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The Importance p
of Being Julia
Annette Bening opens the Toronto
film festival in style
film fans and star watchers got a real
treat at the 29th annual Toronto
International Film Festival thanks
in part to the opening night gala selection,
Being Julia. The period drama stars Oscar
nominee Annette Bening and Oscar
winner Jeremy Irons.
Based on the novel Theatre, by British
novelist and playwright W. Somerset
Maugham, and set in 1938, this charming
drama features Mrs. Warren Beatty as
Julia Lambert, the toast of the London
theatre scene and a diva in every sense of
the word. Only, her successful career and
marriage to theatre impresario Michael
Gosselyn (Irons) have become unfulfilling.
Tortured by her fading beauty, her philandering
husband and her estranged son, she
longs for something else, most of all a rest.
Before long she meets Tom (newcomer
Shaun Evans), an American half her age
who claims to be her biggest fan, and who
sweeps her off her feet. The two soon
begin a torrid and passionate affair, which
threatens to create a social scandal that
could destroy her career and her marriage.
But when Tom tires of Julia and casts
her aside, the grand dame of the boards—
the woman scorned—masterminds a
brilliant plan for revenge that puts her
back in the spotlight, both on stage and off.
According to the film’s Canadian
producer, Robert Lantos, Julia Lambert is
the heart and soul of the film, a woman
who is beautiful, intelligent and sparkling,
and who turns heads every time she walks
into a room. So they needed an actress
who could do the same.
“We had the usual discussions about
cast while we were working on the script
—who is going to play this hugely
demanding and deliciously juicy role?”
says Lantos. And in his mind, Bening was
the first—and only—choice.
Bening’s Hollywood star rose in the
early ’90s with standout performances
in the con drama The Grifters with
John Cusack and Angelica Huston, which
earned her a Best Supporting Actress
Oscar nomination, and the gangster biopic
Bugsy, alongside future hubby Beatty.
Through the rest of the decade, the
Topeka, T Kansas native balanced serious
dramatic roles in Richard III and The
Siege with lighter fare, such as Mars
Attacks!, Love Affair and The American
16 www. w tribute.ca
President, which
earned the talanted
actress the second
of her three Golden
Globe nominations.
Bening picked
up her second
A
actors
Annette Bening
Jeremy Irons
Shaun Evans
director
István Szabó
locations
Hungary
Great Britain
outtake
The highest-paid
author in the
world in the 1930s,
Somerset Maugham
has had his stories
translated to film
dozens of times,
including Alfred
Hitchcock’s Secret
Agent in 1936 and
1984’s The Razor’s
Edge with Bill
Murray.
Academy Award nomination for 1999’s
suburban nightmare American Beauty,
with Kevin Spacey.
But she has become more selective
the last few years. Her last film was the
much-acclaimed Kevin Costner western
Open Range, in 2003.
Being Julia, it seems, was reason
enough for Bening to return to the big
screen. Reading the script, Bening says
she knew right away that she had to play
the role. She says that she recognized
the character immediately and fully understood
the psychology behind her situation.
“I think it’s a story about a woman, like
a lot of other women, who has just come to
a place in her life where she needs to
reassess r who she is and re-identify her-
self. And that’s manifested in her work and
in her relationships.”
—Bonnie — Laufer-Krebs
Tribute October 2004