19 thoughts on “WCW: Eileen Atkins

  1. I saw Magic in the Moonlight a few years ago, prior to being made aware of what a total shit Woody Allen is. Nice costumes from what I remember. Wasn’t a fan of the Colin Firth/Emma Stone pairing, he’s 30 years older than her, it kind of took me out of the film a little. You can probably find photos on IMDB, clips are probably on YouTube.

    1. Yup, that’s a mistake in the post. She’s actually playing the same character in both Bertie & Elizabeth and The Crown, Mary of Teck.

  2. Colin Farrell was staying in same hotel as Dame Eileen. It was her 70th birthday and Colin apparently made it crystal clear that he wanted to spend the night…………….Dame Eileen turned him down!

    1. Didn’t hear it was her birthday per se, but they had just started filming Ask the Dust. Both of them were interviewed (separately) by Jonathan Ross on the BBC, and the clips of them on YouTube each telling the tale are hysterical–he was serious, and she was highly flattered, but finally convinced him (after an amusing hour of being wooed, complete with him reading her a bedtime story) to leave. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was still interested…

    1. Agreed–Dame E. was heavenly as Judith. Also as Queen Mary, especially when she curtsies to her granddaughter for the first time, staring up at her like the ultimate crone. But OMG I did not realize Tim Curry had ever played Bill Sikes; must find that.

      1. Yes, they had me at “Tim Curry as Bill Sikes.” Would look long and hard to find that!

  3. I think my mom taped The Lady’s Not For Burning, and I’m pretty sure I still have it somewhere… I even have a working VHS player!

    I adore Cold Comfort Farm, Gosford Park, and Cranford. Basically I end up loving anything she’s in!

  4. There are so many good ones to choose from. Movie-wise, my favorite is Vanity Fair. Character-wise, I thought she was excellent as the Queen Mum in The Crown.

  5. I adored her Miss Deborah! I was almost as heartbroken as Miss Mattie when Deborah died.

    Re.: The image for. Bertie and Elizabeth, that’s a very good copy of Elizabeth’s wedding dress but it’s not quite shapeless enough.

  6. Yesssss, a very worthy WCW! I’m mainly familiar with her from The Crown, which she was amazing in, but she’s had such a long and excellent career.

  7. She was as good as she always is in Ridley Scott’s awful farrago Robin Hood, but the script required her to play EoA as a down-to-earth, no-Frenchified-nonsense plain Englishwoman: everything that EoA emphatically was not!

  8. Eileen Atkins is so good in EVERYTHING. My favorites have to be Cranford, Gosford Park, and Cold Comfort Farm. And The Crown, I love that still of them laughing! I don’t even know if I’ve actually seen that version of Murder on the Orient Express but I can absolutely imagine how brilliant she would be as Princess Dragomiroff.

  9. I thought she was queen Mary of Teck in The Crown (2016) too
    also i think is worth mentioning she helped create the original Upstairs Downstairs (1971) with Jean March and would originally play the role of Sarah Moffat but was unable to A TRUE SHAME!

  10. I now saw “The Duchess of Malfi”. Thank you very much for writing about it here. I enjoyed the stunning performances by the whole cast.
    I had only the Impression that the camera positions were very often very strange… Very interesting tragedy.

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