00:00The Duchess Margaret had just died. I'd never heard of her. And the guy I was working with was
00:08flipping through the papers and said, oh, she's dead. I said, who? And he said, Margaret, the
00:14blowjob Duchess. Bam. 30 years after the divorce, she was still known by the Suvake, the dirty
00:22Duchess. She was still talked about the headless man and who that man was. And all I can remember
00:27thinking was, how in the hell did you get to be this person?
00:46Hi, I'm Boyd Hilton. Welcome to Sex, Lives and Photographs. Making a Very British Scandal
00:51from The Hollywood Reporter and Prime Video. I'm joined by Sarah Phelps, executive producer and
00:56writer. The director, Anna Sawicki. Production designer, Christina Moore. Costume design,
01:02Ian Fulcher. And hair and makeup, Catherine Scoble. This true story about a very public and of course,
01:08very British scandal required a particular focus on bringing the world of 60s Britain to life.
01:14Sarah, let me start with you. Is it fair to say your inspiration for this drama was the Duchess
01:20of Barguel particularly? And why do you admire her so much?
01:26I think it was the extremes of the photos, the extremes of her youth. And it just fascinated me
01:31who she was, what this woman's story was. How does the most photographed, the most stylish,
01:39this beautiful, incredibly wealthy, adored darling of the newspapers, of society and celebrity and
01:48aristocracy? How do you get to be this woman? I said, I want to write about Margaret of Argyle.
01:55I think Sarah is a force of nature and she's extraordinary. So when you read the scripts,
02:00you are reading something that reads like a novel in a way. It all flows into each other and
02:06it's not really like reading a script. She's an innate storyteller for whom that
02:11muscle. It just seems very easy for her, like it's second nature for her, but also understood
02:19that it would just be a dirge to watch these people tear each other apart.
02:32How important was it that those scenes and the whole thing was directed by a woman?
02:36I think it was really important that it was directed by this woman. I think Anne Sawicki is,
02:42she was phenomenal and you could sense her quality the moment you met her. She had such a clear vision
02:50of what she thought was going on in that relationship. We knew the story, we knew the plot,
02:56we knew the outcome, we knew the misogyny, but we didn't quite know what that relationship was.
03:03And that was what we were creating on set. Between these actors, we didn't know how cruel they would
03:10be to each other, how sexualized, how fun, how boring, all of those things, those details.
03:18It was really amazing for me to talk to a woman who was interested in elements of female sexuality
03:23and a woman who wanted to talk about that with me. She's very human. I think her approach to
03:27filmmaking is very, very real. She also loves actors. She really does. And how rare is that,
03:35actually, in a director? Christine, let me come to you. What were the main challenges for you
03:44in terms of production design in bringing this period world to life? Well, I guess the main
03:51challenges were we were able to use the real setting, which was fantastically thrilling for
03:56the production. But of course, having got that, that castle was the one that Margaret had already
04:01restored. So we then had to step back from that and try and find a way to show the story of the
04:07dilapidated castle and how it was restored. And for various practical reasons, we had to shoot that
04:14mostly around London. So it was really a challenge of finding locations that could convince architecturally,
04:22but also had the right atmosphere for the story. You didn't tell me it was so beautiful.
04:29It's a pile. It just needs love and attention.
04:38She's just neglected. Any of you, did you have creative freedom with the costumes or did you
04:44try and name for total accuracy? Well, obviously, because you've got the real people using them
04:50as a guideline, but I think with Margaret, our Margaret was more empowering, more sensual,
04:57more sinuous about who she was and how we wanted to project her. And actually with Ian, it was kind
05:03of interesting because when we're doing research, I realised that he wore the same cut of three-piece
05:08suits throughout from the 40s up until his death, actually in the 70s. And I love that as like an
05:14anchor of continuity for the script. When you're given the opportunity for your
05:19character to have an expression through putting on something that is expertly tailored by amazing
05:22costume design, like given the opportunity to be people who would have genuinely paid attention to
05:26what they put on in the morning. If you're dressed like an aristocrat, you don't have to do
05:30aristocrat acting because you're just taken care of. That's so true. Do you know what I mean? It's
05:35like, why do it twice? Then you can behave like a cruel animal and not be trying to sort of present
05:43because it's been done by you by a very clever tailor. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
05:48Catherine, what was the main for you? Was the authenticity the be-all and end-all when you're
05:53working out the character's looks? Well, the challenge for me was obviously we had to recreate
06:01real people. But I had to be mindful that we were going through a long, quite a long passage of time
06:10with Paul Bettany playing Ian. He starts off looking amazing when we see the meeting on the train and he's
06:18all sun-kissed and gorgeous and then obviously very quickly he starts to fall apart. And also I must
06:28mention that I loved working with Anne because we quite often did scenes with Claire and Paul where
06:36Anne wanted to see them stripped of makeup. For example, when Margaret was cutting up the letters,
06:43big close-up. She's stripped of makeup and I just think the camera's right here and you can, you're
06:50in that scene with her. You're in her skin and you can see the, you can feel the thoughts going
06:58behind her eyes and you can see the texture of her skin. It's just fantastic. That's a brilliant place
07:05to end. Thank you so much Ian, Catherine, Christina, Anne and Sarah. Thanks so much. Thank you.
07:11Thank you. And by the way, I just want to say again, Christina, Ian, Catherine and Anne,
07:17thank you so much for, because your creativity knocks the living daylights out of me and I feel
07:24really, I feel really, really lucky to have had such amazing people
07:27um, bring this in the most challenging of circumstances. So, um, chapeau.
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