Cate Blanchett and director Richard Eyre on the set of Notes on a Scandal Courtesy of Fox Searchlight READ MORE: Andrew Simpson Q&A READ MORE: Women in Hollywood: Cate Blanchett

THE DIRECTORS: THE BUTTONED-UP BRIT
Richard Eyre

New York
One doesn't necessarily associate Richard Eyre — director of 2001's Alzheimer's downer Iris and 2004's tame Elizabethan gender-bender Stage Beauty — with steamy celluloid sex. Though perhaps not the most titillating director the cinema has to offer, his tale of realized and unrealized lust, Notes on a Scandal, has a subtle appeal that the movies coming out of the San Fernando Valley lack. The provocative film finds Cate Blanchett's bougie art teacher as the object of nearly everyone's desire — her adoring older husband (Bill Nighy), her deeply repressed coworker (Judi Dench) and (gulp) her 15 year-old student (Andrew Simpson) are all smitten. Eyre opens up about Dench's "predatory lesbian" character, the awkwardness of filming sex scenes and how he got Cate Blanchett to channel her inner Mary Kay Letourneau.

The Sexessential: Notes on a Scandal

Do you see Notes on a Scandal as a gay drama?
No, I see it as a drama. Barbara (played by Judi Dench) is unquestionably a lesbian in her desires, except that she wouldn't even admit that to herself. She is a person in such chronic self-denial that she would be horrified if you said to her: "You're a predatory lesbian!" She'd just say: "I have these friendships. And then my friends keep letting me down." That is what is so fascinating about her. She is so completely self-deluding. She just tells these terrible lies to herself.

Can you talk about what sort of prep work was done, especially in terms of Andrew [Simpson] and Cate [Blanchett] because you had to make they were comfortable with each other before they started shooting their sex scenes?
Well, we spent some time just sitting around talking. Shooting sex scenes are always difficult. There is something so weird about inviting people to do things that by definition are [private]. For 99% of the world, people aren't observed in their sexual activity. I try to make it as matter-of-fact as possible, to be frankly anatomical. And I try and make it seem truthful and to be precise about it. To say to actors who are almost total strangers: "Just go on, get at it and I'll film it!" doesn't work." But Cate was wonderful. She made Andrew confident I think. She was just very, very generous and it is a wonderful piece of acting from both them. But she just made it seem like she was wildly attracted to Andrew. And why wouldn't she be? [But for Cate and Andrew] it was freezing cold and incredibly tiring!

Cate Blanchett and Andrew Simpson in Notes on a Scandal Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

That location for the sex scenes right between the train tracks: was it something from the book?
Actually, no. In the book it is in a park in Hampstead Heath and it is kind of in the bushes. And I just couldn't make it work on screen because you film at night in the bushes and you have got nothing. There is no sort of poetry about it. So that is why I moved to the a train track.

Do you think that there is a gap in perception between the law and reality when it comes to the punishment for consorting with a minor sexually?
Most fifteen-year old boys think about nothing but sex. A gorgeous 35 year-old is the absolute apotheosis of a teenager's desires. I don't think it is the same if you switch the genders, with men and 15 year-old girls. But having said that, if I had a 15 year-old son and discovered that the teacher had been having an affair I would feel that the teacher behaved very badly.

Can you talk about some of the discussions that you had with Cate about the character of Sheba?
Cate always said — and it is a tribute to her brilliance as an actress — "I simply cannot understand how you could be attracted to a 15 year-old boy. I don't get it. I just don't get it." Her job is not to agree with it but just to make it plausible and we discussed that a lot. The job of an actor is not to agree with the character they are playing. It is just to get inside the character they are playing. If you are playing a murderer, you think: "I don't understand why somebody does this but I am going to get inside and do my best and pretend to be that person." After all that is the job of acting — it is pretending; it is not being. Sometimes people long to believe that actors are the people they are playing, and when actors say "I am just doing a job!" it sort of dispels the magic, I guess. But the truth is they don't have to agree. They have to just impersonate.

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