-- John Bayley on Iris Murdoch

In the touching and inspiring 40 year love affair between Iris Murdoch and John Bayley, the very nature of marriage – of spending one’s life with another person’s confounding complexities, travails and wonderments – comes to the fore. Theirs was one of the great literary romances of the century, but theirs is also a story about the uplifting possibility that great love can last even through life’s most tragic and mysterious occurrences.

Frequently described as "the most brilliant woman in England," the writer Iris Murdoch was an extraordinary personality and icon of her generation in Britain. From her days as a scholar at Oxford, where she thrilled the world around her with her libertine spirit, through her career as a philosopher and novelist, Iris was truly ahead of her time.

Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville star in the Mirage Enterprises/Robert Fox/Scott Rudin production of IRIS. Oscar winner Judi Dench and two-time Oscar nominee Kate Winslet each portray the novelist Iris Murdoch in two distinct periods of her life, with Jim Broadbent and Hugh Bonneville playing her husband John Bayley.

Directed by Richard Eyre, IRIS tells the tender and extraordinary story of the enduring love between the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, from the romance of their early days at Oxford in the 1950s to her untimely death in 1999.

IRIS is written by Richard Eyre and Charles Wood, and based on John Bayley’s memoirs, Elegy For Iris (Iris: A Memoir) and Iris and Her Friends. It is produced by Robert Fox and Scott Rudin, and the music is composed and conducted by James Horner with solo violinist Joshua Bell. The executive producers are Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Tom Hedley, Guy East, David M. Thompson and Harvey Weinstein.

IRIS will open in New York and Los Angeles for a one week Academy Award qualifier on December 14.

By Richard Eyre

If I say I’d like this film to be enjoyed by people who have never read a word of Iris Murdoch, heard her name spoken or seen a photograph of her, it is not because I don’t want to celebrate the achievements of her life or to mourn her death. It is simply that I hope that people can appreciate this film without bringing special baggage on board.

The film is a true story in the sense that Iris Murdoch existed, was married to a literary critic called John Bayley for 40 years, was a highly successful novelist and a distinguished philosopher, and suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease. She wrote consistently about the nature of good and evil, of freedom, and of sexuality and love. She was a person who made a deep and lasting impression on everyone she encountered.

The film tells the story of her relationship with her husband, during the first and the last few years of their life together. It draws on John Bayley’s own accounts of his life with Iris (Elegy for Iris and Iris and Her Friends), which are by definition highly subjective. Sometimes what Iris and John say to each other in the film is taken from John Bayley’s books, but just as often the dialogue is invented. Events have been compressed or transposed, characters have been conflated and, as in any description of an intimate relationship, behavior has been guessed at. The actors, although drawing on available documentary evidence – film, photographs, memoirs – have interpreted the characters in the screenplay rather than attempting to be facsimiles of the originals.

In short, while being true to the facts of Iris’ life and death and, I hope, to her spirit, the film is not a biography nor is it fiction, but occupies a poetic territory somewhere between the two. If I had to find a sub-title for the film it would be this: Enduring Love.

The facts of Iris Murdoch’s life are as follows:

She was born in Dublin in 1919. She prided herself on being descended from a once distinguished Protestant Anglo-Irish family and therefore not English – caught between two worlds and at home in neither. She was educated at school in England and at the all-women Somerville College, Oxford. During the Second World War she worked as a civil servant, and then taught philosophy in London and Oxford. Her first novel Under The Net, which had a first-person male narration, was published when she was 35. Two years later she married John Bayley, a university lecturer whom she had known for three years. He became a highly regarded literary critic. Their marriage was, as her biographer has remarked "bohemian"; she was fully bi-sexual "in love with the world, and loved in return."

She wrote 25 novels after Under The Net. The best are: The Bell, A Severed Head, The Nice and The Good, The Italian Girl, The Black Prince, The Unicorn, The Sea The Sea (which won the Booker Prize in 1978), A Word Child, and The Philosopher’s Pupil. Her novels are psychological detective stories, which portray complicated and sophisticated sexual relationships, and her plots have an operatic quality, often combining bizarre and macabre incidents with moments of high comedy. It is difficult to categorize her as a novelist: sometimes highly observant, often highly inventive, droll as well as serious. Her last novel, Jackson’s Dilemma, was published in 1996.

Iris Murdoch was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 1997. John Bayley looked after her until he was unable to cope, and she died in February 1999, three weeks after she had been moved to Vale House, a specialized nursing home.

This is one of the final entries to her journal, made in 1996:

The last word on the real Iris Murdoch should be from her official biography, written by a friend of hers, Peter Conradi:

The author and philosopher Iris Murdoch died on February 8^th, 1999. Shortly before her death her husband, author and academic John Bayley, wrote Iris: A Memoir (published as Elegy For Iris in the United States). It is a frank, moving and sometimes humorous account of his life with the woman who was frequently described as "the most brilliant woman in England." The latter part of the book dealt poignantly with the effect of Alzheimer’s on Iris as well as John’s extraordinarily selfless devotion to his wife of 43 years. He subsequently wrote a further book about their life, Iris and Her Friends. Both books were critically acclaimed on their publication, and were at the top of the bestseller lists.

"There’s no doubt in my mind that what John Bayley did in looking after Iris was an act of heroism," continues Eyre, "precisely because he was obviously not terribly good at looking after himself. It was an extraordinarily selfless act of love to continue to look after her and I found that tremendously moving. There was a major shift in their relationship - from Iris being the dominant partner, the person that John very much looked up to and deferred to - to her being completely dependent on him. One of the characteristics of the illness is that it peels away what is extraneous to reveal the essence of their relationship. That’s a fascinating journey, and it’s a journey that spans her whole life."

Richard Eyre’s mother suffered from Alzheimer’s - an experience which he described in his autobiography, Utopia And Other Places. "The particular agony of Alzheimer’s is that it robs a person of their being and of their personality," explains Eyre. "Although in some ways they remain who they are, somehow they are constantly diminished and you just see the person they once were gradually disappear. It’s agonizing. One of the things that I’ve tried to show in the film is that even though the person is disappearing in front of you, in some way there is a sense in which they remain. You can still love the person because their soul is still there until the end."

Judi Dench was attached to star as Iris Murdoch from the very beginning - as far back as spring 1999. At that time, Richard Eyre was directing her in David Hare’s National Theatre production of Amy’s View in London’s West End (an acclaimed production which subsequently transferred to Broadway). "I’ve known Judi for 35 years and she’s a very good friend and simply the best," he says. "She is very, very subtle in the way she takes on a character’s physical attributes. Put on one side her skill as an actress, which is matchless. She has this humanity - her gift is to imagine other people’s lives and to not put herself in the way between the character she’s playing and the audience. So she is an absolutely transparent being who allows the character she is playing to breathe through her. And she has tremendous modesty about her, which is very attractive because you feel invited into the character’s world.

"Jim Broadbent was absolutely a unanimous choice for the part of John Bayley. Once we’d thought of Jim it was impossible to think of anyone else playing the part. He is so idiosyncratic – there is no actor anywhere who is anything like him. He’s brilliant at observing behavior and he has entered into the spirit of John Bayley in quite a remarkable way. And he’s managed to play someone who is actually 20 years his senior with an ease that alarms him."

Eyre describes the casting of the Young Iris and Young John as essentially a Young Judi Dench and a Young Jim Broadbent. "It was an astonishing piece of good luck that Kate should turn out to be free at the time that we were filming and was willing and enthusiastic to play the part," he says. "Judi in the film does have an extraordinary youth about her. The miracle was that Kate was in some way like a clone and an alter ego of Judi, and they both have an identical spirit which harmonizes perfectly. She’s a very mature and thoughtful woman and her greatest strength is similar to Judi Dench’s – her humanity.

"There’s a historical Iris Murdoch and there’s an Iris Murdoch as embodied by Kate Winslet. I don’t think there’s a huge difference between them. Iris Murdoch was extraordinarily vigorous. She had a physical energy and an intellectual energy that was really charismatic. She was a star."

"What Kate and Judi brought to the film is this incandescent goodness and decency. They are both very warm-hearted people who don’t dissemble and in some ways that is terribly important to the film. Although Kate’s features are unlike Judi’s, there’s a correspondence of spirit between them, they kind of rhyme."

Eyre sees similarities between Jim Broadbent and Hugh Bonneville, who plays Young John. "Like Jim, Hugh is a slightly offbeat actor in the sense that he isn’t an absolutely straight-down-the-middle romantic young lead, he’s a character actor," says Eyre. "Hugh is physically very similar to Jim and he has a remarkable ability to observe people’s behavior and become a character without being a superficial mimic. In some way, a combination of John and the real John Bayley went in to his characterization. He has real wit and also like Jim, he’s a very accessible and open person on screen."

When it came to writing the screenplay Eyre turned to Charles Wood, with whom he had collaborated on the BBC television drama Tumbledown, about the 1982 Falklands War. "We started with the premise that it had to be a double narrative," explains Eyre. "The idea of someone losing their memory, and losing the faculty of language was a very potent theme, and that was the spine of the story. The tension throughout the film was always to be driven by the youth of the young couple and the decay of the old couple - the young couple falling in love, and the old couple staying in love - and the two stories converging."

"I’d wanted to work with Richard again, and I was delighted to be asked to work on Iris because it is a cracking good story," says Charles Wood. "It’s the first time I’ve co-written with someone else but I will do it again with alacrity. Writing with Richard was the most marvelous experience. It was surprisingly painless."

Every evening for a period of six months Eyre and Wood would email each other the full script showing every change. "To start with I wrote a rough screenplay, and then Richard started working on that," says Wood. "He would re-write a scene or change some of the structure, then he’d send it back to me. I’d have a go at it and show it back to him. Then he’d e-mail it back and I’d have another go at it. It was total collaboration at all times."

Deciding on a structure for the film was an early source of difficulty. "One of the most difficult things about the writing was how to make a film that didn’t immediately plunge you into the misery of Iris’s illness," says Eyre. "In the final film, you don’t see the illness for quite a long time. That’s because we use the device of seeing John and Iris as young people, gloriously unaware of their fate. The strategy is to ambush the audience and to surprise the audience when you’re in one reality and you go back to another reality. It’s quite a simple structure. You’re not dealing with more tenses than past and present."

Charles Wood agrees. "Getting the tone of the film right was probably the hardest part," he says. "It mustn’t be overly sentimental. It must be a convincing picture of people’s lives." Wood had met Iris Murdoch twice at parties in Oxford and found the fact useful when it came to writing dialogue. "She was marvelous, very jolly and very interesting but in the most ordinary sense – there was no nonsense about being the great novelist. This was a woman who was totally at ease with herself and her position. Both her and John were open and friendly. It’s always difficult to put words into the mouths of people who have existed if you haven’t ever met them," he says. "But having met her I felt quite at home giving her words to say."

Deciding where to make changes for dramatic reasons to John’s Bayley’s books was a fundamental decision for Eyre and Wood. "I guess at quite an early stage we stopped feeling doggedly faithful to documentary reality," Eyre says. "But I don’t feel we’ve been in any way untruthful to Iris Murdoch’s experience - nor did John Bayley when he read the script. I would have been very, very uneasy if John had been disturbed by the script or if he had felt in any way it traduced his memories of Iris or his own behaviour. Getting his blessing was important to me and he did give his wholesale blessing and said he thought that Iris would have approved. That was a good moment."

For his part, Richard Eyre recalls an occasion when he met Iris Murdoch. "I met her in the summer of 1997 when I was a visiting lecturer at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, which was John Bayley’s college. There was a cocktail party and John was there with Iris and he introduced me. She said to me: ‘And what do you do?’ and I told her; and then a couple of minutes later she said: ‘And what do you do?’"

Producer Robert Fox hopes that audiences will come away with a feeling that it’s a life-affirming film. "I imagine a lot of filmgoers won’t have heard of Iris Murdoch. It’s an immensely moving and sometimes funny story about two people and what can happen to them. It appealed to me on a very human, fundamental level. The fact that it was about Iris Murdoch made it more interesting but it could be about anybody; and because they’re not ‘movie star’ characters means that they actually feel like real people. It paints a picture of what true love can be – and there is something uplifting about that."

Production Designer Gemma Jackson had to recreate the interior of Iris Murdoch and John Bayley’s notoriously and almost unbelievably untidy Oxfordshire home - together with its garden - inside a sound stage at Pinewood Studios. "The important thing was to recreate a world that Iris and John had come from," she says. "In some ways it had to be less extreme than the reality because Iris is not the sort of film where you want anything to stand out too much. So you have to create the layers of their lives, you have to work out the logic of where everything would go. It had to be built up gradually.

"So in terms of their home we kept things soft, mellow, aged and slightly timeless without making things scream out at you too much. It was a house of humor and warmth and nice people lived there. Certainly towards her last years Iris would pick things up while out walking like odd gloves, bits of wood and stones so I brought those things in. I did visit John Bayley’s house."

Costume Designer Ruth Myers was able to do a considerable amount of research on how Iris Murdoch and John Bayley dressed, particularly in their later years, by looking at newspaper cuttings, photographs and by talking to people who knew the couple. "They were both very idiosyncratic in their ways," she explains. The scenes set in the 1950s were more straightforward. "The 50s was really before ‘fashion’ existed for the middle classes, so back then John and Iris were within the normal spheres of what most people of their type wore. They don’t look very different to anyone else you see from that period at Oxford.

"As they grew older they became more secure and more individual in themselves. But to an extent what was interesting for me was not to slavishly reproduce that, but to take elements of it and try to reflect the spirit of the two of them. If you were to reproduce exactly how they had looked, it would have looked ridiculous."

"Jim Broadbent as John does wear two odd socks throughout the film, but they are not very odd and you only see them occasionally. Iris liked blue a lot so she doesn’t wear anything in the film that isn’t blue or doesn’t have some essence of blue in it. Iris and John did not conform to the norm in the way they dressed, any more than they did in any other part of their lives. They were two people without any conventional vanity. John loved clothes but they weren’t a major priority in his life, Iris less so, although she had strong and serious ideas about what she liked and how she should look."

Yes, indeed, it’s perfectly true - in a more crude way, as a way to kind of cheer myself up when things were very, very bad.

I didn’t exactly think that at the time. I really thought that I just wanted to write something. Something. I talk so often to Alzheimer’s groups, caring groups, and I always say, ‘I’m sure the really important thing is to have one hour a day if you possibly can - I used to get mine in the early morning - when you do something which is not connected with caring.’ The best thing is if you just write down what it’s like, what’s happening. Even if it’s no good, it’s worth doing.

I thought she was amazingly close physically. When they sent us the picture of the cover of the new edition of my book, I thought it was Iris, but it turns out it was Judi Dench. It’s uncanny how like Iris she is. She’s such a wonderful actress, I think she got more and more like Iris as the film unfolds. The thing that you draw out is the image of the little bull, in her walk. That’s what one found so attractive.

I think it was true of Iris, but of course, I never thought that Iris was pretty.

She had a very compelling face. My views of feminine beauty, which are very simple-minded, were based entirely on the cinema. I liked people like Esther Williams, the swimming star.

It does. That part of the book is strictly true, that I did see her riding past the window on her bicycle. That quite rightly was not used in the film. I just looked out in an idle way. Because my college was just opposite the road from hers, and I wondered who she was. And I thought she looked rather a nice person. I immediately thought, I should like to be married to her. Because no one else will want to be. I was in for a real shock there.

Lots and lots of people were.

I do. I think that Judi Dench was bound to be more like Iris than I was like Jim Broadbent, but I thought he was wonderful. I feel flattered, and I think his speech pattern was extremely good, though of course one can’t hear one’s own stammer.

That wonderful smile she had. Particularly when she was ill. When I said I was writing about her she said, ‘Oh, are you? I’m so glad.’

I don’t think it sounds quite right. I think she was extremely good - if she hurt anybody in the course of a love affair, she would be terribly upset about it, she took things very hard in that way. But I wouldn’t call her saintly. She had a kind of interchange of partners with one of her very closest friends. They had this - it sounds like one of Iris’ novels - I think they exchanged lovers when they were young. They didn’t do it in a cynical spirit, they were in a state of frightful agony. It just happened that way.

She was fascinated by power, power and evil, and power as evil. And in that sense her friend - and her lover - Elias Canetti was an extraordinary man. He was a very ambivalent character, because he kept saying he was against power, that he hated power, but he was the living exercise of it. He lived for it and by it. Quite literally, because people gave him money and supported him just because he was who he was and because he exercised this domination over them - and he exercised great domination over Iris. But I think not for long. One of the interesting things about ‘Flight From The Enchanter’ is that she shows how you escape from someone like that.

I don’t think so. She was very independent. We took each other for granted. She once said that ‘What I enjoy about being married to you is that I can take you for granted.’ There’s a wonderful line from an Australian poet: ‘Closer and closer apart.’

No, she could still say that. I thought that came in just the right place in the film. In a funny way she did say things like that. And she used these funny words like ‘Susten pujeen.’

Did your mother manage to communicate at all with you?

It’s so difficult.

I’m continually looking back and thinking, ‘Why didn’t I do more, more, more?’ There are times when I lost my temper, I don’t exactly regret that because she never minded.

When she went in to hospital, I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was about three weeks, an astonishingly short time. I knew that it couldn’t go on. I had to take her because I couldn’t get her to eat or drink or anything. Oh, I depended on her more than she depended on me. I really do think that, that was what was so strange.

I shed more tears over the film than I did in life, in a way, just because it represented so well what it was like. Obviously, one’s conscious that the film is a work of art. And a work of art does move one more than things do in life.

Talking to people who knew Iris Murdoch did however bring some useful insights. "A lot of people told me things about her - for example that she was a wonderful observer and listener," she says. "They also said she had no social small talk at all - she just really wasn't interested in that. A lot of her friends also said I looked like her.

Dench describes their relationship as "an amazing love story - they were two curiously put-together people who found each other by some wonderful miracle and became an amazing unit. As John Bayley says, they had their own language - they totally understood each other. They had an extraordinary relationship and people talk of them always laughing – apparently you could hear them shrieking with laughter from outside their house. They were like two halves of an apple."

Dench watched archive television interviews with Iris Murdoch as part of her background research for the part. "There’s something about her manner, the preciseness of finding the word that is right - she doesn’t underline, she doesn’t over-stress words like we might. She’s also very undramatic, no gestures, she just chooses the word that she wants; through that you know the kind of mind she has and you get a hint of the kind of philosopher she was."

Dench believes that Richard Eyre and Charles Wood’s script "captures Iris’ slow decline wonderfully. That thing of asking someone a question, and the person starting to answer, and then not only not knowing what the next word is - but not remembering anything about the question either. I wish I wasn’t quite so like it, seeing the onset of it - I do crosswords all the time to keep it at bay.

Murdoch and Bayley’s home was known for its untidiness and Production Designer Gemma Jackson created it perfectly at Pinewood Studios. "People told me about John and Iris’ untidiness," says Dench. "So when I first walked onto the set I thought: "What a lived-in place, although it was tricky not to trip over the stones that were scattered about – mind you, you trip over stones in my house because I'm a collector of stones too. I'm not quite as untidy, but it comes quite a near thing."

Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent, who plays her screen husband John Bayley, had never met before beginning work on Iris – but soon discovered they shared a similar sense of humor. "He’s got a wonderful sense of humor and that’s of paramount importance," she says. "Sharing that common bond makes working together much easier, in fact it’s vital. We share an irreverence about things and that makes working a joy, which is nice because obviously Alzheimer’s is a grim subject. I also think Jim looked incredibly and uncannily like John Bayley."

Dench laughs when she describes her reaction to the news that Kate Winslet was to play young Iris: "I thought, ‘How wonderful!’ But then I thought, ‘Is she going to like the fact that she’s going to grow into me?’ This beautiful, lithe young person. The whole film feels like it’s being done in two parts, with Kate and Hugh taking over to do all the scenes from the past. It has seemed like doing a film when you don’t know what the other arc is. But it’s in good hands. They to us and us to them - like in John Bayley’s books."

Two key factors attracted Kate Winslet to Iris, as she explains: "It was the script and to be perfectly honest, to be offered to play the young Judi Dench was such an honor. I thought: ‘How on earth can I not do this?’ Plus, when Iris Murdoch was young she was a fiercely intellectual, deeply passionate, slightly wild, bi-sexual woman and I just thought, ‘What a challenge!’

"Having not worked for a year, in getting back into it, I wanted to do something that was challenging and would push me again and be a good old shock to the system. It was certainly that and it was wonderful. So it was straight back into the deep end – and what a treat to be able to work with such great actors like Judi, Jim Broadbent and Hugh Bonneville and be directed by Richard Eyre.

"It’s also been great fun – because John and Iris were a fun couple and that’s what they were about. Yes, they were fiercely intelligent and yes, they loved serious subjects for debate. But they were also like children. I listened to a radio interview with John Bayley and he does describe himself and Iris being like two children. They loved life and living. Iris loved people, women and men, and was such an extreme woman.

"Iris is not only a wonderful insight into someone who was once described as England’s most intelligent woman, but it is also the telling of a tremendous love story – an incredibly powerful, moving love story about two people who were completely devoted to each other and depended on each other. At the same time they were completely independent of each other and were such individuals. One of the things that can be said of true, true love is when you love somebody like that you don’t want them to change. You want them to be who they are and for them to be free - and that’s what they had."

Winslet knew little of Murdoch’s work before joining the cast of Iris. "I buried myself in John Bayley’s books, watched some documentaries about her and basically read up on as much history about her as I could find. I now feel as if I am relatively familiar with her and her past life, particularly when she was young. Her younger years were harder to find out about because John Bayley’s books are so much in the present. Obviously for him the memories that are most prominent are the last 10 to 15 years."

For Winslet, playing a real person carries a considerable responsibility. "I feel conscious of trying to be as close to her as possible. I’m very aware of the history, that these are things that really did happen and the dialogue is what they actually said to each other. And I feel respectful of that, and mindful that we are getting it right. It does mean that there’s a lot of pressure that we’re putting on ourselves, to do them justice - particularly Iris."

Winslet describes Iris as "a lot of fun, a real life-liver. One thing that people have said about her is that she had such an incredible spirit - she was a real free spirit and she loved water - lakes, rivers, the sea. So for my sins I’m back in the water. I think she was quite an elemental person in that sense, and I’m a little like that as well. So that feels quite close to me."

Explaining Iris’ feelings for John when she first met him, Winslet mentions a diary extract by Iris which John Bayley had found in one of her books. "It loosely said ‘Went to the dance at St. Anthony’s, drank too much, fell down and seem to have fallen in love with J.’ I think she just felt that he loved her, she was loved and why not give the same back? I can see why someone like Iris Murdoch could go for someone like John Bayley because he was very much an innocent, and very willing to accept people for what they were. And that’s what Iris was about as well."

All four lead actors had to film swimming scenes for Iris and being in water a great deal is something Winslet is well used to, after the months she spent filming Titanic. "Some of the underwater camera guys on Iris were involved in underwater scenes on Titanic. They thought it would be terribly funny to put their Titanic cast and crew t-shirts on underneath their wetsuits. Then they stood up and unzipped their wetsuit tops and said: ‘Hey Kate, get a load of this!’ I just looked at them and said laughing: ‘And do you think that’s funny!’ Fortunately I do love water, which kind of helped because Iris Murdoch loved water, and I was in my element because the water in the tank was warm."

Winslet also gets to sing in Iris. "That’s fun," she says. "Although I always get terribly nervous about singing scenes because I’m not a trained singer and really don’t think I can sing. My legs were going a bit wobbly when I was shooting but fortunately it was a lovely song. Iris Murdoch was taught to sing by her mother in Dublin – and ironically Judi was also taught the same song by her mother so she gave me some ideas about doing it."

Jim Broadbent knew from the moment the role of John Bayley was first mooted that it would present an enormous challenge. After all, not only would he be required to give a distinctive performance, he’d be playing a character 20 years his senior, necessitating hours in make-up every day to age him. "But as I read the script I could hear myself doing it, and I like character-acting challenges anyway, so it wasn’t a totally alien prospect," he says. "My mother died of Alzheimer’s so I was very aware of the difficulties and the complexities of it. I could empathize with the story and I suppose there’s an element of me in the character of John Bayley."

With his first-hand experience of Alzheimer’s, Jim considered the script to have hit exactly the right tone when dealing with Iris Murdoch’s illness. "I was very aware of the difficulties and the complexities of Alzheimer’s and I knew that both in John Bayley’s book and in the script it had been very fairly treated. Seeing the similarities in Iris’s case and my mother’s, it seemed a very honest appraisal of the disease and how it affects people and the people around them. So I was drawn to it because Iris is a brave attempt to be honest and clear. Some of the lines in the film could be my mother speaking them.

"It is a real love story about older people, and there’s also a lighter, humorous tone, so it’s not just a bleak, dark, long goodbye. There’s a lot of light and shade in being around someone with the illness. It’s very moving – it’s not just a sad story, it brings out a lot of good qualities in people. I liked that complexity.

Some people might consider the difficulties of playing someone caring for a loved one suffering from Alzheimer’s when they had experienced it for real a serious test, but Broadbent doesn’t see it that way. "It is in a way reliving it and that’s quite difficult; but it is also uplifting to remember and it reminds you of a lot of the good and moving things."

Playing a real character didn’t disconcert him. "It’s not the fact that they’re alive or not that makes the difference, but that real people are more complex. All the complexities and contradictions that somebody gathers over a long lifetime are going to be more than in a fictional character who is of necessity drawn in slightly broader strokes. I do find the challenge of creating a fuller character very exciting."

Broadbent didn’t feel the need to meet John Bayley himself whilst he was filming. "In the end it’s a fictional character that I’m creating, it’s a creative interpretation." He read John Bayley’s books, and listened to Anthony Clare’s In The Psychiatrist’s Chair interview with Bayley, "absorbing his voice and manner quite thoroughly." By the time he’d got the character, "it seemed like it would be a diminishing return to go and meet him or observe him any closer, because it would start mucking up what I had going already."

For Broadbent, what Iris and John had was "quite a famous relationship in the Oxford world, for the 40-odd years they were together. She was obviously a rising star when he met her, when he was a good few years younger than her. I think he was rather surprised that she fell for him - there’s a sort of air that he could never quite believe his luck. It was obviously a very enduring relationship.

"Part of what the film is about is how Iris’ Alzheimer’s drew them closer together, much closer than they ever had been before - which is a challenge to the relationship. What comes through is that the relationship is well able to withstand that, that pressure. Something that is a feature of Alzheimer’s is that it creates a sort of purity of relationship, some of the extraneous elements are jettisoned and it comes down to a much more simple essence. It can work the other way - if the essence isn’t good, it can drive you apart. But in Iris and John’s case they got closer and closer.

For Broadbent, the key was to identify emotionally with the character of John Bayley, a gifted academic and author in his own right. "He says in the books that in their married life they hardly ever spoke about serious things at all, which is a relief. It is a domestic drama - I couldn’t possibly get my head round his vast knowledge of classical literature, and luckily I don’t have to. What I have to do is identify with him emotionally. I do empathize with him and the character quite readily."

Broadbent’s daily make-up routine to make him ready for filming - which he describes as "a huge aid to getting into the character" - took two hours. "To save the tedium of putting on a bald cap and then putting a wig on top of that I shaved off all my hair. I just had wispy gray hair stuck on each day along with small wig pieces," he explains. "They didn’t expect me to do it but I had no qualms about it, and the make-up artist was thrilled because it made her job easier to start with a blank canvas."

Broadbent had never worked with Judi Dench before. "It was very stimulating and very funny. We seemed to work in very much the same way, and we seemed to have the same approach. I think Richard knew that, because he’s worked extensively with us both, so he knew that we’d get on alright. We both have a similar nose for when things don’t feel quite real or when they sound a false note in a scene. It’s very refreshing, really. We both seem to find the humor in the same areas - because there is a lot of humor in the making of this film, even though it’s on a rather sad subject - it’s still funny as well, and you’ve got to have a relish of life."

Hugh Bonneville is frank about how much he wanted to play Young Bayley in Iris. "I was desperate for the role as soon as I’d read the script," he says. "It was quite simply one of the best scripts I’d read in years and I was very keen to do it. I’d read extracts of John Bayley’s books about his life with Iris a couple of years ago and was incredibly moved by them; so when the project came up I instinctively knew the tone of it and thought it would be a very touching story.

"It is very uplifting and surprisingly funny and there is real black comedy of what the older Iris and John go through. Richard and Charles Wood have captured the spirit of John’s books perfectly. It shows the completely honest adoration that John had for Iris and that’s what I love about my character – he is to a fault devoted to Iris and blind to what some might call problem areas.

"It’s a real piece of quality writing that doesn’t try to sew everything up. It asks questions about relationships, about intellect, marriage and about what makes people tick, but it doesn’t attempt to answer all of them." John fell in love with Iris from the moment he first saw her. "It was love at first sight for him," says Bonneville. "He was a sort of sexual naïf. Once he’d met her he was bowled over by her intellect and her personality.

For John Bayley, the whole world of sex is a "strange desert", according to Bonneville. "He says at one point in the film - as he does in the book - that he chose Iris because he thought that there wouldn’t be any competition, because she wasn’t a natural beauty in his eyes, and that he thought that sex was off the agenda because it was her mind he was in love with. Then to discover that she had a voracious sexuality, and had numerous lovers, that was a bit of a shock to him on one level.

"On the other hand, he completely accepted it because he adored her, and whatever terms she laid down, he was going to accept. Of course, jealousy crept up - and that’s explored in the film, how he coped with these rivals - but she just says, ‘It’s a given, that’s a part of my life, take me or leave me.’ So I think it would have been quite hard to come to terms with, since he wasn’t a naturally jealous man, and he adored her for her intellect and companionship. I think he had a bit of denial about it and let her get on with it."

Bonneville describes Iris and John as having a "complete compatibility", and living quite separate lives together. "They spent huge amounts of time apart. She had a place in London and certainly went off to work on her own - as he did. John quotes a poem in his writings, about ‘growing closer and closer apart’, which he defined as the basis of a great marriage. I don’t think they explored each other’s work too much, he never said that he was an editor of her work. One might imagine that being two great intellects, they’d sit there talking about philosophy all the time. I think the great joy of their relationship was that they talked nonsense to each other the whole time - they talked complete bollocks living in this funny, fantasy language."

Hugh chose not to meet John Bayley while making the film. "In a way I’ve got to see it more in terms of Jim Broadbent being John Bayley," he says. "Basically, I’m playing the young Jim Broadbent - so I’ve got to watch Jim, rather than John Bayley. I thought it might have just confused matters to have met the real John Bayley. It’s weird playing a living person, I’ve never done it before - I feel one step removed because I’m playing him 40 years ago.

"I’d worked with Jim before Iris in the Alan Bennett play Habeas Corpus at the Donmar Theatre in London and I didn’t think I was anything like him except that our build is roughly similar. But now I find I am more like him than I realized. We’re not trying to be identikits of each other but I hope that we are both catching the spirit of John in the same way that Judi and Kate are of Iris."

Hugh hadn’t met Kate Winslet before he started working on Iris. "Obviously I’d seen her in Sense and Sensibility and Titanic," he says. "We had a great laugh together - we spent our first two days on set swimming underwater, and then filmed the scenes on the beach. Compared to the scenes Jim and Judi had to do as Iris was losing her mind and how John copes with that, Kate and I got off lightly. The pressure isn’t on us as it is on Jim and Judi. Because we’re not having to play the tragedy. We’re just playing them when they’re young and innocent and having a laugh. We had to do young love acting - peddling on bicycles through Oxford with the sun glinting through the trees."

Like Jim Broadbent, Hugh had to have pretty radical treatment on his hair. "John Bayley did go bald as a young man so in order to change my physical features to tune into the way Jim looks as John, losing some of my hair was a good start," he says. "So I had a lawnmower attack me down the middle of my head, then this flop-over weft of hair was put over the top.

IRIS tells the story of the enduring love between the novelist and philosopher IRIS Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, fusing the romance of their early days at Oxford in the 1950s with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease some 40 years later and her death in 1999.

IRIS MURDOCH (Judi Dench) and JOHN BAYLEY (Jim Broadbent) are the guests of honour at a fund-raising dinner at Oxford University’s Somerville College. The college PRINCIPAL (Eleanor Bron) introduces IRIS as a "noted philosopher as well as author of some 26 novels" and her husband as "the distinguished Warton Professor of Literature." IRIS gives an address about education and the importance of freedom the mind, and then to everyone’s surprise and delight, she sings an Irish folk song: ‘The Lark in the Clear Air’. She is in her prime. Her friend JANET STONE (Penelope Wilton) watches her admiringly. JOHN listens with adoration and his thoughts return to the past.

YOUNG IRIS (Kate Winslet) holds forth at a dinner with her colleagues, including Young Janet Stone (Juliet Aubrey), who will become her life-long friend. After dinner, IRIS is introduced to the Young John Bayley (Hugh Bonneville) for the first time. YOUNG JOHN is so overwhelmed that he chokes as his wine goes down the wrong way. She tells him that it’s amazing that there’s a right way. "Trust the body," she says, "I always do."

IRIS gives a lecture. It’s about love: "Human beings love each other, in sex, in friendship...and they cherish other beings, humans, animals, plants, even stones."

YOUNG IRIS and YOUNG John cycle along the banks of the river Cherwell, and she confides to him that she has written a novel, that no one has read. She asks him not to tell anyone about it.

IRIS and JOHN shop in the supermarket – an amiable, normal, if eccentric, couple who clearly adore one another. They go for a drink in a pub and for the first time IRIS has some inkling that her memory is unreliable: she starts to repeat herself. JOHN is blithely unaware, remembering his courtship of her.

YOUNG John, dressed in a dinner jacket, waits in the pouring rain for YOUNG IRIS outside an Oxford college. She arrives wearing a flame-coloured taffeta dress and they run into the college where a dance is taking place. They dance the cha cha together and YOUNG JOHN meets YOUNG IRIS’ friend, YOUNG JANET. To YOUNG JOHN’S surprise YOUNG IRIS asks to see his college room. In the room she tells him that her novel is about "how to be free, how to be good, and how to love." They drink champagne out of tea cups, and they kiss.

IRIS is beginning to be anxious that her mind is going. She is having trouble spelling words as she writes, and she panics about a cat and a fox fighting in the garden. She fears she is going mad: "We all worry about going mad, don’t we..."

In a café in Oxford, YOUNG JOHN comes to meet YOUNG IRIS and finds her in the company of an attractive, Eton-cropped young woman. The woman leaves as YOUNG JOHN comes in. He asks YOUNG IRIS if she likes women. "You mean lesbians?" IRIS replies, and she smiles enigmatically when he asks her jokingly if she goes to bed with them.

IRIS becomes more anxious about losing her mind; JOHN watches her fearfully.

Outside YOUNG IRIS’ flat, YOUNG JOHN looks up at her window and sees her kissing someone, man or woman. He crosses the street and goes in, up the stairs, opens the door and peers in. What he sees shocks him and he runs away. Later, outside, YOUNG JOHN watches as a man leaves the house.

IRIS arrives at the BBC’s TV studios for an interview. She is shown into the studio gallery, where she sees on the monitors an earlier interview, in black and white, in which her young self is talking about writing. Later, on air, the presenter (Joan Bakewell) asks IRIS if she believes that language is becoming debased. IRIS explains that the importance of reading and writing is in their being connected to thought, and then she stops dead: she’s completely lost her thread.

IRIS turns up at home, in a panic and shouting for John. He runs down the stairs. She tells him that she had no idea what she was doing in London, and for John this is sufficient confirmation that something is seriously wrong. Later, a worried young doctor, Dr. Gudgeon (Kris Marshall) asks IRIS if she knows the name of the Prime Minister. IRIS can’t recall it. The doctor says that there will have to be tests and scans, but John replies that IRIS has a very clear mind.

IRIS has a brain scan, and JANET turns up to take her and JOHN home. IRIS and John drink a toast to the completion of her novel. She says she feels as if she’s sailing into darkness. She undergoes further tests. The Neurologist (Tom Mannion) is unable to offer her any consolation, and tells her that the disease is implacable. John can’t believe that her words and thoughts will gradually dry up, like "dead birds dropping."

The postman (Derek Hutchinson) arrives at Charlbury Road with a package. John opens it to find a copy of IRIS’ latest novel from her publisher. IRIS doesn’t even recognise it. She shuffles behind John, to his annoyance following him round the kitchen "like a water buffalo",.

IRIS and John go swimming in the river. IRIS sees her younger self swimming towards her under water, naked, like a mermaid. YOUNG JOHN in his vest and underpants, dries the naked young IRIS with her petticoat.

YOUNG IRIS and JOHN turn up for lunch at a house in Oxford, their hair and her petticoat - in his pocket - still wet from the swimming. Young Maurice (Samuel West) opens the door, surprised and put out to see YOUNG John with her. Over a lobster lunch, YOUNG Maurice accuses IRIS of using her friends as material for her writing, but IRIS angrily denies it. YOUNG Maurice is clearly jealous of John, and curious to know if they have made love. Later that afternoon, YOUNG IRIS invites YOUNG John up to her flat, where she gives him a copy of her manuscript and suggests that they make love. They do.

IRIS’ illness begins to take its toll on John and he loses his temper with her. Distraught and guilty, he sits her down and reads to her from Pride and Prejudice. She interrupts him: "I wrote," she says, with tears in her eyes. "Such things you wrote," replies John.

The Neurologist shows John a scan of IRIS’ brain. John can’t understand how, if her brain world is empty, she can say anything lucid, but the Neurologist can offer no explanation. John still believes that she’s alert; he suggests that he should learn her language before the lights go out.

IRIS and John run across a beach in Suffolk. Janet Stone and JANET’s daughters, Emma (Juliet Howland) and Phillida (Saira Todd) greet them. JANET is very ill, but makes light of it – "tummy trouble", she says. IRIS wanders off and sits down by the sea with a notepad. Can she write? She carefully tears out pages and lays them on the shingle, a stone placed on each page. She turns to look at the beach hut where she wrote in the past.

YOUNG IRIS is writing, watching YOUNG John who is talking to YOUNG Janet. He says that he feels that doesn’t have YOUNG IRIS all to himself, then goes off for a swim in the sea, fully dressed, much to the amusement of YOUNG IRIS, YOUNG Janet and her children.

At night, on the veranda of Janet’s beach house, IRIS takes things from her cardigan pocket - pebbles, shells, seaweed, a Coke can - and puts them on the table. IRIS dances with Janet to the music on the radio: a French song by Charles Trenet. IRIS and JANET appear to be comforting each other.

Back home in the dead of night JOHN is in bed, listening to IRIS shuffling round the house talking to herself and singing ‘The Lark in the Clear Air’. He remembers YOUNG IRIS singing the same song, "her mother’s song". He is jolted back to the present by the sound of IRIS peeing on the floor.

Some days later, John is working at his typewriter in the kitchen while IRIS watches the Teletubbies. After a while he looks up from his work. The television is on in the sitting room but there is no sign of IRIS. He knows immediately that she has disappeared. He drives, looking for her, but she is nowhere to be seen. A policewoman (Emma Handy) comes to the house and is appalled by the filthy state of the house. John is distraught.

IRIS, bedraggled and soaking in the rain, walks hurriedly along a dual carriageway, along another road, and past a row of shops. Later, John opens the door to IRIS old admirer, Maurice (Timothy West) who has found IRIS in the supermarket. John fails to recognise him. IRIS now seems remote from JOHN. "Were you trying to get away from me," he says, and later, lying in bed with IRIS, he remembers the occasion when he opened the door of her flat and saw her, astride a man, making love.

In a desperate fury JOHN shouts at IRIS as she lies beside him in bed: "I’ve got you now and I don’t bloody want you! I’ve never known who you are, and now I don’t want to!"

YOUNG IRIS tells YOUNG JOHN that it’s time she told him about her past lovers. YOUNG JOHN is agonised but she tells him that he matters more than anyone to her: he is her world.

JANET is dead and, in an agony of despair, JOHN addresses the congregation at her funeral. IRIS sits in the church between her daughters like a prisoner under escort. Outside the church, she lashes out and starts shouting, as if suddenly realising for the first time that Janet is dead.

In the car on the way home, IRIS pulls at the wheel as John drives and he nearly loses control. The car swerves. Suddenly, IRIS wrenches open the car door and falls into the night. John screeches to a halt as soon as he can. He runs frantically back down the road calling for her. As a car blasts past he falls down, through a hedge, and ends up lying in the undergrowth beside IRIS. She is unhurt, laughing. And then she says, "I love you."

IRIS is taken to a nursing home, where she will be cared for. Some weeks later, she lies in her bed, JOHN sitting beside her; she is dead. "Do you know," says JOHN, "I wouldn’t mind doing that myself."

Back in the house, JOHN is emptying a drawer. He comes across the petticoat which he stuffed into his jacket pocket so many years ago. On the bed there are some stones that IRIS collected, ranged like a memorial to her. One of the stones falls off the pillow. It tumbles slowly through the water to the bed of the river.

Judi Dench’s principal previous film credits include Chocolat (for which she received a Best Actress In A Supporting Role Academy Award nomination); Shakespeare In Love (for which she won a Best Actress in a Supporting role Academy Award and a BAFTA award) and Mrs Brown (for which she received a Best Actress In A Leading Role Academy Award nomination and won a BAFTA award). She also stars in the upcoming The Shipping News. She played M in the James Bond films The World Is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies and Goldeneye. Her other credits include Tea With Mussolini, Hamlet, Jack and Sarah, Henry V, A Handful of Dust, 84 Charing Cross Road, A Room With A View (for which she won a BAFTA award), Wetherby, Dead Cert, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Study In Terror and The Third Secret. Most recently, she has filmed The Importance of Being Earnest.

Her television work includes roles in Last of The Blonde Bombshells (for which she won a Best Actress BAFTA and a Golden Globe award), As Time Goes By, Absolute Hell, The Torch, Make and Break, Saigon, Smiley’s People, Love In A Cold Climate, A Fine Romance, The Cherry Orchard and Comedy of Errors. Her stage work includes Amy’s View, directed by Richard Eyre (for which she received a Tony Award for Best Actress), A Little Night Music, The Seagull, Coriolanus, The Plough and the Stars, Macbeth, The Cherry Orchard, Look Back In Anger, Much Ado About Nothing and Cabaret.

Jim Broadbent’s previous film credits include: Bridget Jones’ Diary, Moulin Rouge, Topsy Turvy (for which he received a Best Actor BAFTA nomination), Little Voice, The Avengers, The Borrowers, Richard III, Bullets Over Broadway, The Crying Game, Enchanted April, Brazil, Dogs of War and Breaking Glass. Most recently, he played a leading role in Gangs of New York. His television work includes roles in The Peter Principle, Gone To Seed, Murder Most Horrid, Inspector Morse, Only Fools and Horses, Happy Families, The Messiah, Silas Marner andThe Country Churchyard. He is currently filming The Lonely War for BBC Films and HBO. His stage roles include Habeas Corpus, A Flea In Her Ear, The Recruiting Officer, The Winter’s Tale, The Government Inspector, Our Friends In The North and The Warp.

Kate Winslet is best known for her role as Rose in Titanic, for which she received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination. Her other films include Enigma, Quills, Holy Smoke, Hideous Kinky, Jude, Hamlet, Sense and Sensibility (for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and a BAFTA Award) and Heavenly Creatures. She is currently filming The Life of David Gale.

Penelope Wilton’s previous film credits include Joseph Andrews, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Richard Eyre’s Laughterhouse, Clockwise, Cry Freedom, Carrington and Tom’s Midnight Garden. Her television work includes roles in Bob & Rose, Mrs Warren’s Profession, Othello, King Lear, Lucky Jim, Pasmore, The Monocled Mutineer, Ever Decreasing Circles, The Borrowers and Kavanagh QC. In the theatre, her principal credits include The Cherry Orchard (directed by Richard Eyre), The Philanthropist, Betrayal, Man and Superman, Much Ado About Nothing, The Secret Rapture, The Deep Blue Sea, A Kind Of Alaska and most recently The Little Foxes.

Samuel West’s films include Notting Hill, Howard's End, Carrington, Pandaemonium, Complicity, Reunion, Stiff Upper Lips and Persuasion. His television work includes roles in Longitude, Hornblower, Edward VII, Stanley and the Women, As Time Goes By, A Breed of Heroes, The Vacillations of Poppy Carew, and Heavy Weather. On stage he recently played the title role of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Richard II, to considerable critical acclaim and is currently performing Hamlet at the RSC.

Timothy West’s films include Nicholas and Alexandra, The Day of The Jackal, Oliver Twist, The Thirty Nine Steps, Cry Freedom, Joan of Arc, 102 Dalmatians and The Fourth Angel. His television work includes Edward VII, Hard Times, Brass, Churchill and the Generals, The Monocled Mutineer, A Very Peculiar Practice, Blore MP, Bramwell, Murder In Mind, Station Jim and King Lear. On stage he has appeared in Richard II, Edward II, A Month in The Country, The Rivals, The Birthday Party, A Room With A View, The Clandestine Marriage, Death of a Salesman, Hedda Gabler, When We Are Married and Twelve Angry Men.

Eleanor Bron’s previous film credits include The House of Mirth, A Little Princess, Deadly Advice, Black Beauty, Little Dorritt, Women In Love, The National Health, Bedazzled, Alfie and Help. Her television work includes roles in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Gypsy Girl, Fat Friends, Hippies, Vanity Fair, Wycliffe, The Blue Boy, Absolutely Fabulous, A Month In The Country, My Father Knew Lloyd George and Hour of The Lynx. Her principal stage credits include Hamlet, The White Devil, Oedipus & Oedipus at Colonnus, The Duchess of Malfi, The Real Inspector Hound and The Cherry Orchard.

Richard Eyre was Artistic Director of the Royal National Theatre from 1988 to 1997. Productions he has directed at the National Theatre include Guys and Dolls, The Beggar’s Opera, King Lear, Richard III (which toured the US), Hamlet, Macbeth, Amy’s View (which transferred to Broadway), Skylight (which also transferred to Broadway), Racing Demon, The Invention of Love, Sweet Bird of Youth, The Night of the Iguana, Murmuring Judges, The Voysey Inheritance. He has won numerous awards for his theatre work, including an Olivier Award for Lifetime Achievement. His previous film credits include The Ploughman’s Lunch, which won the Evening Standard Best Film Award, and many award-winning television films including Tumbledown, The Insurance Man and King Lear. In 1994 he directed La Traviata at the Royal Opera House. His first book, Utopia and Other Places was published in 1993 and he wrote and presented a BBC TV series - Changing Stages - which he was also shown on PBS. He will be directing The Crucible with Liam Neeson on Broadway in February 2002.

Charles Wood’s previous film credits include The Knack (which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes), Help!, How I Won The War, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Long Day’s Dying, and An Awfully Big Adventure. His television writing includes the series Don’t Forget to Write, My Family and Other Animals and Wagner, as well as episodes for Inspector Morse, Kavanagh QC, Sharpe and Monsignor Renard. His television plays include Death or Glory Boy, Tumbledown, A Breed of Heroes, Love Lies Bleeding and England My England. His stage plays include Prisoner and Escort, Dingo, Meals on Wheels, Don’t Make Me Laugh, Veterans (which won an Evening Standard Award), Jingo (directed by Richard Eyre), Red Star, The Mountain Giants, Man, Beast and Virture and The Tower.

Robert Fox was the executive producer on Another Country and produced A Month By The Lake for Miramax Films. He has recently co-produced The Hours with Scott Rudin. He has produced or co-produced more than 30 stage plays in the West End and on Broadway including Anyone for Denis?, Another Country, The Seagull, Torch Song Trilogy, Chess, Lettice and Lovage, Anything Goes, A Madhouse in Goa, Burn This, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, Vita & Virginia, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, A Delicate Balance, Skylight, The Judas Kiss, Amy’s View (starring Judi Dench and directed by Richard Eyre), The Boy From Oz, Little Malcolm, The Blue Room on Broadway and recently The Caretaker and The Lady In The Van.

Film: Zoolander, Sleepy Hollow, Shaft, Angela’s Ashes, Wonder Boys, Rules of Engagement, Bringing out the Dead, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, The Truman Show, A Civil Action, In and Out, Ransom, Mother, Marvin’s Room, The First Wives Club, Twilight, Clueless, Sabrina, Nobody’s Fool, The Firm, Searching For Bobby Fischer, Sister Act, The Addams Family, Addams Family Values, Little Man Tate, Regarding Henry, Pacific Heights, Flatliners, Jennifer Eight, Mrs. Soffel and the Academy Award-winning He Makes Me Feel Like Dancing. Upcoming: Changing Lanes, The Hours, Marci X, Orange County, The Royal Tenenbaums. Theatre: Passion, Indiscretions, Hamlet, Seven Guitars, Skylight, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, On The Town, The Chairs, The Judas Kiss, Stupid Kids, The Blue Room, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Closer (London and New York), Amy’s View, The Wild Party, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, Copenhagen and The Designated Mourner.

Roger Pratt’s credits include, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; Chocolat, 102 Dalmatians, The End of the Affair (for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography), Twelve Monkeys, Shadowlands, The Fisher King, Batman, High Hopes, Mona Lisa and Brazil. He previously worked with Richard Eyre on the television version of the Royal National Theatre production of King Lear.

Gemma Jackson’s credits include Bridget Jones’ Diary, Killing Me Softly, State And Main, Whatever Happened To Harold Smith?, The Winslow Boy and The Borrowers.

Ruth Myers’s credits include Four Feathers, Proof of Life, Company Man, The Next Best Thing, Cradle Will Rock, Deep Impact, LA Confidential, A Thousand Acres, Emma (for which she was nominated for an Oscar), Bogus, How To Make An American Quilt, I.Q., The Firm, The Addams Family (for which she was nominated for an Oscar), The Russia House, The Woman In Red, Altered States and A Touch Of Class.

Martin Walsh’s credits include Bridget Jones’ Diary, Whatever Happened To Harold Smith?, Mansfield Park, Hilary And Jackie, Hackers, Backbeat, Hear My Song and The Krays.

James Horner’s credits include Windtalkers, Four Feathers, A Beautiful Mind, Enemy At The Gates,, The Perfect Storm, Zorro, Deep Impact, Titanic (for which he won two Academy Awards for Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Song), Apollo 13, Braveheart, Patriot Games, Aliens, Ransom, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Legends of the Fall, Clear and Present Danger, Jumanji, The Pelican Brief andField of Dreams.

Sydney Pollack’s 18 films have received 46 Academy Award Nominations including four for Best Picture. Pollack himself has been nominated three times (Best Director and Best Picture for Tootsie, Best Director for They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?). His film Out of Africa won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. He won the New York Film Critics’ Award for his 1982 film Tootsie and has won the Golden Globe as Best Director twice.

In 1985 he formed Mirage Enterprises and under that banner has produced, among others. Presumed Innocent, The Fabulous Baker Boys, White Palace, Major League, Dead Again, Searching For Bobby Fisher, Sense and Sensibility and The Talented Mr. Ripley.

ANTHONY MINGHELLA (Executive Producer)

Anthony Minghella lectured in drama at the University of Hull until 1981. His first film as writer and director, Truly, Madly, Deeply was a great success in Britain and America - winning several awards including a BAFTA and a Writer’s Guild Award. The English Patient, which he wrote and directed, based on Michael Ondaatje’s novel, has won more than 30 awards including nine Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Director), two Golden Globes, six BAFTA Awards and the Directors Guild of America Award for Best Director. The Talented Mr. Ripley, which he adapted for the screen and directed, was nominated for five Academy Awards and for seven BAFTAS.

Since last year, he has been Sydney Pollack’s partner in Mirage Enterprises, the production company behind films such as Sense and Sensibility, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Talented Mr. Ripley and the forthcoming films Heaven, The Quiet American, and Minghella’s own adaptation of Cold Mountain.

In 1988, Guy East founded Majestic Films International, where until 1995, he was responsible for the distribution of films which were nominated for 34 Oscars and won a total of 15 Oscars including two Best Pictures, Dances with Wolves and Driving Miss Daisy.

In 1996 he founded Intermedia Film Equities Ltd. (together with Nigel Sinclair), of which he is Co-Chairman. Last year, Intermedia merged with Moritz Borman’s Pacifica and their new company, Internationalmedia AG, was floated on the German Neuer Markt. Recent productions include: K-19, The Widowmaker, K-PAX, Adaptation and The Wedding Planner.

David M. Thompson was appointed Head of BBC Films in May 1997. His feature film credits as a producer include Captives and Face.

As an Executive Producer his recent credits include Billy Elliot (BBC Films’ most successful film to date, which has taken some $100m worldwide, won three major British Academy Film Awards and was nominated for three Academy Awards); Wonderland; Maybe Baby; and Last Resort (winner of the Carl Foreman Award for Most Promising Newcomer to British Film at the British Academy Film Awards). Forthcoming releases include Morvern Callar, Doctor Sleep, I Capture The Castle and Dirty Pretty Things.

Tom Hedley, the former Publisher of Duckworth in London, is presently President and Publisher of Hedley Media Group in New York City. As a young editor of Esquire magazine, he edited and published essays by Federico Fellini, Francois Truffaut, Michelangelo Antonioni and Andy Warhol, among others.

A fascination with film led to a number of written and produced screenplays including Circle of Two, Mr. Patman, Double Negative, Fighting Back and Flashdance.

Miramax Films BBC Films Intermedia Films present

A Mirage Enterprises/Robert Fox/Scott Rudin Production of a Richard Eyre Film

Judi Dench

Jim Broadbent

and Kate Winslet

Hugh Bonneville

Celestia Fox

Lisa Westcott

Ruth Myers

James Horner

Joshua Bell

Martin Walsh

Gemma Jackson

Roger Pratt BSC

Michael Dreyer

Anthony Minghella

Sydney Pollack

Guy East

David M. Thompson

Tom Hedley

Harvey Weinstein

Elegy for Iris and Iris and Her Friends

Richard Eyre

Charles Wood

Robert Fox

Scott Rudin

In order of appearance

Young John Bayley HUGH BONNEVILLE

Iris Murdoch JUDI DENCH

John Bayley JIM BROADBENT

Principal ELEANOR BRON

Hostess ANGELA MORANT

Janet Stone PENELOPE WILTON

Check-out Girl SIOBAN HAYES

Young Janet Stone JULIET AUBREY

BBC Presenter JOAN BAKEWELL

BBC PA NANCY CARROLL

Dr. Gudgeon KRIS MARSHALL

Neurologist TOM MANNION

Postman DEREK HUTCHINSON

Young Maurice SAMUEL WEST

Phillida Stone SAIRA TODD

Emma Stone JULIET HOWLAND

Young Phillida Stone CHARLOTTE ARKWRIGHT

Young Emma Stone HARRIET ARKWRIGHT

Little Stone MATILDA ALLSOPP

Pianist STEVE EDIS

Policewoman EMMA HANDY

Older Maurice TIMOTHY WEST

Taxi Driver STEPHEN MARCUS

Maureen PAULINE MCGLYNN

Tricia GABRIELLE REIDY

Produced by ROBERT FOX

SCOTT RUDIN

Written by RICHARD EYRE

CHARLES WOOD

Based on JOHN BAYLEY’S BOOKS

ELEGY FOR IRIS and

IRIS AND HER FRIENDS

SYDNEY POLLACK

Executive Producers GUY EAST

HARVEY WEINSTEIN

Line Producer MICHAEL DREYER

Director of Photography ROGER PRATT, BSC

Production Designer GEMMA JACKSON

Editor MARTIN WALSH

Solo Violin JOSHUA BELL

Music Composed and Conducted by JAMES HORNER

Costume Designer RUTH MYERS

Hair & Make Up Designer LISA WESTCOTT

Casting Director CELESTIA FOX

Second Assistant Director FINN MCGRATH

Third Assistant Director CHRIS STOALING

Production Manager TIM PORTER

Production Co-ordinator MEL CLAUS

Assistant Co-ordinator VICKY RILEY

Production Accountant MAURICE LANDSBERGER

Assistant Accountant PAUL LANDSBERGER

Production Sound Mixer JIM GREENHORN

Sound Maintenance STEVE FINN

Script Executives for BBC Films TRACEY SCOFFIELD

JAMIE LAURENSON

Production Executives for BBC Films JOANIE BLAIKIE

JANE HAWLEY

For Intermedia Films PAUL DAVIS

NICK DRAKE

WILL EVANS

JERE HAUSFATER

Script Supervisor CATHY DOUBLEDAY

Camera Operator PAUL BOND

Camera Trainee SACHA JONES

Grips COLIN MANNING

KEITH MANNING

Crane Operator ANDY THOMSON

Video Playback DENIS POLLITT

Video Engineers RON OSMON

JOHN SIEMINSKI

Art Director DAVID WARREN

Assistant Art Director PAUL INGLIS

Standby Assistant Art Director KEVIN WOODHOUSE

Set Decorator TRISHA EDWARDS

Production Buyer KRISSI WILLIAMSON

Art Department Assistants CHARLIE COBB

NINA ROSS

Storyboard Artists JANE CLARK

PIPPA MARKS

Art Department Photographer MARK DOUET

Choreographer JANE GIBSON

Casting Assistant ALEX JOHNSON

Assistant to Mr. Fox SUSIE LEWIS

Executive Assistant to Mr. Rudin KEVIN J. WALSH

Assistants to Mr. Rudin MEGAN GERARD

ASHLEE BURNETTE

MALCOLM AUCHINCLOSS

LEDA NORNANG

CHARLES PARLAPANIDES

LARS KNUDSEN

Floor Runner CHARLIE WALLER

Production Runners ADAM MORANE-GRIFFITHS

JESSE ACTON THOMPSON

Production Trainees DAISY GILI

KATE HILL

ANNA MOHR-PIETSCH

REBECCA WULFF

Location Manager TOM ELGOOD

Location Finder ADAM RICHARDS

Assistant Location Managers REBECCA CHAMBERS

NICK WILLIAMS

Make-up & Hair Artist LESLEY SMITH

Make-up & Hair Assistants KATE BENTON

JAYNE BUXTON

JULIE DARTNELL

ANTONIA KRUGER

GILL THOMAS

JANE WALKER

Costume Supervisor MICHAEL MOONEY

Assistant Costume Designer NICOLE YOUNG

Costume Assistants KRISTY WILKINSON

LIAM FLAVELL

REBEKAH GRIFFITHS

Additional Costume Assistants FIONA MCCANN

JO MEASURE

JULIE NETHERCOTE

MARNIE ORMISTON

KATE HELEN STROUD

Post Production Supervisor STEPHEN BARKER

Post Production Co-ordinator LOUISE SEYMOUR

First Assistant Editor STEVE MAGUIRE

Assistant Editors KEITH LOWES

MARTYN ROBINSON

JOHN NUTH

Supervising Sound Editor GLENN FREEMANTLE

Dialogue/ADR Editor GILLIAN DODDERS

Sound Editor TOM SAYERS

Foley Editor MATT GRIME

Props Master TOM PLEYDELL-PEARCE

Dressing Props PETER BURDEN

KEVIN FLEET

Standby Props WILL CANN

SEGAN FRIEND

CAMPBELL MITCHELL

Construction Manager TOM MARTIN

Supervising Carpenter PETER N. BROWN

Carpenter DAVID A. YOUNGS

Painters ALAN GRENHAM

KENNETH J. WELLAND

Scenic Artist HOWARD WEAVER

Supervising Stagehand GEORGE KING

Supervising Rigger ALAN WILLIAMS

Standby Carpenter CATHAL MACILWAINE

Standby Rigger DAVID WELLER

Standby Stagehand PAT HONAN

Standby Painter PAT ROBERTS

Gaffer CHUCK FINCH

Best Boy RICHARD MERRELL

Electricians PERRY CULLEN

STEVE FINCH

SIMON LUCAS

MICHAEL WHITE

Generator Operator DAVE BRUCE

Special Effects Supervisor PETER NOTLEY

ANTHONY CLEAL

MARK SHEFFIELD

ADR/Foley Mixer KEVIN TAYLER

ADR Voice Casting LOUIS ELMAN AMPS

Foley Artists PAULA BORAM

FELICITY COTTRELL

Unit Publicists PAUL ALMOND

SARAH CLARK

MACDONALD & RUTTER

Stills Photographer CLIVE COOTE

Assistant to Kate Winslet EMMA LESLIE

Unit Nurse SCARLETT PEART

Second Unit Director of Photography NICK SCHLESINGER

"A Lark in the Clear Air"

"The Hokie Cokie"

"Cerisier Rose et Pommier Blanc" (Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White)

"Que reste-t-il de nos amours?"

"How Much is that Doggie in the Window"