Nelly (Felicity Jones), a happily married mother and schoolteacher, is haunted by her past — a past she has managed to keep secret from her husband and children. When she was 18 years old and an actress in a family of actors, her life was forever changed when she met author Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes). Dickens was at the height of his fame. His work was read throughout the English-speaking world and he was enjoying his life as a literary star. But his marriage to Catherine (Joanna Scanlan) was faltering. Though she had borne him 10 children, Catherine was now relegated to the edge of his life. With his wife no match for his forceful personality, Dickens craved a woman who appreciated him and his work. Soon after they met, Nelly Ternan became the focus of Dickens’ desire. As the two grew closer, the whispers of Victorian society grew louder, and those closest to them began to fear what the relationship might lead to.
The Invisible Woman is a fascinating and gorgeous period film directed by Ralph Fiennes (his second directorial effort following Coriolanus). Here is my conversation with Fiennes from a roundtable discussion with the actor/director followed by my one-on-one chat with actress Felicity Jones.
Danny Miller: This is such a fascinating story that is not very well known. In addition to the relationship between Dickens and Nelly Ternan, I found myself quite moved by the character of Catherine Dickens. Do you think that had been a love match at some point?
Ralph Fiennes: That’s a really good question. Apparently Dickens was rejected by a woman he loved as a young man and that affected him very strongly. He soon became friends with writer George Hogarth and his family, including his daughter Catherine. I think the earlier rejection — and this is totally my opinion — prompted the beeline he made for Catherine. There was affection there, but I think he was a bit of, “I am a successful writer, now I’m going to have the pretty wife and the home.” I don’t think there was much self-examination. Now we’re in the age of the shrink and talking to people about our problems but I don’t think that existed at all for him and he just lurched into this marriage. The young Catherine Dickens had a sister who died very young. She was living with them and Dickens’ remorse for her was extreme, as if his own wife had died. All the biographers comment on his grief for his wife’s sister and speculate on whether he was in love with the sister more than the wife. I think there were a lot of displaced emotions. Nothing connected for him at a profound level until he met Nelly. She was the big love of his life.
Yet she was still the “Invisible Woman.” Was there any indication that Dickens felt what we could call remorse for the way he treated her?
Yes, I do think he had remorse. What I tried to show in the scene with the train crash that Dickens and Nelly were in is that Nelly herself says, “Go! Go!” She doesn’t want to be identified. And then someone asks Dickens if he’s traveling alone and he says, “Yes.” She wants him to go because it would also damage her to be identified as his mistress, but, of course, she also wants him to stay. It’s two things! And then once he does go, we see the look on Felicity’s face. “He’s left me!” That was the last scene of the film in an earlier version of the script but I didn’t want audiences to feel that Dickens just walked away from Nelly at a railray track because that’s not what happened. I like the scene in the cottage at the end of the film. You get the sense from Felicity’s brilliant performance or her loving him but also the sense of the compromise she’s entering into.
I loved Kristin Scott Thomas’ performance as Nelly’s actress mother. Can you say something about working with her in this film?
Kristin’s a friend but I’m also a big fan of hers. We met, obviously, on The English Patient but her subsequent work only gets stronger and richer and more complex. She saw Coriolanus and sweetly said, “I want to be in your next film!” So this emerged and I thought that the mother figure was very interesting and she agreed to do it.
She’s such a magnificent actress. Felicity, I really enjoyed the chemistry between you, Kristin Scott Thomas, and the actresses playing your sisters.
Felicity Jones: Kristin is absolutely brilliant. She’s so skillful! We all just got on with each other off set as well as on. None of us had ever met each other but we really clicked. I still speak to Kristin and Perdita and Amanda often, there’s a real closeness between us.
You did such a great job in this part which was not an easy one at all.
It was definitely a challenge which was why I wanted to take it on. I was very intrigued by the conflict in Nelly between being in love with this man and wanting to be with him but at the same time not wanting to be a floozy mistress — wanting to maintain her dignity and her sense of identity as a strong female.
Ralph was just saying how Nelly encouraged Dickens to save himself after that train crash, and you urge him to go but at the same time we see that you’re also quite pissed.
Exactly! She made a sacrifice by being with Dickens and it’s only later on in her life that she is able to reclaim her identity and find herself. Her relationship with Dickens was difficult and complicated. I think she had a good relationship with her husband George later on, but perhaps it wasn’t as passionate as it had been with Dickens. And she was carrying this secret that she never told her husband or children about. That must have been such a burden.
Never? Not even on her death bed?
No! She pretended to be much younger than she was and never told anyone about her relationship with Charles Dickens. She never told her son, who wanted to be an actor, that she had been an actress back then. He found out years later and was devastated. He eventually found all of the letters between his mother and Dickens and burned every one of them!
I was fascinated by Nelly’s acting family, the Ternans. We see that her mother thought Nelly was the least talented of the daughters. Do you think that awareness played a role in why Nelly ended up with Dickens?
There was a part of Nelly that was quite mercenary. I think she felt that being with Dickens was a way out — the family was so poor and there weren’t a lot of options for them at the time. And I think Nelly’s mother realized as well that Dickens being in their lives could make a big difference for them. But I believe there was definitely real love and affection between Nelly and Dickens.
I think we forget today how actors back then were not exactly the most respected or financially rewarded group.
Acting back then was tough, really tough! There were a few who were really famous but the Ternans weren’t quite in that category. They were very much jobbing actors who would travel around the country. Nelly’s mother would be having babies and then go right onto the stage. It was a tough world.
Is it odd when you’re also acting with your director? Is there much of a delineation? Were there times between takes when he was in full Dickens garb and was whispering notes to you as a director?
Ralph is such a chameleon as an actor. Even before we started shooting I noticed him becoming more and more like Dickens. He put on weight for the part, I could see this ruddiness developing, and that his mannerisms were changing. I’ve always loved how Ralph really takes on the characters that he’s playing. So yes, it did sometimes feel like I was being directed by Charles Dickens which was quite a strange experience!
And yet sort of perfect for someone like Dickens, who seemed like a massive control freak, to be barking out orders.
Exactly! That’s why Ralph thought he could do the role. Dickens was very controlling so that meant he could be in the role but also outside of it as the director.
You’ve played several real-life people in the past few years. Does that make you feel like you have an extra responsibility to do them justice?
Yes. I become even more protective of telling their story when I’m playing real people. You want to do it in a way that is truthful and three-dimensional. They can’t just be nice all the time, they have to be complicated like all human beings are, but you also sort of fall in love with them. I think the job of an actor is to not judge the people you’re playing. It’s up to the audience to make their decisions.
Is it very different working on a film like this compared to your recent work on Spider-Man 2?
Oh, it’s totally different! That’s why I wanted to do Spider-Man because I’d never done anything like that before and it was really great fun to be on a film set that vast and to do something completely different — I’m so used to doing low-budget indies. But I like to mix it up!
I loved all of the period details in this film. Was it the kind of set where everyone was obsessed with historical accuracy, even for the things we didn’t see like your underwear?
Absolutely! Every detail was exactly of the time. I remember them photographing every layer of my petticoat, all beautifully handmade. Our costume designer Michael O’Connor was wonderful.
You could see that the Ternans were trying to make the best of their limited resources. And that back then they weren’t exactly dry-cleaning everything between uses!
No, definitely not! Things were very stinky in those days. We made sure with Michael that we repeated certain details. I hate in movies when you see completely different costumes in every scene when it doesn’t make sense for the characters. Here I would wear the same costume in several scenes and we’d just change a trim or something to show that they were recycling their clothes.
Can you imagine living in that time period? How did it feel wearing those clothes?
It was tough! Actually on my first day I fell over! I was walking along the beach and didn’t realize my costume was absorbing all of this water. I had to walk up a sand dune and I just went, “Bang!” — head first on my very first day in front of about 50 members of the crew which is not exactly the best way to start a job. (Laughs.)
The Invisible Woman, directed by Ralph Fiennes, is playing in select cities.