KST on NBC Today
Transcribed by Pen McKissick
KATIE COURIC, co-host: It was in the hit movie Four Weddings and a Funeral that Kristin Scott Thomas got the attention of American moviegoers. She played the sharp-tongued young woman named Fiona.
[Four Weddings and a Funeral clip]
KC: More recently, she spied with Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible.
[Mission Impossible clip]
KC: Now she stars in the highly acclaimed film The English Patient. Set in North Africa and Italy before and during World War II, she plays an aristocratic wife who falls in love with another man, played by Ralph Fiennes.
[The English Patient clip]
KC: Kristin Scott Thomas, good morning.
KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS: Good morning.
KC: Thanks so much for coming in. We appreciate it. I understand that Katherine Clifton is a role you were desperate to play.
KST: Yeah, I think "desperate" is the right word. I'd never come across someone as sunny and open and positive and gloriously self-confident as she was. And I just wanted to be her, even if it was only for three months.
KC: And yet at the same time, I know that you loved the book...
KST: Mm-hm, mm-hm.
KC: ...The English Patient, and that you were a little concerned about how they would translate not only the story, but her character onto the screen.
KST: Well, absolutely. I mean, I'd read this novel a few years ago when I was making another film, and I'd completely fallen head over heals with the book. And in fact, so much so that when I got to the end of it, I couldn't bear it, and I had to go back to the beginning and start it again. So I was absolutely thrilled to know that they were going to make it into a film. But I couldn't really see what I could be doing in it because I hadn't really - it hadn't occurred to me that Katherine could be a character. Because when you read the book, you see her more - she sort of a ghost, a sort of dream, this woman, very distant. And then when I read the screenplay and saw her actually there and in flesh and blood, and in the room with you, that's when I knew I could play that part.
KC: But the studio initially didn't want you, is that right?
KST: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it seems quite normal, really, that they shouldn't want me. I mean, I'm completely an unknown English actress. Well, I'm not completely unknown, but I mean bit parts. You know, not ready to take on a leading role in a...
KC: You have never really carried a movie like this?
KST: No, no.
KC: So how did you convince them that you were right?
KST: Well, I didn't. I didn't. It was all Anthony and Saul - Saul Zaentz, the producer. And I think Ralph helped a lot, too. They just insisted. And in fact, they lost the company, they lost the studio, and Miramax had to come in at the last minute and save us.
KC: This is a very intense love story...
KST: Mm-hmm.
KC: ...between your character and Ralph Fiennes' character. Tell me about working with him and - and was there as much chemistry as it appeared?
KST: We got on very well. I mean, it was great working with him. He's a brilliant, brilliant actor. And we both knew what we wanted to do with this film. We both knew how our characters were going to be. And it was just - it was a joy working with him.
KC: Tell me a little about her, though. I mean, I envy a woman who exudes that much self-confidence, who has...
KST: Oh, so do I!
KC: ...who has men in the palm of her hand, without any effort at all.
KST: Mm, mm, mm. I think, also, it's something to do with the time. This is a very interesting period for women, the 1930s. She was someone who had great advantage in life; she'd been to University, she had a fantastic education, she's very well read. And at the same time, she had this wonderful distance that men had from women and that women had from men. And she really exploits that and uses their - their sort of innocence as far as women are concerned to the hilt. And she can really twist them.
KC: When you making this movie, Kristin, did you realize or did you have any notion that it would be so lauded and so praised?
KST: Well . . .
KC: Really all across the world, it's been amazing the response to this film.
KST: Yeah. You know it doesn't surprise me, because I think it's just a beautiful film. Bit it is very reassuring, I think, that people are appreciating it in the way that - well, I appreciate the film. And the thing that is totally thrilling is that this film is the one that we all thought we were making and that we all wanted to make, and it's even better than the one we wanted to make and the one we thought we were making. And there have been no compromises or anything. I mean, it really is a work which comes from the heart of all those that were involved in making it.
KC: It's nice in a country like the United States where Beavis and Butthead is number one at the box office on certain weeks that a movie like The English Patient, that is so beautifully crafted and beautifully written can do so well.
KST: Yeah.
KC: What do you think this will mean professionally for you, being in this movie and having it as successful as it has been so far?
KST: Well, it's been very - it's obviously, it's very positive for me. I'm getting all sorts of people far more interested in me than they were before, which is thrilling, thrilling. But I'm taking things very slowly, because I want to be very careful about what I do next.
KC: You're wonderful in the movie.
KST:: Thank you very much.
KC: It is, of course, The English Patient. Kristin Scott Thomas, so nice to meet you. Thank you, again, for coming in.
KST: Thank you.
KC: And we'll be back in a moment. This is TODAY on NBC.
[commercial break]
KC: So you've yet to see The English Patient?
Matt Lauer, co-host: I've heard so much about this. I think, maybe, this weekend is the weekend.
KC: It's a really good movie. You should go see it. And she is so captivating in it...
