For those of you still mourning the end of this season of Downton Abbey, you’re in luck. Two of my favorite Crawleys (Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton) are back with the rest of the spectacular and very experienced cast in John Madden’s The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Now that this rather unique Indian hotel is full up with long-term residents, co-managers Muriel Donnelly (Maggie Smith) and Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel) have a dream of expansion. With plans for the new hotel underway, Evelyn and Douglas (Judi Dench and Bill Nighy) venture into the Jaipur workforce, wondering if their regular breakfast dates will finally lead to true romance. Meanwhile, Norman and Carol (Ronald Pickup and Diana Hardcastle) navigate the swirling waters of an exclusive relationship, as Madge (Celia Imrie) juggles two very eligible suitors, and recent arrival Guy Chambers (Richard Gere) finds a muse in Sonny’s mother, Mrs. Kapoor (Lillete Dubey) for his next novel. As his marriage to Sunaina (Tina Desai) quickly approaches, Sonny finds his plans for the new hotel taking over his life. Will he make it to the wedding? I sat down with screenwriter Ol Parker to discuss how the team who made the first film managed to get its one-of-a-kind cast back together in India.
Danny Miller: I remember talking to director John Madden before the first film came out and he was saying that he never could have gotten the film made in this country. “Who wants to see a movie about a bunch of old people?” Were you all shocked by the incredible success of that film?
Ol Parker: Absolutely stunned! You can never predict the zeitgeist — you’re just incredibly lucky if you’re riding the wave when it comes. That first movie took five years to get off the ground and four or five directors before John came aboard. And even then no one knew if people would go to see it. But I remember when I came back from India after that first shoot and people asked me what I was working on. “Oh, a film where Judi Dench and Bill Nighy fall in love while Maggie Smith runs around being racist.” And everyone I knew, no matter what their age said, “I want to see that!”
I remember that John was laughing that the first film opened here on the same day as The Avengers. A tiny film like that competing with a worldwide juggernaut? It’s kind of ridiculous.
Exactly! And the first weekend wasn’t that great. But then it just kept carrying on and carrying on and stayed in the Top Ten for the longest time. We couldn’t believe it!
Do you think the success of Downton Abbey helped in any way?
We were shooting the first film when Downton started in the UK. But who can say all the factors that go into such a thing? When I was working on this one I just couldn’t let myself obsess on that kind of stuff. The first one wasn’t targeted in any way so I tried to keep that going here. The minute you start thinking, “Oh, this is what people want,” you’re doomed.
I know the first film was based on a book. Did you find it liberating or more challenging that you got to start this story from scratch?
Both! The first film was freely adapted from the book but it had the same basic premise and same three-act structure. Act one: People go. Act two: People deal with it. Act three: People either stay or leave. We obviously had to come up with a whole different structure this time around and also introduce some new characters. We decided to revolve the story around the stages of Sonny and Sunaina’s Indian wedding.
It’s funny because it was the last movie I ever expected to have a sequel — I was thrilled when I learned we’d get to see more of these characters.
You and me both! In fact, that was our big joke, our running gag throughout the making of the first film. “We’ll see you back in India for the sequel!” The idea was so preposterous, especially with that group of actors, that we were constantly joking about it.
Considering the way her character left the first film, I was glad to see the great Penelope Wilton back in the sequel. Did you always plan to figure out a way to get her back?
No, not at all! I remember calling her when we knew we were doing the new film and saying, “Penelope, of course you won’t be in the film because your character didn’t stay in India.” And she said, “The fuck I won’t!” And I said, “Really?” She said, “Oh, you’re writing me back in. Find a way!” I loved that. I think she’s a stunningly brilliant actress so I was very game to find a way to get her back there.
She’s such a fantastic actress — so wonderful on the stage, too.
Yes, she’s doing a brilliant play in London right now. Penelope was so good in the first movie. Her character could have been just horrible but the way she plays it as someone having a kind of nervous breakdown — you can see that she hates herself more than we hate her for saying all those awful things so she becomes kind of tragic and we feel for her. It was cool that she wanted to come back — and she does provide this kind of glorious burst of energy in the new film!
When I talked to John he said his biggest worries were about not depicting the older people as cutesy or the Indian characters as exotic. I’m sure as the screenwriter you were even more concerned about staying away from those stereotypes.
Absolutely. I remember being scared the first time I started writing the Indian characters and the different way they speak English, and the same with the older people. But we had such marvelous actors involved, I didn’t have to worry much.
How did you get the gig in the first place?
I had a dinner with one of the producers a while before and w were talking about how no matter how old we got, we still seemed to be making the same mistakes. We wondered aloud whether the wisdom and honesty that you tend to associate with older peole would be granted to us before we hit 70! A huge part of writing the first one for me was about just having people do new things. It’s something I think about in my own life all the time.
And then there’s the immediacy of knowing that they don’t have all the time in the world left to them. None of us do.
Exactly. And you can’t write about anyone at that age without being realistic about the changes we all go through. I remember struggling to find a way to get Judi and Maggie together in this film. It was a terrible omission on my part that they barely had any scenes together in the first one especially since they’re best friends in real life and have a great chemistry. At the end of the first film Maggie makes this big speech from her wheelchair and then says to Judi, “We haven’t talked much, you and I,” and Judi says, “My loss, evidently.” That was me going, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry I didn’t get these two amazing actresses together more!” So I vowed to rectify that in this one but was having a hard time figuring it out. Then I heard them having an argument about who was going to die first and I knew that was it. They were delighted to have that in the script! Judi had just had a knee operation before we went to India and Maggie was always saying things like, “How’s the old knee going?” That’s how they really talk to each other. Maggie is actually 19 days older than Judi.
It has to be the greatest thrill a writer can have to hear actors of this caliber saying his lines. Did you ever feel intimidated by them?
Not once they were on set, they are all amazing. Well, Maggie is deeply intimidating on or off the set, and that’s as it should be! They all come from the theatre, they’re all incredible respectful. I mean, if Maggie thinks you’ve got something wrong, she’ll tell you. They want these characters to feel true, they want them to be right. Judi, in particular, resists sentimentality vigorously. If you overwrite anything for her, she’ll find a way to just throw the line away in her delivery. I remember one line she had in the first film that many actors would have made such a big deal about. It was about not knowing how much time she had. Some would have paused deeply and stared off into the Indian night but Judi just chucked it away! Whenever they questioned something, they were always right!
In the new film there was a line where Judi is talking about Bill Nighy and she didn’t know if was excited or terrified. She wasn’t sure if she could pull it off. “I don’t know if I can make that work,” she told me, and then added, “I suppose I can say the line while I’m laughing.” So she did it that way in the film and it’s so brilliant. To get to see the wheels turning in Judi Dench with my words — that is really the highest compliment!
Is it over-reaching to say that I think this movie has created a bit of a movement that will make it easier for projects featuring older actors to get made? I can only imagine how many pitch meetings are happening in this town right now where this film is being cited!
Thank you, that’s lovely to imagine. When you write a film you hope to give your audiences a few hours of pleasure so to think that the film might have some kind of impact beyond that is just wonderful. For me it’s been an extraordinary privilege to think that I helped put that out there.