the director and his cast
During pre-production, Daldry insisted on a lengthy rehearsal period for himself and the actors, something that is rare in feature filmmaking. "Since I come from the theater," he explains, "it's very hard for me to predetermine my view of a scene, or of a sequence of scenes, without an exploration with the actors beforehand. For me, it's the only way to work out the internal dynamics and the emotion of a scene. From that. I can plan where the camera might or might not be. There's a great joy in having the writer at rehearsals; he can rewrite to the input of the actors, and to their strengths and weaknesses.

Most importantly, what we were lucky to have was a wonderfully experienced group of actors, many of whom have worked extensively in the theater and are used to this way of working. They were able to participate in the rehearsal process in a way that David and I could understand. We found it incredibly useful."

There was another reason Daldry felt a long rehearsal period was crucial.---Oneof the great joys of rehearsing and knowing the screenplay very well before we shot it was knowing the cutting pattern from story to story. So rhythmically, what you see is basically what we rehearsed - which is unusual. We pretty much knew where one story was going to lead into another story, and what the collective rhythm of the stories was, before we shot. In other words, that was not created in the edit room. We were always able to clue the actors in to where we were going next."

meryl streep
Meryl Streep, who plays Clarissa Vaughan, had originally received Cunningharn's The Hours as a gift from a friend. "I thought the book was beautiful," she says. "When my agent called me about the film I couldn't imagine how they were going to make it into a movie, how so much of an interior world could be translated into a film. But when the script came to me, I thought it was really wonderful. David Hare has such a compassionate nature, and he's a consummate wordsmith."

Streep was familiar with Hare's extraordinary ability to explore people's inner thoughts, having appeared in the film version of his play, "Plenty." "David is able to express things that are inside people," says Streep. "He puts them in the situation and makes it actable. And I think that was what convinced me that 'The Hours' would be an interesting project to work on."

julianne moore
"What David Hare managed to do," says Julianne Moore. who plays Laura Brown, "was to translate both the emotional reality and the structural reality of the novel. I honestly didn't think it could be done, but he did it beautifully."

A fan of Cunningham's novel. Moore adds: "I'm a big reader of fiction, and I'm very rarely surprised by it. When you read a lot of literature, you learn to look for clues, and you see what's coming. But The Hours completely stunned me. I was really surprised by it, and so thrilled. When someone manages to do that, you feel like you're twelve again. Michael Cunningham. is able to be so incredibly truthful about the things that are painful and difficult in the human condition, yet he's tremendously hopeful and inspiring, too. His concept of getting through 'the hours' of our day and of our lives, and what that means---that is what is both painful and valuable about life, all at once. I was so moved by it."

Moore sees her character as having much in common with Virginia Woolf. "What Laura shares with Virginia Woolf is her depression. But whereas Virginia Woolf is aware of it as an illness, something she struggles with, I think Laura is almost underwater. She's not a person who's even present in her life. Her deep unhappiness is the state of her life. What I love about both the novel and the movie is that this is Just another day, another morass of a day, another set of hours she has to act through. What she doesn't expect is to have a cataclysmic event in it. It shouldn't be a day that leads to any other, but it is actually her penultimate day in this particular life. If Laura defines herself in any way, she's a passionate reader. That's something that I used for myself. She shares that sense of literary- ness with Virginia Woolf."

For Moore, who has two young children, the role of Laura had enormous resonance. "When I made the movie, my son was three-and-a-half, and during. the shoot I was pregnant with my daughter. In the book, the little boy is actually younger, but it would have been impossible to work with a three-year-old on film. I understand what the connection is between a child and his mother. The fact that this boy was so connected to his mother, and could feel her depression, and was so lost---this was absolutely heartwrenching to me. I'm not certain I would have understood this had I not been a mother myself But what's agonizing is that you realize Laura makes the only choice she can at the end of her story. In effect, she's choosing to live rather than die. This is a woman who is confused by issues in a marriage she doesn't want to be in; she doesn't have any idea about her sexuality; she's desperately unhappy; she doesn't even know whether she wants to be in this life-she's a reader, not a participator. And she's just lost. She has no options. Nothing. It's a different world, and you see a different world in Clarissa's life. Here's a woman who had a child because she wanted a child; is with the lover she wants to be with; has made choices about her life. Laura has made almost no choices; she's retreated into books."

nicole kidman
In preparation for her role as Virginia Woolf in "The Hours," Nicole Kidman immersed herself in researching Woolf's life and work. "Part of playing someone who really existed is finding her essence," says Kidiman. "David Hare gave me a lot of insight into her, and of course, Michael Cunningham did, too. Through this period. I just fell in love with her. She was a woman who grappled with death and madness and love. The profundity with which she managed to capture the pathos of life has always been incredibly interesting for me. Yet there was a mischievousness, a playfulness and joie de vivre in her that made people want to be in her orbit. They were fascinated by her, attracted to her. And she felt such gratitude to her husband Leonard for being so tolerant of her. So much of what she was fighting for was just being able to breathe, being able to live in London if she wanted to live in London, and not be trapped, as she saw it, out in Richmond. I think that your creativity stems from your environment a lot of the time. That really resonated with me."

The character of Virginia had a particularly profound effect on Kidman. "It's very interesting," she says, "how characters come to you at a certain time in your life when you need them. I don't think I was in my most fun-loving frame of mind at that time, and she was cathartic for me in a strange way. There is a beautiful line in the script about how the dead give us gifts. And for me, Virginia gave me a gift. That's what's quite strange about the whole experience: At that time in my life, I needed her. I needed to play her."

To many, Nicole Kidman might seem an odd choice to play Woolf, especially due to the lack of a strong physical resemblance. "There's not a lot of natural physical similarity between Nicole Kidman and Virginia Woolf," Daldry admits. "But there is a similar kind of animal magnetism. And I use the word 'animal' in the best sense---in other words, a danger, an alertness. People describe Virginia Woolf as having been birdlike. But there is a danger to Nicole and, from what one reads, a danger to Virginia Woolf.

They're both thoroughbreds. Since Nicole cannot look exactly like Virginia Woolf, we tried to somehow give an essence of what that extraordinary face was.-

Kidman herself had some trepidation about taking on the part. -You know. when you have to distort your face the way I did, and when you are playing something that is so different from you-particularly as an Australian playing a character that is iconic for Britain and iconic for feminists---you think, Oh, this is frightening! I really had to trust the person who was leading me through it. And Stephen led me through it. He really helped mold and direct me, and gave me an enormous amount of confidence to move forward with it."

others in the cast
Jeff Daniels, who plays the role of Louis Waters, the former lover of Richard, the poet who is dying of AIDS, was also intrigued by his character. "What I liked about the part was bringing to life that universal situation in which two people., revisiting old times after many years apart, find their way back through the good, the bad and, most importantly, all those things left unresolved. For better or for worse, here we are again, as if it were yesterday. It doesn't take long for the small talk to be replaced with some rather pointed comments, then the missiles are launched and everybody's ducking for cover. What are old friends for? Also, Stephen is from the theater, as are most of the cast, so the attention paid to exploring the character was very specific. Stephen's a great collaborator. He would go over each and every moment, making sure we had thought of everything. Sometimes, one choice would lead to another idea and we'd try that. It was exciting to work with him."

Tony Award winner Stephen Dillane, who appears in "The Hours- as Virginia's husband Leonard Woolf, found the key to his role in David Hare's screenplay. "I thought the screen adaptation was excellent, very moving. Leonard Woolf was a remarkable man in his own right, deeply committed to his ideals both in his personal life and politically. His autobiography is a good read. Woolf has the unusual ability to capture contemporary details that give us insight into the times in which he lived. He was unusually engaged in the political and aesthetic debates of his period. He was also a man who tried to live according to his beliefs, and he records with disarming sincerity and honesty his successes and failures in this endeavor. Some people think Leonard Woolf was insensitive and over-protective, and that he obsessively controlled Virginia Woolf's life. Some say Virginia Woolf both needed and wanted Leonard Woolf's protection from her own self-destructive instincts. Who knows? The screenplay follows the book by inclining towards the former interpretation."

Two-time Academy Award nominee Miranda Richardson, who portrays Virginia Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell, says that one of the reasons she was attracted to the "The Hours" was the strength of David Hare's writing and the idea that her character brings a certain lightness to Virginia Woolf's life and to the film as well.

"It's such a beautifully complex script, which reflects the book and yet has qualities all its own," observes Richardson. "I quite enjoyed that my character Vanessa, by comparison to her sister Virginia, has an almost carefree quality about her. The push and pull between them reminded me of so many sister relationships. They were practically symbiotic, with a subtle undercurrent of rivalry. I think that Vanessa felt she had to look after Virginia as she would one of her children, and yet she also seemed to have the temptation to duck away emotionally from Virginia's intensity.

Toni Collette, who plays Kitty opposite Julianne Moore's Laura Brown, was equally delighted to be part of the remarkable ensemble cast. She describes her character as "the bubbly, made-up face of suppression, always saying one thing and meaning another. Kitty has lived in a tower her entire life, and now it's her turn to fall. But she will do it with a smile on her face. 'The Hours' is a brilliant book and the film adaptation is exquisite,"" adds Collette. "While working on the film I had the feeling that I was very lucky to be even a crumb to this very special cake. It's such an intelligent, inspirational and emotional piece, I am proud to be a part of it."

visualising the hours
To create the look of "The Hours," Stephen Daldry had the help of production designer Maria Djurkovic, costume designer Ann Roth and director of photography Seamus McGarvey. All worked together to create a visual scheme that would unify the three stones and emphasize the qualities they shared.

However, Daldry knew that to strive for total unity among the stories would be a mistake. "We knew we always wanted a specific process to unify the stories, so that there would be not only a coherence in look, but also a difference. There is a visual opposition that works from story to story. And a lot of that is in simple things like color. There is a different palette from story to story, but somehow the palettes in each one refer directly back from one to another. So the unifying elements are found in the editing pattern, the color palette, the camera movements from story to story, and the film-processing techniques. We tried to avoid what I would describe as 'decorative' camera movements. Rather than predetermine an emotional response from a camera movement, we tried to allow the actors to control the emotional response. We let the camera respect the actors. And of course, we had a fantastic cast, so the actors do an awful lot of the work."

the music
Composer Philip Glass, whose work often seems to distill the very essence of passing time, has provided 'The Hours" with a tightly-woven musical fabric. "I used the music to bridge the stories rather than separate them," he explains. "One of the most interesting things about the movie is that it moves from story to story and it's common for a theme to start in one story and to move to the next two. One might have thought each story should have its own music. I decided not to do that."

Instead, Glass chose to echo the style in which Michael Cunningham wrote the novel and in which David Hare subsequently wrote the screenplay -- using patterns upon patterns, building a continuum that moves through time and space as the stories meld together.

"I made a key decision early on that each musical cue would bridge all three stories," says Glass, "and that turned out to be a very persuasive way of presenting the score. After all, they really aren't separate stories at all---each segment is really telling part of the same story. And the emotional point-of-view remains very coherent, as all three have to deal with self-annihilation, with survival, with facing themselves. I was looking for the same sort of coherence in the music, for it to be a thread that weaves its way through all three periods in time, a way to bind them into one."

Structural coherence was the big issue for everyone on the film, remembers Glass. "Michael Cunningham grappled with it in his novel, Stephen Daldry had to deal with it as a director, and it was essential to the music. It's a very interesting idea that the imagination of a writer can reach that far into different times and different lives and find the connections -- it makes a powerful statement about the power of art."