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Julie Walters talks about Calender Girls -
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Julie Walters talks about Calender Girls
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Filming nude scenes is always pretty tense. And it doesn't get a whole lot easier with age.
Take the actresses who star in "Calendar Girls." They're in their 40s, 50s, 60s and even 70s — not exactly Ralph Lauren models. But they knew when they signed up for the film that they'd have to drop their clothes in order to portray the real-life British matrons whose "girlie" calendar raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to aid their local hospital.
"We'd been working with the crew for four or five weeks before we shot the nude scenes," said Julie Walters, 53, who co-stars with Helen Mirren in the comedy. "These were people we'd been chatting with for weeks. And now on this particular day we're naked."
Supportive atmosphere
What audiences see in the film is pretty much what really happened on the set. The actresses got in the mood with a little wine, and all sat around in their bathrobes to lend support to each other as they filmed their revealing scenes.
The first nude scene to be shot, Walters said, was the one in which Celia Weston poses behind a tray of large round buns topped with cherries (the pastries provided a comical approximation of female breasts.)
"We were all there just out of camera range, and as soon as the director called 'Cut!' we were all around her, blocking the view of the crew and giving her a robe. It was all very supportive.
"The week before we shot the nude scenes we all got together in a dressing room to give each other pep talks," Walters explained. "We'd tell each other: 'You're a strong, confident, beautiful woman."'
It worked. Sort of.
"We were all nervous about it — some more than others," said Walters, whose films have ranged from "Educating Rita" (her debut) to the Harry Potter series (she plays Ron Weasley's mother). In 1999 she was named to the Order of the British Empire for her artistic contributions, and in 2001 she topped a survey of England's greatest film actresses.
"Nudity is definitely not something I personally had a burning ambition to do. But I'd loved the original story when it was being reported on the news, and the original calendar was really quite tasteful. It wasn't at all a sexual or sleazy thing.
"Even so, come the day I was pretty nervous," she admitted.
Making film was a joy
Director Nigel Cole set the proper easygoing mood. "Nigel was always up for a laugh, so things were generally quite relaxed on his set," Walters recalled. "And then there's the girlfriend thing — we were just a big group of women hanging out together. Those circumstances tend to bring out the schoolgirl in you, create mischief."
One of the joys of making the movie, Walters said, was filming in the same villages where the original calendar girls lived.
"I rang up and asked if I could meet my character," she said. "She was incredibly generous with her time and with the details of her life. We really bonded."
Several of the actresses traveled to Los Angeles to re-create a scene in which Jay Leno interviews the calendar girls on the "The Tonight Show."
"Coming to the States at the end of the shoot was like a big holiday," she said. "One afternoon Jay did his show and then told the audience he had some extra guests. So the audience stayed and we shot our scenes. We'd watched the real TV interview and kind of knew what our characters had done. Jay just improvised. It was really a lot of fun."
