The Divas of EVENING

IndulgeMagazine.com takes you behind the scenes for a tête-à-tête with the stellar cast of EVENING based on the novel by Susan Minot and adapted by Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Cunningham. 

It's safe to say that when one considers the sheer talent in this single feature, the expectations can be staggering.  Told in split time, the film takes us to a summer weekend some fifty years ago when Anne Grant (Vanessa Redgrave/Claire Danes) attends the wedding of her college friend Lila Wittenborn (Mamie Gummer/Meryl Streep) and discovers the feelings they share for Harris Arden (Patrick Wilson), an intimate family friend.

"Both the novel and the script are fantastic" says Danes, who plays the younger Anne Grant.  "I took advantage of having the novel, as a rich resource.  But the adaptation reinterprets it wonderfully for the film medium.  It has its own freshness and urgency.  I feel that the film considers the question, 'What makes a life?' We are all human and searching throughout our lives."

Danes and Redgrave met up during rehearsals where, Danes laughs, "With a legend like Vanessa, I talked about nearly everything but how to approach playing the same character!  We decided that, while Vanessa's Ann is not really 'herself'' anyway in her scenes, it wasn't necessary to be too similar.  But we did talk about ways to create some consistency.  Vanessa listened closely to me speak, and to a taped interview I had done with a dialect coach, because, being English and playing an American, she thought it would be best".

Redgrave's older daughter, Natasha Richardson plays her older daughter Ann.  While they had appeared together in The White Countess two years earlier, Evening afforded them a chance to play opposite each other as mother and daughter for the first time on-screen.  "My mother and I told Lajos (Director), 'This is the only time we'll ever get to play mother and daughter on film, and we want to take advantage of that', So Michael wrote a very beautiful scene into the script just for us.  It was a joy to be in a story with this subject matter, where we could utilize so much of our own relationship and our own history."

Producer Jeffrey Sharp recalls Mamie Gummer's startling audition.  "Mamie had blown us all away in one audition, and then again in another that we scheduled because she was so great the first time.  Lajos immediately wanted her to play Lila Wittenborn; it was only afterwards that we told him that Mamie is related to an actress named Meryl Streep."

"Lila comes from blue-blood privilege but feels trapped by it," says Gummer. "She would give it all up in a heartbeat if the man she is truly in love with, which is not the man she's set to marry, would have her.  I was drawn to her sadness, and to the story's exploration of the conflict between love and societal compromise, which is as old as time."

Credit for Meryl Streep appearing as the older Lila belongs to costume designer Ann Roth and makeup designer J. Roy Helland, both of whom have worked with Meryl for ages.  Ann gave the script to Roy who was in Central Park rehearsing Mother Courage with Streep.  He left a copy on her dressing-room table and when she read the script, she loved it and thought 'it would be fun to be in the movie.'  Mamie was really happy that she could help her mother find a job.

Danes adds, "Mamie and I were able to watch dailies of a scene that Meryl and Vanessa have together, so that we could echo in a parallel scene we have together.  We were thrilled watching it, but also thought, "We're supposed to match that!?" 

EVENING: A Focus Features Release.  Rated PG-13 Starring Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Natasha Richardson, Mamie Gummer, Eileen Atkins, Meryl Streep, Glen Close.