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Despite the posh accent and chilly British air she has lent to films like “The English Patient” and “Gosford Park,” actress Kristin Scott Thomas has called Paris her home since she moved there at 19. So one might be tempted to credit homesickness with luring her to the thoroughly English dark comedy “Keeping Mum,” opening in New York today. “I loved the kind of perfect English thing going wrong,” explains Scott Thomas of the story, filmed in Cornwall, the actress’ birthplace (“my roots came out furiously”). “That amuses me….The sort of flip side of the picture postcard, that’s what I enjoyed.”
The actress stars as Gloria, the wife of a vicar (Rowan Atkinson) and mother of two teenage children, whose family life is disintegrating. Her son is the victim of school bullies, her daughter is a raging nymphomaniac and her husband has lost both his sense of humor and his libido. Gloria turns to her golf instructor (played to perfection by Patrick Swayze) for sexual fulfillment until, suddenly, a kindly housekeeper (Maggie Smith) enters their life, turning their family around like a twisted Mary Poppins, but bringing with her some dark secrets of her own.
With its tongue-in-cheek tone and, at times, morbidly slapstick scenarios, “Keeping Mum” is a contrast to the period and melancholy roles to which Scott Thomas stereotypically has been attached.
“If I were to walk into a room full of strangers, some of them might think, ‘Oh she’s very icy or she’s very frosty,’ because that’s the sort of received opinion about myself,” she says. “That creates quite a lot of hard work, having to charm people the whole time to convince them otherwise.”
So she has given up on such pointless endeavors. And it was screenwriter Richard Russo’s realistic take on Gloria’s feelings on aging and motherhood that attracted Scott Thomas to the part rather than any need to diversify her professional image.
“I loved the fact that she could be an angry mother. I loved the idea of a poor woman who’s at her wit’s end, doesn’t know what to do with her teenagers and is just angry the whole time. I see a lot of women like that,” she laughs. “They’re sort of cross: What happened to my youth?”
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Though the actress and mother of three does not consider herself a member of such company (“I happen to be rather keen on my children”), she can certainly identify with the professional pressures of being a non-twentysomething woman, having turned 46 in May.
“It’s unbelievable how quickly the door is closed,” she remarks. “And that is very particular to America. Because in the rest of Europe, anyway, we recognize age as being experience and being something of use. Whereas, I get a feeling, as far as the roles that come my way, that I’ve become totally useless in America, as far as filmmaking is concerned.”
That is clearly an overstatement, since she has just finished Paul Schrader’s “The Walker” opposite Woody Harrelson and Lauren Bacall and will soon start shooting “The Other Boleyn Girl,” playing Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson’s mother. But the combination of her Euro-centered family and a frustration with film role offers has pushed her preferences to theater. Last year, she received raves for her performance in Pirandello’s “As You Desire Me” in London and, come January, she will return there for “The Seagull.” And the response she receives to her stage work only increases her sense of fulfillment.
“If I’m going to a screening and there are fans, they seem to be absolutely terrified of you as a film actress. They’ll come up and they’ll shake, some a bit teary,” says Scott Thomas. “When you come out of a theater and there are people waiting for you, it’s a completely different experience because people have seen you as a human being in normal size. And they’ve seen you sweating and they’ve seen you trip over your dress and breathing in real life. They’re completely relaxed. It’s great.”