per night month after month and that was one of four.

I think the reason that I was very happy to accept the kind of at a play Albert was because

I'd always been interested in him the whole story of this stranger in a foreign land

progressively isolated really disliked finding his wife temperamental but being mad about her

all that added up into somebody who eventually did a very great deal of good for this country

and was highly regarded and after his untimely death was was very much mourned by people who

cared about the position of this country at that time of empire in the world the position

occupied now by America is very interesting to look back at that. Great Britain cannot

support a nation whose principal reason for existence is the defense of slavery that is

the opinion of Her Majesty and of myself and I believe of the majority of your people

sir and if I may use your words they shall become the opinion of my government. He was

islanded he was isolated and I wanted to get that across and that it really was a tremendous

battle for him to gain the position which he achieved in the end vis-à-vis the English nation

and vis-à-vis more importantly because it all stems from that with his wife Victoria who was a

damn difficult lady. You're busy early signing letters come and help. You can block them.

There I knew you could help. Bring chair.

Now with you and Stokmer I have two secretaries. Albert was I think from his background

rather more sentimental gentle controlled and had to be in the face of the volatile

lady who was Queen and his wife. Oh dear you know it has ever spoken to me like that.

David it's time someone eat. You forget yourself. You think you are? Prince and your husband to

make a prince of teddy because of the wood. You have nothing and they were right actually

will never have managed you. Then why did you? We both have been made off. And although he did

fight her when he thought she went too far in this or that direction I think he managed to achieve

a gentleness. You understand politics so much better than I do and I headed all worked out and

I'm putting it so badly. Just in me. Whether that was drawn out of me or something that I reached

for and invented is a difficult question for me to answer. I thought we could work together.

Are you pleased? It's always people who are outside who judge one much more accurately

than one judges oneself perhaps. When I was demobilized I went instead of going to an acting school

because I'm really a complete amateur. I've never been instructed in how to act

and I had a place at Oxford. I'd already been there for a bit and came back and I acted and

failed to be academic as much as I should have been. You do not have to like your teachers.

Seers Lewis who I was fortunate enough to have as my English tutor at Oxford and Jaya are talking

who is my tutor at the same time. This is in the war before I went and served.

He taught Anglo-Saxon and of course they both taught me a great deal. I enormously enjoyed

being with Lewis. It was either one or two of us together with him so it was highly focused

and very argumentative. I remember an occasion when he said of false staff in Henry IV part one,

you have to admit that false staff had an element of courage in him because he says in direct

conversation with the audience. I've led my ragamuff in his recruited,

terrible specimens of humanity that he took to the Battle of Shrewsbury. I've led my ragamuff

in where they were peppered. There's not two of my 150 left alive and I said to him, don't you think

Mr Lewis that false staff is actually deceiving the audience just as much as he deceives the

people around him in the play and he said that's a very interesting possibility. I must consider

that we got on terribly well and he expected great things of me and one of the great disappointments,

perhaps the largest disappointment of my life is that he expected me to get a first degree

and I didn't because all the time I was acting I had a facility for turning up good essays

and he took that camouflage I'm afraid for the real thing and was disappointed when I did not

get a first. What else do I do well? You sketch well, you seem quite good but we'll get better

and you play the piano without too many on notes. What do I do well?

Everything. Oh no, there must be something. You're not very good in company, you have a lovely

smile you should smile more. To everyone? Then I should have to stand in the middle of the floor

How would I describe myself in an advert in the personal college? It would depend what I was aiming

at. If I was aiming for employment as an actor I would say once famous excellent actor seeks

employment in baron time. If I was aiming for a job in government or in the secret service I would say

immensely skilled and subtle actor who requests a chance to put into demanding practice

his gifts of impersonation. What else did he have to talk about?

I'm the christianist. Will you please convey to her majesty that there has been great

which I see at the bar of the bar. He'll hear me, hear me, exactly. In working particularly on Prince

Albert I felt an enormous attachment to him. I really loved him or what I thought he was.

Indeed one of my sort of half asleep wishes is that when I die I may run into some of these people

and the spirit of Prince Albert may well kick me around the celestial grounds for

producing what he really was.

The first thing I tackled was the German knowing that I had to get an accent.

I rang up a friend of mine who knows everybody and does everything and said you haven't

by her when a chance got her sex cobra got up your sleeve have you? And she said oh god no no

no wait a minute there's somebody arriving to stay with us this afternoon we're going to meet

them at Paddington. Our ring you and she rang me later and said the most divine boy has turned up

and I've already said would you tutor this actor and he's agreed to do it

and we started to work and he recorded speeches from the text and I tried to copy it and

when he said to me days and days of work in when he said to me wait is that you or was that me?

I thought okay you're off the hook mate you can go I've done it and it was a pretty accurate

accent I think. I think but then you can deceive yourself in these matters because

when I was doing Churchill for the first time that was 1979-80

the director said you must see the rushes whenever you want to and I said I'm absolutely

done if I don't keep what I think I'm getting of Churchill in my head if I see it and it's wrong

I shall be total disaster it'll be I shall be in defeat and eventually after about a month he

said I want you to come and see the rushes and he disassembled quite a lot you know kind of a

nah's worth so I said all right I'll come if you put a bottle of whiskey on the seat beside me

which he did and I went with the only confidence I had in my head was that I'd got the voice right

because I'd listened to hours over months of endless recordings of Churchill I watched the rushes

was slightly reassured by the performance but I hadn't got Churchill's voice at all

you don't want that here that is that this an advocate is accounting for him if he learns to

slide the beads he can teach himself to add and subtract but he loves his horse this is much

better for him oh I think one of the problems about

the judgment of Albert as a person as a power and as a father is his situation as a father

he was idealistic particularly about the son who was going to succeed the queen

poor Edward had a rough time all I want is to please you but at university all my life it's like

being in a prison if only I could do something useful if I had some aim in life such as I begged

you to let me join the army and I've said no repeatedly I'm giving you my reasons you are

incapable of thinking of anything but your own selfish desires he will be sent back to Cambridge

under his school no anti-eschots I think that the queen perhaps was even rougher with him than

his father but his father was preoccupied and as his health began to weaken I think the gap between

the boy and the father became almost unbridgeable but it's not only it's not the most extraordinary

situation that ever happened fathers and sons who really agree and understand each other are

fairly few and far between compared with the number of fathers and sons who misconceive each

other we must apply to the most eminent men in the country and get them to draw up a system of

education the boy must be kept apart from other children except for the family his character must

be molded and his mind developed morally and intellectually you must not indulge him

you strip discipline from the beginning your son must become a man of profound and comprehensive

understanding I think that Albert Chide probably too hard probably too Germanically German education

at the time was was a severe English education was severe than it is now but which wouldn't be hard

but there was a kind of laid back among the various doctors here and there were there was a kind of

laid back feeling and a great deal of sport and this that now and I think Edward found it very very

difficult I think his attention span was I think he'd have loved television today I can hardly

believe you soon be home this has been a very long time and through many excitements we must make

sure he doesn't expect him to become a habit everybody complains that children now don't have

the attention span this is dictated by television you're not expected to attend to any concentrate

on any one object or thought nowadays it's impressionism in the days when I did Prince Albert for instance

it was the slow unfolding in front of the camera of a story I think the effect it is having particularly

on the young is appalling if we went to some degree back to the care and the longer shot and the

demand on the modern television audience to attend to a thought to a picture to a character to a

situation a little bit longer than they are ever given a chance to see nowadays then I think it might

help the children especially to get back to being able to concentrate good God knows as a child you

and finds a difficult to concentrate on anything anyway and what television chucks at the young I

I think compounds that felony if one is thoroughly engaged with whatever branch of one's life

one is addicted to then it's it is wonderful and joyous it it leavens the long periods of

dullness which and labor which I'm I'm pretty naturally lazy by incarnation but luckily I have a

certain amount of energy which I can apply in various directions I do like writing I don't ever get

frightened by the blank page when I say that I'm extremely lazy what stops me as a writer

is that I won't sit down in front of the bank page I think of a thousand excuses not to sit down

but I know that writers real writers prop up professional writers do get sometimes blanks when

confronted with the page I don't I just write rubbish and it's on it goes what are you going to do

work for a little oh no you look so tired it's my fault I know I depend on you too much

if you are a team sight sign joy the work when something interests me I must see it through to the

end if something interests me I'm like a terrier dog and get my teeth into it and

worry it some would say to death and I've got my teeth into this whole business of medieval warfare

from the point of view of war archery and the use of the long bow like most things that work

properly it has a certain simplicity to it and like most things that work perfectly for the purpose

they were designed for it has an extraordinary beauty the sheer strength of the english long

bow during the period of the hundred years war

was far greater than anybody realized which meant that the men who used it and they numbered

thousands they can't all have been as good as each other but the the main body of the archers

were stronger than almost anybody existing in this country today partly this is due to their

rural background and the extremely tough physical life that they led partly I think the metabolic

efficiency of medieval man from a rural background and it is my belief that he was able to convert

what food he took in what liquid he took in and he took in a great deal of wicked liquid there

are a lance of wine and beer while waiting on the boats to go to France for an invasion for instance

was simply enormous and the way they behaved with captured French or Spanish wine or whatever they

were was one has to say reprehensible they had to practice they had to have practiced from an

early age and of course they sprang from a race who were accustomed to the bow and arrow as their

weapon of the hunt I'm sometimes asked or indeed accused of being obsessive and I think the simple

answer to that is true I plead guilty depending on the character one is approaching if one's talking

about real characters that actually exist in it is probably something which you want

to be taken hold of by I felt at times close to Prince Albert I felt at times close to Churchill

and my family would tell you that it's awful the way I brought the characters home but my

explanation to them was when they said oh it's not daddy it's mr. Churchill come home for Christmas

I apologize and said I'm terribly sorry but I'm terrified of losing what I've got I simply I'm

terrified and indeed when I went back after Christmas we shot a scene at Chartreaux in the hall

and the director said let's just take a wee walk and we walked in the snow and he said

where is mr. Churchill gone over Christmas playing Siegfried's an interesting one because

although it's a fictional character it was based on a real man and although when we were engaged

all of us to play the various parts in all creatures great and small the order went out from the

producer that none of us was to meet our real people that was a good to me and I went straight

for my car shot up to Yorkshire and met the real man and everything that I did was based on my

observation of him so in fact that's one of the rare occasions when I've played well when I have

played a man actually living which he hated he loathed what I did because he was a genuine

eccentric he's last dead now and we became great friends but he forgave me his loathing of what I

did and he being as I said genuine eccentric was completely unaware of his eccentricity so he

didn't recognize and thought this is awful and was aided and abetted by his wife whom I also

don't but she couldn't bear what I did she liked me but she couldn't bear what I did

trying to recreate a character of somebody who's actually lived one is of course guided by

everything that you can amass about him in terms of recorded history intuition then comes in and

pops you in certain directions it's important to me to find out or to feel sure about how somebody

walked how they sat how they used their hands if you're for instance in Prince Albert trying to

exhibit the decline in health what are you doing you have to know exactly where you are

what you are going to do before if it's the wrong way around and what you have done after

which has already been shot supposing that happens and of course it does

a great deal depends on the director because you must be able to say am I getting this right

am I now too far down the slope of ill health am I getting to or or too angry or to whatever it may

be that concerns the character at that time in the story and the director if he's halfway good

will will steer you I'm so cold and so with a holly holly pen I shouldn't have left you come come

with me you must go to bed if you're in here all night head to be done yes yes

we couldn't send an ultimatum they couldn't understand that no no of course they couldn't come

and of course it also depends on the degree to which you have

created the whole story of this character before ever you come to shoot a scene of it

you have to be sure about the scope and shape of what you're going to do

so that you know where you're directed to go in oh my god are we going to do that see that's

where I have to cry

Albert as a father was um part is an he absolutely adored Vicki

this is not a subject about which I find it easy to talk but I must know if you're really

happy and when Vicki went off to Prussia to marry the crown prince there was a scene which is

in the film script in the carriage going to Southampton I suppose when Albert

practically can't speak he's so miserable that she's going do not forget us

I'm not offered them straight in nature therefore you can hardly know

how dear you have been to me he had the closest thing to a true companion I have ever had

oh my god

that was a marvelous scene to play because it was so understandable the idea that she was

quitting and maybe forever because traveling abroad in those days was a more dangerous affair

going by sea itself it's more dangerous now and humanity was mankind was was more

prone to believe that farewells were the final farewell

God help us when I come to say my final farewell if I mean any condition to say or feel anything at

all I know that I shall feel so much still to do so little time to do it there's one one

one dies incomplete I believe almost everybody

what are you hiding a letter to Vicki papa to tell her you are getting better

don't lie to her tell her I am dying no papa I'm the only one who seems to know it

and there's so much still to do there is no so we should whom one of my father's favorite stories

was the two worlds been coming up to London for the first time and seeing suddenly one of them

saw the Albert Memorial and said to his companion and what is that I shouldn't wonder and the other

one said I don't know but I hope not and my father loved that

do you see long time since we have talked together yes but in fact I don't know when we have talked

a strange that father and son should know so little of each other

perhaps in the past I've given you cause to resent me I have not meant to everything I've done is

because I love you and because I wanted you to have every advantage every possibility of success in life

perhaps I forgot that you all so need a defection

we must try to be closer in the future the past is past

what one person would I elect to meet time machine or wherever we congregate hereafter

I would on the home go for Henry the fifth his hardest to understand his life was cut short by

a disease caught on campaign he was a very strange mixture of the spiritual the religious

the man of action the man of decision and unquestionably a leader of men of extraordinary

charisma so he is a to a large extent an enigma to me and I'd like to say now look here sir

tell me I'm gonna give you an interview tell me about yourself

without comprehension of the past we have no map for the present and no understanding of what may

occur in the future

you