Stephen Frears: “Women are more interesting than men”

In the few interviews he gave, he usually man of few wordsbut at the press conference the British film director is relaxed, chatting friendly about the city and joking that the UK doesn’t have these temperatures.

The director of films such as ‘Irish Coffee’ or ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ makes a special visit to the capital of Andalusia on the occasion of the second edition of the Hay Festival Forum in Seville. The event, which runs from March 14 to 17, brings together writers, journalists and film directors to talk about literature, architecture, the environment and other topics.

With with elegant ‘British’ manners and a perspective very compatible with his fellow countrymen. Visiting Seville these days on the eve of Holy Week, Frears reflects on his almost 60-year career and the scripts he has loved in a filmography full of awards but not Hollywood statuettes.

The director is Queen Elizabeth II in European cinema. She is responsible for some of the most important films featuring female protagonists such as Elizabeth or Florence Foster Jenkins.women are more interesting than men“.”I’ve always had experience with very strong women, from my mother, to the women I lived with and married, and now my daughter,” she explains.

Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Glenn Close and now Kate Winslet have worked with her. The director states that for him, making a movie is about having a conversation: “I talk to them, I don’t make them do anything. I let them do this and record long conversationsAlthough he noted that “Helen (Mirren) said the other day that she was afraid to play the queen,” having him direct “calmed her down.”

Frears was one of the people He explained the history of the United Kingdom in the best wayFrom ‘Victoria and Abdul’, one of his last films, to ‘My Fine Laundry’, about a gay relationship in Magaret Thatcher’s London. She now regrets how “complicated” life is in her country because of the “stupid” Brexit. “The Labor Party doesn’t want to talk about it but it was pure stupidity,” he comments, and assures that he would “never” do so because there are people going through “deadly” times. She warns, of course, that “a change is coming and things will get better” in England.

From ‘Queen’ to ‘Kategate’

Frears many times declared anti-monarchistAlthough one of his best-known works is II. Although ‘The Queen’ is Isabel’s portrait of how she deals with Lady Di’s death.

The artist admits that the queen is “an extraordinary woman” and “like a mother” to the British, but this Monarchical institution is “stupidity”. The director also laughs off the crown news and jokes that since he doesn’t have Twitter, he’s unaware of everything going on around the Kate Middleton figure.

The royal family’s latest row could have been turned into a movie, but the octogenarian director did not sign the script. Frear did not write the scripts of any of his works. “It’s always fascinated me that screenwriters can write what’s inside my head without me knowing it’s inside me,” he reflects. He also states that he only works with “great writers” and that he is sometimes successful and sometimes “unsuccessful” with them.

The British accept this I would “never” try to write a movie because that would be like “insulting the brilliant writers” he works with. “I can’t do what Almodóvar did,” he insists, explaining that he has always been dependent on others. Frears goes further to emphasize that he is “probably the opposite of a writer”, although he laughs and admits that this may have worked out in his favor many times.

Frears doesn’t talk about things he doesn’t know or isn’t interested in. I didn’t watch ‘Barbie’ Oscar was left vacantand thinks Marvel movies aren’t cinema. Today’s movies are not the movies of your childhood, when feature films were made in a “finished” way. Frears remembers going to the cinema to watch movies that told about life, had ordinary stories, and had interesting characters and actors, but he was sad that some things had changed. “First American films were destroyed, and now European films are being destroyed,” he notes, but quickly clarifies that these are just “an old man’s” ideas.