Interview with Madonna by Film Journal - January 30, 2012
Interview de Madonna par Film Journal - 30 janvier 2012.
Madonna & Wallis: Music icon conducts royal romance with 'W.E.'
Jan 30, 2012
By David Noh
Even given strictly limited time and access, there is no way one says no to the opportunity to interview Madonna. Besides being an indefatigable icon for some three decades now, along with her gifts as an entertainer she has now proven her mettle as a movie writer-director—first with the piquantly diverting Filth and Wisdom in 2008, and now with W.E.
Madonna’s new film for The Weinstein Company is the ultimate, posh chick flick, an ultra-stylish and moving meditation on the “love story of the 20th century”—that between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII, who legendarily gave up his throne for the American woman he loved. As a “way in” to this historical account, Madonna dovetails it with a modern story involving a woman (Abbie Cornish) obsessed with the Duchess and trapped in a stiflingly unhappy New York marriage to a rich psychiatrist (Richard Coyle). The deep empathy Madonna obviously felt for Wallis is evident in every frame of her film, blessed with an exquisite performance—witty and sensual—by Andrea Riseborough, and is a snappy retort to the cartoonish portrayal of Simpson in The King’s Speech.
“What’s she going to be like?” of course was the question running through my mind during the lengthy wait for her at New York’s Waldorf Astoria. She walked in, accompanied by a burly, middle-aged bodyguard and her formidable, ever-present publicist, Liz Rosenberg (wearing a disconcerting pair of red sequined Mickey Mouse ears), immediately apologized for being late, and shook my hand in a manner I found, well, really gentlemanly. Smaller, more delicate and softer than she photographs, she amazingly looked prettier than ever, in a silky marine Vionnet couture gown, knee-high boots and fingerless leather gloves. Even better, she proved to be gloriously attitude-free and gracious, with the intelligently questing mind of a true autodidact, funny and real.
Read the full interview with Madonna here:
Madonna & Wallis: Music icon conducts royal romance with 'W.E.'
