Familiar faces, strange land

NATASHA Richardson sought counsel from her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, before they began working together on James Ivory’s romantic drama “The White Countess”: She wanted to know what to expect from the veteran director.

“She said, ‘He’s a man of few words and he is not given to effusive praise, so don’t worry too much when he doesn’t say anything after a take. He will tell you when something is wrong, and you should trust him on that,’ ” Richardson said. “Thank God, she told me that, otherwise I would have been a basket case of insecurity.”

Penned by Kazuo Ishiguro (“Remains of the Day”) and set in 1930s Shanghai, “The White Countess” revolves around blind American diplomat Todd Jackson (Ralph Fiennes), who has lost his wife and child to upheaval in that country and roams the city looking for the latest hot spot to take his mind off his personal tragedy.

When he can’t find that perfect nightclub, Jackson opens his own establishment and hires Countess Sofia Belinsky, the beautiful Russian refugee played by Richardson, to work as its hostess. Sofia and her family had fled their country after the Russian Revolution, and, like so many other Russian aristocrats, ended up in dire straits, trapped in Shanghai without passports or exit visas. Vanessa Redgrave plays Sofia’s naive aunt; Lynn Redgrave plays Sofia’s dominating mother-in-law.

Richardson initially thought she would feel self-conscious working with her mother and aunt in the same film. “But ... it was a very bonding experience because it was a difficult shoot in difficult conditions in China -- none of the usual amenities, difficult locations, very uncomfortable, very unhygienic.”

Added Lynn Redgrave, who had never worked with her niece: “We could make each other laugh and get through some difficult times .... It was wonderful, that part of it, the real family part was absolutely marvelous.”

IVORY had met Richardson more than 25 years ago when he worked with her mother on “The Bostonians,” and he followed her career over the decades.

“I just felt that there was something about her now that seemed right for the part -- that she could convincingly play a Russian,” Ivory said. “I don’t know why I felt that, because Russians don’t look so different from us. It’s not that she’s had a hard life, but there is something that shows on her face that you would expect to show on the face of someone who had the kind of awful experiences she’s had -- trekking all across Russia to Shanghai.”

Originally, Fiennes’ character wasn’t blind. The transformation came about after Ivory and his late producing partner, Ismail Merchant, met with Fiennes two years before the film went into production, and the actor felt his character was lacking something.

Fiennes told the creative team, “I think there’s another dimension [needed], something that underpins his obsessions.”

Not long after that meeting -- Merchant died earlier this year -- Ivory visited a blind friend in New York. “Suddenly I thought, ‘Perhaps he could be blind,’ ” the director recalled. “There were a lot of reasons why he might be blind.”

The new plot development sold Fiennes on the part.

“Somehow it made sense that a blind man who had suffered, who had lost a lot of his idealism and been bent and soured by what he had gone through could fixate on this nocturnal obsession of this ideal nightclub, which becomes sort of an expression of where he has put all of his hope,” Fiennes said.

“I imagined here is a man who is only excited about the atmosphere if he goes into these different clubs.”

Though there is a visceral affinity between Sofia and Jackson as soon as they meet, their love affair gets off to a slow start.

“It is a very subtle, slow dance or chess game that happens between the two of them,” Richardson said.

“I think there is an instant attraction toward each other, but then he puts up his walls and shuts her out and she takes a step back and is hurt by him. The big romantic moment is when he touches my face [for the first time].”

“I loved that scene,” Fiennes added. “I get the feeling from some of the response from the movie that some people feel that the love story doesn’t have fire to it. But what I love about it is that it’s a very grown-up love affair. Jackson is a very decent old-school gentleman. I love that he’s held back from her out of decency.”

For his part, Fiennes enjoyed Ivory’s hands-off approach: “Sometimes it can be a good thing that a director doesn’t say too much and comes in with very economical and precise suggestions.”