Kristin Scott Thomas is to make her debut as a director, three years after saying she had grown tired of film-making and would only pursue productions she could not resist.
The film is The Sea Change, a romantic drama about a marriage in crisis, “the thrills and difficulties of love”. Based on Elizabeth Jane Howard’s acclaimed 1959 novel of the same title, it has been adapted for the screen by British writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz, whose previous film, Ida – co-written with Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski – won the 2015 Oscar for best foreign language film.
An official announcement is expected this week.
Scott Thomas is one of the industry’s most respected actors, with her career spanning roles in both English and French language productions. They include Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient, in which she played a newlywed woman who embarked on a doomed love affair, and Philippe Claudel’s I’ve Loved You So Long, in which she portrayed a character struggling to return to normality after years in prison.
Despite her success, she told the Guardian in 2014 that, after making 65 films, she “cannot cope with another film”. She added: “I can’t bear the rubbish that goes on on big films. Sitting around for hours, bored out of my head. I did a lot of tapestry.”
She also described how she was frustrated by the rewriting of scripts at the last minute – “a little bit of a shambles” – and being cast in films as “a sort of weight to their otherwise flimsy production”.
Now, in preparing to take control of her own film, she has recalled the advice of the late Sydney Pollack, who directed her in the romantic drama Random Hearts: “Sydney Pollack told me that actors are naturally good film-makers and I want to make a film to continue my trajectory as a storyteller.”
She added: “The Sea Change asks a question I have been trying to answer in many of my performances – what are the reasons for the thrills and difficulties of love? I want to make a film that has depth, humour and beauty.”
The Sea Change tells the story of a group of people who re-evaluate loss, love and human connection when they find themselves together on a remote Greek island. Emmanuel, a successful London playwright, has been married to “the complex and witty” Lillian for many years, but their marriage is in crisis. Scott Thomas will star as Lillian, and Mark Strong, whose films include Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, is in talks to play Emmanuel. Filming will begin later this year in England and continental Europe.
Scott Thomas said: “I first read this novel 40 years ago. It was a beautifully complex story of four people of different ages trying to figure out what to do with the cards life had dealt them. Its multilayered and nuanced approach meant that each time I re-read it over the course of my life I identified with different characters – and felt that this would be the ideal premise for a film. Rebecca’s script perfectly captures the novel’s theme of exploring how and why we love.”
Producer Barnaby Thompson, whose credits include An Ideal Husband, said: “Kristin and I were having lunch, talking about this project we’d develop. I said ‘Why don’t you direct it’? She got all excited. She’s ready for a fresh challenge.”
He described the script as wonderful. “It’s a proper, sophisticated, grownup love story about a couple who are facing a moment of crisis, and partly inspired by this girl who comes into their lives, they rediscover each other,” he said.
“It’s very real. Anyone of a certain age knows how hard marriage is. It’s a very touching, real portrait of a marriage. It’s tough, but it’s also got wit to it. It’s a real dose of humanity, and it’s a proper grownup movie, the kind of which few get made.”
Howard, who died in 2014, had first-hand experience of marriage breakdown. A turbulent 18-year marriage to her third husband, fellow novelist Kingsley Amis, ended after she walked out on him.
