Nanny Cam

Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

One decade after winning an Oscar for her adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, Emma Thompson has returned to screenwriting with another film taken from literature. But unlike Austen, the author of this novel, Christianna Brand, isn’t exactly a household name. Brand was the nom de plume of British mystery writer Mary Christianna Lewis, who in 1964 published Nurse Matilda, the first in a series of children’s books about a marvelously stern Victorian supernanny who exerts her authority over some of the naughtiest kids imaginable.

Despite the books’ initial popularity, the series fell out of print in the U.S. and England. Now, Thompson has brought Nurse Matilda back to life as Nanny McPhee in a new, eponymous film that the actress also stars in. (Brand’s original stories have been assembled by Bloomsbury Press in a tie-in omnibus volume.)

Like Nurse Matilda, Nanny McPhee looks alarmingly ugly upon her first meeting with the family (Thompson dons a prosthetic nose, hairy wart and monobrow to play the part), but is gradually transformed as the children accept her. Thompson has also added new elements—including a background plot in which the children’s mother has died, leaving their grief-stricken father (Colin Firth) to manage his unruly brood—to create a beguiling family film.

Thompson spoke to TONY Kids by phone from Scotland, where she was taking a break with her husband and five-year-old daughter, Gaia, after the film’s opening night in London.

TONY KidsDid you read Nurse Matilda when you were a little girl?

Emma Thompson I did, and I loved it. And then about nine years ago, I took the first book down from the shelf again and reread it, and then rang Lindsay [Doran], who was my producer on Sense and Sensibility.

TONYK Was the process of working on this script very different from that of working on Sense and Sensibility?

ET Yes, because Sense and Sensibility was an adaptation—it was a question of distilling a large and complex plot. Nanny McPhee was only based on the Nurse Matilda books. I was just so drawn to the material, and the strange, mysterious way in which this woman influenced these children. But when I sat down and started writing, I soon found out that I didn’t have a plot. Whereas in the book, naughtiness happens for no other reason than that the children are extremely naughty, in the film, we had to have a reason for the naughtiness. It took me much longer than I anticipated to find the solution.

TONYK And presumably you were involved in other projects while you were writing.

ET Yes—including having a child! [Gaia interrupts the interview to bring her mother a cocktail.] I probably shouldn’t confess this, but I did just teach my five-year-old to make a Bloody Mary! I mean, what’s the point of having children if they can’t make you cocktails? [To her daughter] Thank you, waitress.

TONYK Of course, I’m wondering if Nanny McPhee would approve.…

ET Of getting your five-year-old to bring you alcoholic drinks? I think she would be okay with it. As long as it was within the bounds of reason, and you didn’t serve the cocktail to the waitress. And the tip was big enough.

TONYK Casting the film’s kids must have been great fun.

ET It was. We saw hundreds of children. I know we’re not meant to work with children and animals, but given the opportunity, I’d do it again without hesitation. Apart from Tom [Sangster, playing Simon], who’d worked professionally as an actor before, the rest of them hadn’t acted at all. They’re not spoiled children. Their faces have that guileless quality. When we were filming, I would go to the monitor to watch them.

ISN'T SHE LOVELY? Thompson (as McPhee) radiates inner beauty.

TONYK You’re very ugly in the film.

ET Oh yes, very ugly—I enjoyed it immensely. It was very satisfying, that feeling of walking onto the set in costume and the kids not recognizing me. I noticed that people on set did generally behave differently when I was in costume.

TONYK What were your models for the tone of the film?

ET The tone came, I think, largely from the book, which isn’t at all patronizing. This isn’t Mary Poppins. Also, [the tone is]  influenced by my dad, who wrote a television program for children in the ’60s in this country called The Magic Roundabout that appealed just as much to adults as it did to children. While I don’t think Dad would have been quite as emotional as I’ve been with this script, the quirkiness and the attention to the detail of the language are very much an homage to him.

TONYK It must be satisfying to see the Nurse Matilda books back in print.

ET It makes you wonder how many other wonderful children’s books have fallen out of print and been lost.

TONYK Perhaps Brand was ahead of her times. She was writing in the early ’60s, when parenting techniques were becoming less authoritarian. It’s only recently, with the whole supernanny phenomenon, that we have this renewed appreciation of strict parenting.

ET I think there is something in that. Christianna grew up in India in the 1910s, and she would have had a nanny wearing starched linens, and it would have all been supremely hierarchical. She was writing about a bygone age, one that people were rejecting and that only now we’re beginning to look at again.

TONYK Has Nanny McPhee influenced your own parenting techniques at all?

ET The nanny is very consistent, judicious and kind, which are all good things to be. But the most important thing she does is create space in which people can make the decision to change. She’s very much like a Zen master in this respect. She’s not touched by anything; she can’t be made angry. I certainly wish I had her patience.

In the book—and I’ve incorporated this into the film—the nanny teaches the children “lessons.” The lessons are very simple; they have to do with kindness. But there are messages for the adults too, because often when children are being naughty, they’re reacting to something in the adult world. I suppose one of the great lessons I’ve learned from her is not to interfere. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to shut up...it’s very difficult for busy parents to do this. There’s always something to be done, whether it’s washing up, or cleaning or ironing; there’s such urgency to do all these daily jobs. But if you can stop and listen and leave space, the results are pretty miraculous. It’s a good goal, anyway.

TONYKHow does your daughter like the film?

ET She’s seen it twice and she was on the set when we were filming. She loves it, but she’s moved on.

Nanny McPhee opens on January 27.