UK: KATHLEEN TURNER STARS IN NEW LONDON PRODUCTION OF THE GRADUATE.

Record ID: 389598

  • Title: UK: KATHLEEN TURNER STARS IN NEW LONDON PRODUCTION OF THE GRADUATE.
  • Date: 30th November 2000
  • Summary: EXTRACT FROM 'THE GRADUATE'
  • Embargoed: 15th December 2000 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVA7ABGN1B4XWCIMVRM9PDYGOT77
  • Story Text: Kathleen Turner is the consummate older woman -- sexy and worldly, with that trademark husky voice.In a new London theatrical production of 'The Graduate', she is still turning heads, as she seduces a man half her age and strips naked on stage.
    Nearly 20 years ago, Kathleen Turner became sex personified in the movie 'Body Heat'.Coupled with William Hurt, she had curves men drooled over and an attitude women envied.Now, at 45, Turner proves she can still sizzle.
    Treading the boards at London's Gielgud Theatre, she bares all as Mrs Robinson in 'The Graduate'.Turning fantasy into flesh, she goes 'au naturel' to seduce the clean-cut and slightly awkward Benjamin Braddocks, played by Matthew Rhys.
    Casting Turner as the temptress who has an affair with a friend's son was an inspired decision.
    With a gutteral laugh, Turner says: "It was rather thrilling actually.When Terry Johnson had the idea of adapting it for stage, they sent it to me last August and I turned to my husband and I said: 'What do you think of me doing Mrs Robinson?'...and he said: 'Of course!'.And that has been the reaction of almost all the people whose opinion I care about, it's been, 'Well yes'.Except for one of my best girlfriends and I said: 'Oh, I'm going to be doing Mrs Robinson.' She went, 'Oh'.And I said: 'Well don't you think that's good?' And she said: 'Oh are we that old?' And I said: 'Yes, darling, yes we are'".
    Even more enjoyable for Turner was her job of casting a young man to play Benjamin.It seems only the Welshman would do.
    She says: "I came over and the director and the producers, Terry Johnson and John Reid and Sacha Brooks had read and seen a great number of young men evidently and narrowed it down to about five.And so I came over to meet these young men and read with them and audition with them.I must say I enjoyed doing that very much.I told my girlfriends that I have to go and pick a young man and they said: 'Oh that's just awful, isn't it?'.But what was really delightful about Matthew Rhys was I call it dancing, when an actor really starts to move with you and respond to you and it's kind of a dance and Matthew just started dancing."
    Rhys says: "I think by the time I was in she was quite ready to get on with it, so it worked to my advantage.But I was very lucky it worked to my advantage really and we did the seduction scene it was literally: 'Hello Matthew -- Kathleen' and you're into a seduction scene.So no acting required I was suitably prepared, shaking and sweating".
    Charles Webb's book 'The Graduate' was made into the 1967 award-winning movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft.Although playwright Terry Johnson's adaptation more closely follows the book than the film, comparisons can't help but be made.
    Talking about Anne Bancroft, Turner says:
    "Much more of an inspiration, certainly in a sense the power of the woman as an actress in this performance that she did sort of looms overhead.But she in an extraordinary woman and actor, I mean I know her and I think she is an amazing woman.I don't think of myself in terms of comparison with her and I don't think the thought of coming in and comparing us will last very long.
    This is such a different venue, such a different situation and a different script than the film, that I think once you sit down and start the play, that will fade."
    Rhys says: "If I am perfectly honest at the moment a slight millstone only because I think only of my own doing because when I say I'm doing the graduate people immediately say: 'Oh Dustin Hoffman'.So I think most people, especially those who have seen the film, coming to see the play, for my own insecurity, I think most people have their own may be subconsciously preconceived idea of Hoffman and I think quite rightly so he made it his own".
    Rhys says he can relate to the allure of having an affair with an older woman but Turner is not very fond of Mrs Robinson.
    Turner says: "I'm actually at a funny sort of stage where I am not sure I am liking her very much right now.The way she treats her husband and her daughter and Benjamin, she's really a very unhappy and nasty kind of woman.I hate to say it but it's really a bit of a stretch for me.I'm really a nice person.But there is a delicious thing about seducing this young man and I am starting to feel a little enjoyment from it".
    Whatever Turner thinks of Mrs Robinson, she sympathises with her situation.
    Turner says: "I can understand a great deal of her frustration and her rage.This takes place in 1964 and this is a period in which the society is just to burst open.Not since the twenties has there really been the kind of explosion that is just about to happen.Throughout the depression and wars and the fifties, which was her formative period, it's so repressed.The rules are so clear and so strict and she senses through what is happening with the young people that the world is changing seriously, and she is not going to be part of it and I think that makes her, oh damn it, furious."
    London theatre has been a magnet for Hollywood stars such as Kevin Spacey, Charlton Heston and Nicole Kidman, who also shed her clothes on stage over one year ago.It's now Turner's turn in the West End -- and the role of Mrs Robinson is a perfect vehicle.
    Gesticulating wildly, Turner says: "There's a precision, there's an exactness in film that you can achieve on camera with certain lenses and certain shots.It's wonderful to be able to do things in such detail.On the other hand you never feel that you are allowed to use your full power, or your whole person.I am constantly being told on film to get smaller to bring the voice down and bring the body down.And I adore that on stage I can just go: 'phhhawww', be as big as I can be and as strong as I want to be, I can and it feels wonderful".
    While Bancroft showed only a tease of stocking-clad leg, Turner will be baring more than her soul when 'The Graduate' debuts on Wednesday (April 5).But during a dress rehearsal she was only giving Reuters Television a tantalising taste of what is in store.The Gielgud Theatre says that ticket sales have shot up since it was revealed Turner gets naked on stage.
    Turner says: "I don't feel that I've ever been locked into the role of a sex siren, thank goodness.The body of my work has been broad-spread enough.But it's an asset (being a sex siren), in that you get to use it.Disadvantages, yeah, you worry about people being disappointed in you all the time: 'Oh dear she's not really as nice looking as I thought', Oh I'm so sorry".
    Turner is renowned for saying: "On a night when I feel good about myself, I can walk into a room and if a man doesn't look at me, he's probably gay".Still, whether she can persuade the graduate to stay is another story.
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