Saving Mr. Banks [1] tells the story of the making of Mary Poppins [2] . Tom Hanks [3] plays Walt Disney himself and Emma Thompson [4] plays Poppins author P.L. Travers, who fought Disney on making the film a musical and including animation. The film portrays Travers as an abrasive British curmudgeon (Travers was Australian and moved to London), and Thompson embraced her impolite side.
“Is it not rather nice for all of us who’ve been so well brought up and we’re all so bloody polite all the time, Americans particularly, to see someone being rude?” Thompson said. “It’s bliss, isn’t it? I think we act, quite a lot of the time, in conflict with what we really feel.”
In the real history of Disney films, Travers never approved of the Mary Poppins film. Saving Mr. Banks takes a few liberties by showing her to warm up, but Travers’ very inconsistency was what intrigued Thompson.
“In films, I don’t know whether my colleagues would agree, but we also get to play people who are, emotionally or at least morally consistent in some way. And she wasn’t consistent in any way. You would not know what you would get from one moment to the next. You could have had a very close moment with her on one day, and I got this from her friends, and then the next day they might have gone to see her and she would have treated them [badly].”
The film represents this in a scene with Paul Giamatti, playing a driver, who you may think is having a warm moment with Travers. “She says, ‘You know, you’re the only American I’ve ever liked’ and he says, ‘Oh really? How fascinating? Why? will you tell me why?’ And she says no, ‘I don’t want to tell you any more about that. Now you’re just asking too much. Go away.’”
Given the real history of the situation, Thompson suspects Travers wouldn’t have liked Saving Mr. Banks either. “I think that what she would say about this is, ‘Absolutely ridiculous film. No, no, no, no, no relationship whatsoever to what was happening. But it’s about me. And I thought that the clothes were rather very nice.’”
Saving Mr. Banks opens December 20.
'Saving Mr. Banks' Los Angeles Premiere - Arrivals Photos
References
- ^ Saving Mr. Banks (www.starpulse.com)
- ^ Mary Poppins (www.starpulse.com)
- ^ Tom Hanks (www.starpulse.com)
- ^ Emma Thompson (www.starpulse.com)
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