Eleri Siôn: We loved him as the Sheriff of Nottingham and as a Severus Snape, but now actor Alan Rickman is both in front of and behind the cameras for a brand new film about one of the world’s most unique gardens, the Rockwork Grove in the Palace of Versailles. The film is called A Little Chaos, and tells the tale of two landscape gardeners who unite to bring King Louis XIV’s request to life. And Alan is with me now. Now then, let’s just confirm this, Alan Rickman, not Alan Titchmarsh. Good afternoon to you.
Alan Rickman: Good afternoon, a million miles away from the Titchmarsh.
ES: Do you have any green fingers?
AR: What’s the opposite of green fingers in gardens?
ES: I have no idea. You’re like me then, are you?
AR: I like looking at them.
ES: Oh, good. Well, listen, let’s talk about this particular garden, which is the main character in your new film. Which came first, Alan, the offer of a part in this or the offer to direct it?
AR: Well, as it turns out, really, it was just the script arrived and then I read it and when I was free to do it, absolutely to direct. And then, of course, you realise that you’re working with people who are counting the pennies and that’s when the arm goes up behind the back from them and you find yourself acting in it as well because it makes it easier to make the sums join up.
ES: Right, okay. So, for budgetary reasons, you act and you direct?
AR: Yes, it should almost be on the poster. For budgetary reasons, Alan Rickman.
ES: You’ve only directed one film, Alan, and that was 18 years ago. So, why did this script or story speak to you so much?
AR: Well, it’s spoken to me because of the originality of the writing and just the extraordinary nature of the story because it’s mostly a complete invention by Alison Deegan. We all know the bits of it that are true about Versailles, there are gardens, the central garden in the film does exist, you can go and visit it at Versailles. La Notre did design the gardens of Versailles and that’s when it all stops being true because he would have been 70 at the time of this story and given that Alison’s fashioned a love story, it was advisable of her to take 35 years off his age so that he can then have an ongoing love story with Kate Winslet’s character who’s playing a woman landscape gardener, i.e. somebody who couldn’t possibly have existed.
ES: Well, exactly, because we were talking about this, what? A pioneer in gardening in 1682, so all that is fictional then.
AR: Completely.
ES: And it has invited, well, it’s a fresh perspective to the story and tell us a little bit about the love story then because at the beginning of the relationship they did have quite different visions.
AR: Yeah, I mean it’s called A Little Chaos, that could be Kate and being La Notre it could be a great deal of order, so it’s about that kind of the one can’t exist without the other, eventually he realises that so he hires her to design one of the fountains, the fountain in one of the gardens, but at the same time she has a kind of amnesia about her past and about her daughter’s death and he’s locked in a loveless marriage, so as the garden’s being built you watch the two of them kind of discovering who they are as individuals and then coming closer and closer together as a couple.
ES: Let’s talk about the gardens then. Have you been there? Did you need to go there in order to get inspiration? Because I presume you didn’t film at the gardens in Versailles?
AR: We didn’t, no, partly because Versailles at the time of the story was covered in scaffolding because we moved all the lords in before it was finished so we were never going to be able to do that and then again economics kicks in and then you discover that England’s actually got rather a lot of 17th century French interiors that we’ve nicked and brought over here and stuffed into other buildings or we shot at Blenheim Palace in the State Apartments which have never been seen on film before so pretty good matches.
ES: Yes indeed, so you didn’t go over there but tell us what you did.
AR: Yeah I absolutely went over there and indeed some of it made it into the film because when we were in the Hall of Mirrors we were being taken around by the resident Louis the 14th expert took us into his bedroom and I said what’s that gold fence for and he said I said is that to keep the tourists back he said no no no Louis used to have his big sleep and his little sleep and our big sleep might be until two in the morning and then 80 people would be watching him then he’d wake up and send 60 of them away so that 20 just stood there watching and when I say people I’m saying men i.e. people that might have been otherwise plotting against him.
ES: Of course indeed.
AR: So you know useful stuff was learned while being there oh and being told which we were never going to put in the film but 10,000 candles had to be lit every night.
ES: Is it true then come on then dispel this one is it true that the real gardens when he lived there that the fountains couldn’t all work at the very same time but King Louis never knew that? Yeah because you know fortunately he wasn’t driving a car around the gardens and he was walking and he wasn’t even doing that after he was 30 he was being wheeled so they yeah they were all desperately behind a bush or a fountain turning one on and the next one off. Gosh he’s not like you in real life is he?
AR: In what way turning fountains on and off?
ES: I don’t know. The opulence and the way that we all love you here in Britain but let’s talk about Kate Winslet and you as well because you’ve come together again because it’s been quite a time since you first worked together or you last worked together because you were together in Sense and Sensibility. What was it like being back together?
AR: Well it’s wonderful to discover that you know somebody that you worked with when they were 19 hasn’t lost any of their sense of humour or their humanity or their work ethic so was a very very special experience as you can imagine.
ES: And you were talked into playing the part of King Louis XIV as you said. Was that a challenge acting and directing at the very same time?
AR: Fortunately I’m not in it too much and fortunately a good thing about Louis is that he doesn’t move anywhere you know he sits still or stands still so unfortunately I had a great DP in Ellen Curras and she would be looking down the lens and she’s a great speaker of the truth so you’d get you’d get the gentle sense that maybe you should go again but you know I think when you a lot of my scenes in the film and there aren’t that many but are with Kate and you know you can tell when you’re just talking to each other.
ES: What was it like wearing the wigs?
AR: Thank god they didn’t weigh five kilos which which what they would have done then and thank god they come on and off very quickly.
ES: You didn’t sneak one home then?
AR: Now what would I do?
ES: Well I don’t know pretend to be king for the day in your garden.
AR: I don’t know.
ES: All right I’ll try it out. This as we said is your second time directing um so you’re not saying goodbye to acting are you?
AR: No no no no no. Okay I know where all of us as time goes on all of us just present a moving target I think.
ES: Right okay um are you a confident gardener after doing the film you know have you had any inspiration from these fantastic gardens in Versailles? Has it given you maybe I don’t know the spark to go out there?
AR: It’s given me the spark to hire somebody to do it.
ES: So you’ve got nothing have you just I don’t know patio slabs in the back garden? Can you tell us?
AR: We’ve got a really nice little courtyard garden it’s a sort of mini Versailles. You can imagine it like 20 foot square. It’s got a fountain.
ES: Oh you kept that.
AR: A very small one.
ES: Oh well as long as it keeps working not like the one that Louis XIV had. It’s been an absolute pleasure thank you so much for coming on the show and telling us all about A Little Chaos and it opens in cinemas this Friday.
AR: You all have to go because I’m half Welsh.
ES: Oh are you?
AR: Yeah.
ES: From where?
AR: Treforest.
ES: Really? There’s a university there now is that down to you as well?
AR: Good god no.
ES: Well come on the show again and talk about your Welsh heritage will you?
AR: All right.
ES: Well you kept that quiet didn’t you? They didn’t know that. Alan Rickman, half Welsh from Treforest.
Related articles:
- A Little Chaos (2014)
- The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show
- “I have to defend myself when I get labelled as a Snape,” Rickman says
- Director Alan Rickman talks up the virtues of A Little Chaos
- Alan Rickman – A working-class hero at the court of Versailles
- Giffoni Festival, 2014
- Q&A after A Little Chaos, Poland, November 16, 2014
