The director remembers holing up in his in-laws’ garage with Stoppard to work on Anna Karenina, teasing him about his accent – and trying to turn him into a surrogate father
I
n 2010, I was preparing to direct Anna Karenina and told the producer, Tim Bevan, that if anyone should adapt Tolstoy’s novel, it should be Stoppard. Surprisingly – because he was already a hero – Tom agreed to meet.
I went to his apartment and we talked about the novel and the idea of love as a form of madness. It was a theme that was quite personal to him. I think he’d lived that a few times, and it became the thesis for the adaptation. Tom very simply went through the book and removed anything that didn’t relate to it.
On that first meeting, it was immediately clear that he liked smoking, a lot – which was something we shared. He also liked wine gums and, like all great smokers, knew the trick of keeping sweets close at hand, to use as palate cleansers between cigarettes. He loved sweets, smoking, words and women – probably in the reverse order.
