A successful courtship

Veteran British actress Joan Plowright may have waited more than half a century for a starring role in a feature film, but that didn’t stop her from turning down the juicy lead -- twice -- in the drama “Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.”

“I know those film hours, and 14 hours a day is not much good for me anymore,” explained Plowright, 76. “So I had to say ‘We wouldn’t do a proper job. We would be so tired by the end of the day.’ ”

Director Dan Ireland (“The Whole Wide World,” “Passionada”) wouldn’t take no as an answer, though. “When I saw [Plowright in] ‘Enchanted April’ I said, ‘I love this actress,’ ” recalled Ireland. “I started finding her films and watching all of them from ‘Equus’ to ‘The Entertainer.’ She is a remarkable actress and this was a ‘Trip to Bountiful’ kind of role for an actress. So I just kept thinking ‘Joan Plowright, Joan Plowright, Joan Plowright.’ ”

Ireland went to the producers and pleaded that they add more time to the 24-day shooting schedule to ease the demand that would be placed on the widow of Sir Laurence Olivier. It paid off: Though the film was under tight budget constraints, the producers found the money to allow an extra week of filming.

And the third offer was the charm for Plowright.

Mrs. Palfrey is an elegant widow who moves from Scotland, where she has a married daughter, to London. There, she takes up residence in a shabby old hotel called the Claremont, which is also home to several widows and widowers. She wants to be closer to her 26-year-old grandson, Desmond, who lives in London. Though she makes several attempts to contact him, Desmond fails to visit her.

As fate, or a fall, would have it, Mrs. Palfrey trips on a sidewalk outside the apartment of a handsome young man named Ludo (Rupert Friend). The budding writer happens to be just as lonely as Mrs. Palfrey and the two strike up a quick friendship. So much so, that Mrs. Palfrey enlists Ludo to pretend to be her grandson when she introduces him around at the Claremont.

Based on a novel by Elizabeth Taylor -- the writer, not the actress -- and adapted by 85-year-old Ruth Sacks, a first-time screenwriter, the project came to Ireland’s attention about 18 months ago.

“It was something I instantly gravitated toward,” he said.

Taylor’s book was far bleaker than Sacks’ script, though. “Elizabeth Taylor was dying of cancer when she wrote it, so there is this anger,” Ireland said. “But at the core of it was this amazing friendship between these two people that were at the same place in their life but were 50 years apart. There were all of these parallel things between Ludo and his mother and Mrs. Palfrey and her own daughter, and in it was the feeling that sometimes family is where you find it.”

Because of the limited budget, Ireland moved the story out of its original setting in 1950s to contemporary London.

Ireland and Sacks also added a love interest for Ludo -- a young woman he meets at the video store.

“I thought that with everything that Mrs. Palfrey brought into Ludo’s life, it should ultimately lead him to something decent, which is why we created the role of Gwendolyn.”

THOUGH Plowright was Ireland’s only choice to play Mrs. Palfrey, he had a difficult time finding the right actor to play Ludo. He auditioned 65 young British actors until he chose Friend, who also is in “Pride & Prejudice” and “The Libertine.”

“We needed to find a guy that Mrs. Palfrey could bring in and turn the heads of everyone in the hotel, and yet find somebody who [could play the role of someone whose life was] messed up,” said Ireland. “It was a tall order.”

Ireland had all the actors audition the scene in which Ludo sings “For All We Know” to Mrs. Palfrey.

Friend was the only one of the 65 potential Ludo’s who brought a guitar with him to perform the song.

“He just had everything,” said Ireland. “It was like when Renee Zellweger came in to audition or ‘The Whole Wide World’ and Emmy Rossum came in to audition for ‘Passionada.’ When an actor can show you something about a character that you didn’t know, that is when to go with him.”

Friend describes working with Plowright as a “gift from heaven.”

“If you want to go to a school of acting there is nothing better than being ensconced in a film six days a week, 15 hours a day with Joan Plowright,” he said.

Plowright, said Friend, helped him to “really open his eyes and try to see who the person is you are trying to become so the line between you and the character becomes completely blurred. The idea then, and this is always the bottom line of acting, is that the viewer can’t tell it’s acting.”

Plowright put a lot of herself into her role. “You read the character on the page and you understand a great deal about her dilemma,” she said. “I have a larger family so I’m not alone and don’t have to go outside the family for relationships, but I am widowed and she’s a widow. She wants to maintain her independence and so do I. She doesn’t happen to get on with her married daughter and I do happen to get on with my two very well, but you can understand that often happens.”

She believes Mrs. Palfrey and Ludo are kindred souls. “She has given everything to her marriage.... She’s left herself with no friends. He is struggling to be a writer and has given up a great deal and has no close friends. When they pal up together, they give each other something important to cling to.”

The film is dedicated to Robert Lang, who plays Mr. Osborne, a hotel guest who takes Mrs. Palfrey on a date.

He died of lung cancer two weeks after filming ended. “He didn’t know [he was sick],” Ireland said. “Joan led me to Bob because Bob used to work with Sir Laurence at the National Theater and Joan brought him to the cast.”

Plowright added softly: “We didn’t know he was sick. He was a marvelous actor.”