The Personal History of David Copperfield" stars Dev Patel, Hugh Laurie and legendary director Armando Iannucci discuss the film, which is a modern take on Charles Dickens's classic, in this interview with CinemaBlend Events Editor Eric Eisenberg. Watch them chat about everything from releasing a film during a worldwide pandemic to the real-life legacy of Charles Dickens himself.
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00:00You never really know how it's going to go, but we all, I think, have our fingers crossed and
00:05we're excited by it.
00:07But this narrative is far more than mere fiction.
00:11It is, in fact, written memory.
00:16And you have quite the ride on the way.
00:20A lot of people have talked about David Copperfield as a kind of autobiographical
00:24story from Charles Dickens. Is that something that you engaged with personally as you were
00:29kind of putting the character together in your head?
00:31It was really Armando. For me, I related to a lot of the things that he was going through.
00:36The idea of feeling like a bit of a fish out of water or an outsider,
00:40you know, is that classic coming-of-age journey of someone trying to figure out who they are
00:46and learning to embrace their past, their history, and that is where their strength lies.
00:51And there's this wonderful kind of community spirit.
00:56You know, the idea of like, you know, when you reach a place of success, bringing
00:59the people that helped you along with you and all those kind of beautiful
01:03sentiments that I was really drawn to, you know, there was something very uncynical about it and
01:10very joyous, which I really liked.
01:13You add nothing, then you add something, and now you've got nothing again.
01:19So if it stands to right, you'll have something again.
01:21My question is for all three of you, is just given that attitude of the movie
01:25and given everything that the world has been going through in the last five months,
01:29if you feel that this movie is going to have a different impact on audiences now
01:33as compared to when it premiered at TIFF last year or released in the UK earlier this year?
01:38I think we're all ready for something, you know, we're ready for something uplifting
01:42and positive and fun and funny and humane and intimate and all those things, really.
01:49It's what prompted me to, you know, when I re-read the book about 10 years ago,
01:53I was reminded by how funny it was, but how also contemporary it felt,
01:57and all the themes are about, you know, forming connections.
02:01Who do you love? Who are your friends? Who looks after you? Who helps you?
02:05Who do you help? Irrespective of their backgrounds and their own stories and so on.
02:10It felt such a contemporary story, so.
02:12And perhaps having done The Death of Stalin, which is a very different film, a very different theme.
02:20Oh, fuck!
02:24It felt like quite a good contrast, really.
02:27But after what's happened this year, you know, maybe there is now a,
02:31I don't know, a keener appetite for something like this. We'll see.
02:34I think all we can do is hope. You can hope for some response from an audience.
02:40You can never count on it. I mean, audiences are, thank God, amazingly unpredictable and
02:47capricious, you know, because otherwise it would all be done,
02:50the whole thing would be done by an algorithm.
02:53I think all you could do is hope. And I, like Armando, I absolutely hope that people are
02:58looking for something that has this sort of uplifting spirit to it.
03:01But, you know, it's such a, it's always a nerve-wracking time to present anything to an audience.
03:08You never really know how it's going to go.
03:10But we all, I think, have our fingers crossed and we're excited by it.
03:18The higher the words go, the clearer my mind becomes.
03:21I do want to actually specifically ask about Mr. Dick as a character,
03:25because he is delightfully such a great companion of David in this story,
03:28as a mentor and a friend. But also, like, in 1850,
03:32they didn't really have a real understanding of what was going on inside of his head.
03:36And I'm just curious about Armando and Hugh,
03:38how you guys talked about just kind of psychoanalyzing the character.
03:42Well, I think in past adaptations, he's been seen as a figure of fun,
03:45as being mad or eccentric. But actually, when you look at the book,
03:49it's treated with, I think it's the very first honest description of mental illness,
03:54described as mental illness, not described as eccentricity or madness.
04:00It's described as mental illness. And Mr. Dick is, yes, he's funny,
04:04but he's humane, he's kind. And also, he's in some form of pain,
04:09really, and has to manage that pain. And that, for me, was when we,
04:15when I was talking with Hugh and with Tilda as Betsy,
04:19you know, the relationship between the two of them.
04:21And also, it's interesting that they are David's first port of call, really.
04:27They're, you know, for all their kind of
04:30bigness in terms of character, they're the ones that he finds
04:34kind of most precious to him in the end.
04:35What do we do with him?
04:37If I were you, I'd wash him.
04:39Oh, donkeys! This is a donkey freezer!
04:42Move it!
04:43She's a remarkable woman. Very kind.