A chance meeting with literary agent Joel Gotler at a party in October 2000 turned out to be a fortuitous one. Producer Julia Palau mentioned that she was searching for a very special comedy to set in the UK. Julia takes up the story: "Joel said he had a wonderful original Richard Russo script. I knew Russo's work as we had done something previously with him, and urged him to send it to me."
Although the story was originally written for the US, we could see it could easily be set in the UK. Once we had optioned it, we needed to find a writer to adapt it, and at that time Matthew Payne and I were working with Niall Johnson on another script."
When we mentioned it to him - he was a huge fan of Richard Russo - a Pulitzer prize-winning novelist - he asked whether he could have a crack at it, and that is how we began our collaboration," Julia adds.
Director Niall Johnson says: "I happened to see Russo's name on the front page: that was all it took to make me pester them into letting me read it! In the script I found all the elements that I love about his novels: good characters, comic yet human, touching; and even though the script was a much broader comedy than his usual work, those elements were definitely there to develop."
The filmmaking process was hampered initially in terms of funding. Julia and Matthew are not strangers to the challenges of filmmaking and admit to the difficulties of making movies in the UK. "I think any producer who gets a film made in the UK is a hero," says Julia. "The situation was very difficult for us and it wasn't helped by the changing of the rules during the financing of the film. In fact we had to delay production on KEEPING MUM because the Government changed the rules and we had to re-finance. Fortunately our investors were very supportive and stayed with us," adds Matthew.
"A lot of the UK finance at present is tax driven, and the problem with tax based deals is that they have sort of artificially imposed completion dates and so on," continues co-producer Matthew Payne. "Fortunately for us, we had a great cast and a very strong package; therefore we were able to convert our investors in order that they put in their money as pure equity and they weren't actually driven by tax requirements. Also we brought in Isle of Man Films as a financial strand."
"The Isle of Man is a very beautiful island," adds Julia. "The people are very welcoming to filmmakers and they have been a saviour for UK producers. We would not have been able to make our film without their assistance."
With finance in place, Julia and Matthew set about the casting process. Julia explains, "Kristin Scott Thomas responded to the script first and it was wonderful to get her as she had been our first choice. She is the ultimate professional and has brought great sensitivity and humour to the role -- her performance is a real rollercoaster."
"The role of Gloria is the ultimate frustrated housewife," says Kristin Scott Thomas. "She is married to a rather dithering vicar, with two teenage children and desperately feels she needs a break. I was immediately attracted to the part."
"Rowan Atkinson wasn't an obvious choice to play Walter," continues Payne. "But the more we thought about him, the more it became his role. I think he was looking for something to do after Bean that would take him away from that kind of role a little, without alienating his legion of Mr. Bean fans. So, he joined us and collaborated with us closely on the script which was extremely helpful and great fun. He has played a vicar before of course, and his young son apparently said when he heard he had accepted the role, 'Oh God Dad, not again!"
"What drew me to the script was that it had a great tone to it," says Atkinson. "It was very gentle and definitely comic; but comedy with a much greater subtlety than I am normally associated with. Walter is a very three-dimensional character, and the script has just got a lovely, slightly dark tone to it. There is a British tradition of darkness in comedy which we haven't seen for some time and in many ways the pleasantness and the appealing nature of the characters when it turns out that they are concealing dark secrets, is in many ways even more shocking."
Director Niall Johnson says: "I discovered during filming that people just have to look at Rowan and they start laughing. That is because they expect comedy. In the football sequence we can give him a bit of that because, Walter, the poor fellow, is goal keeper. We can put Walter in funny situations and therefore he can be funny as a result, but Walter himself is not a comedy character."
Matthew Payne continues "I think we took quite a daring route with our casting with many of our actors playing completely against type. Each of them brought an extra dimension to their roles which just added richness to the story".
When casting housekeeper Grace, Julia Palau says that Maggie Smith was her dream actress for the role: "It was with great trepidation that we offered it to her, because we didn't know if she would want to play a killer, which seems so against type for her! But Maggie has a wonderful sense of humour and very happily for us, she responded to it and came on board to complete the casting of our extraordinary family."
Co-Producer Matthew Payne admits that casting children can sometimes be difficult. "We had a lot of casting sessions and narrowed it down to Tamsin Egerton and Toby Parkes. As well as natural talent we were of course looking for kids that would bear a resemblance to their screen parents so we could have a realistic family unit. Above all they are both wonderful actors, and we were very lucky and delighted to find them," he says.
Sixteen-year-old Tamsin Egerton, who has been acting since she was 8, describes her character: "Basically Holly is a nymphomaniac," she giggles. "She is very confident around men and has a very competitive relationship with her mother, so they are constantly bickering and fighting, but she likes that quick witted banter. She has a fantastic relationship with her father and loves him to bits."
"From the first moment Tamsin stepped into the audition room, it was clear she had something special," adds director Niall Johnson. "There was fierce competition for the role: casting directors Andrea Clark and Jeremy Zimmermann had brought some really talented young actresses into the mix…but Tamsin had it from the outset. She faced quite a challenge given that she shares almost all of her scenes with Kristin and Maggie. Yet Tamsin more than holds her own throughout, creating a truly memorable character."
Young Toby Parkes, playing in his first feature film, says: "When I heard I had the part I was so excited, working with all these brilliant actors is amazing. My Mum was thrilled when she heard about Patrick Swayze! I have loved everything that Rowan Atkinson has ever done, and I think I have every video of all his films, so working with him is very special."
"Both the children are terrific," says Rowan Atkinson. "Tamsin is great - we caught her at a good age - and although she is tall she is not as emotionally mature as her height would indicate. Toby, apart from being the sweetest boy you could meet, is just a wonderful natural actor. I think the casting in this respect has been spot on, the reality of the family feels great, totally real and credible."
"In Russo's original US-set script, Gloria was having an affair with a British aerobics instructor called Vance and, if anyone's the villain of the piece, he is. Once we decided to transplant this story to England, we nonetheless wanted to honour Russo's intentions, so it seemed only fitting to return the favour! Hence Vance became Lance, an American golf-instructor," adds Johnson.
Producer Julia Palau continues, "Our first choice for Lance was Patrick Swayze -- even while Niall was working on his first draft. Although this is his first film in Britain, we had worked with him before, and had seen him playing a cameo role in Donnie Darko. He was absolutely fabulous in that role, again playing completely against type, and we thought he could do this part very well."
"Having the opportunity to work with Rowan Atkinson, Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas was like drawing a moth to the flame," says Patrick. "The character I play needs a whole lot of love; he is a guy who is ruled by his crotch, all he can think about is women and he can't get enough of them! What a gem of a role!" he laughs.
Patrick is not afraid to send himself up and relishes the comedy aspect of the film. "Lance thinks he is so cool but misses the mark every time and that makes him very entertaining to play. I think the scene I most love is the one I have with Rowan, when we are sitting on the steps of the Village Pavilion. I come up behind him and we have a very brief dialogue. Lance is playing a very dangerous macho game with veiled lines which all have to do with Walter's wife, and it just clicked. I felt that 'Atkinson and Swayze' should take this act on the road immediately," he says laughing. "I was so grateful though, that Rowan was facing away from me, and that I had the opportunity to laugh in the scene. If I had seen his face I am not sure I could have held it together. Rowan has the ability to make you laugh, cry and take you anywhere he wants."

SCREENWRITERS
Richard Russo was born in New York in 1949 and grew up in Gloversville, New York, a small, mostly working-class town. He received his B.A. from the University of Arizona, went on to get a Master's Degree, and had almost earned his Ph.D. in American literature when he decided that he would rather write his own novels than analyze other people's. He is the author of Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobody's Fool, which was made into a feature film starring Paul Newman, Straight Man, The Whore's Child (a collection of stories), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Empire Falls, which was turned into an Emmy-nominated HBO mini-series starring Paul Newman, Ed Harris, Helen Hunt and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He also adapted Scott Phillips' novel The Ice Harvest for Focus Features and director Harold Ramis, which stars John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton. Richard Russo now lives in coastal Maine with his wife, Barbara. They have two daughters.