Tuesday, April 03, 2007 Renee Zellweger delivers Golden Globe-worthy performance in ‘Miss Potter’
THE charming assistant Dorothy Boyd in “Jerry Maguire”. A thirty-something single woman in “Bridget Jones’ Diary”. Big city dreamer Roxie Hart in “Chicago”. High-spirited farm girl Ruby Thewes in “Cold Mountain”. These are just some of the names the Oscar-winning actress Renée Zellweger has tackled. This time, she becomes Beatrix Potter, real-life children’s writer and illustrator in the new movie “Miss Potter”. Renée’s challenging portrayal of the renowned artist who delighted generations of children with her books but kept her own private life locked carefully away even earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
“Miss Potter” 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 (Ewan McGregor). Their relationship and his marriage proposal in July 1905 was to change Beatrix's life forever.
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 neighbors. 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.
“Miss Potter” is helmed by acclaimed director Chris Noonan, the man who turned a pig into a megastar when he wrote and directed Babe. Richard Maltby Jr., Tony award-winning writer of musicals, penned the screenplay. “I found it quite fascinating that a woman artist with such a rich fantasy life should give up writing,” says Maltby.
He 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.
“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.”
Zellweger embarked on a voyage of discovery when she accepted the invitation to play 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. “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.”
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. “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,” says the director.
“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’,” says Ewan. Aside from Renée and Ewan, the film also includes two-time Oscar nominee Emily Watson plays Millie Warne, sister of Norman, friend and confidante of Beatrix.
“Miss Potter” tells of the author’s endeavors 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.
Celebrate the life of the beloved author, as well as her struggle for love, happiness and success by watching “Miss Potter”. It opens on April 7 in your favorite theaters. From Viva International Pictures. (Press release)
