Colette

Colette (2018)

Timing: 1:52 (112 min)

6.916/10
880

6.854/10
30951

6.7/10
28000

All about film

Video 4

Photo 27

Actors and characters

Release date

2018-09-21

Country

United Kingdom, United States

Production

Bold Films, Killer Films, Number 9 Films

Genre

Drama, History

Budget

$0

Revenue

$14 273 033

Website

https://bleeckerstreetmedia.com/colette

Director

Wash Westmoreland

Actors

Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Denise Gough, Fiona Shaw, Robert Pugh, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ray Panthaki, Dickie Beau, Jake Graf, Polina Litvak
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Christine Vachon, Stephen Woolley, Pamela Koffler, Michel Litvak, Gary Michael Walters, Elizabeth Karlsen, Norman Merry, Svetlana Metkina, Mary Burke

Operator

Giles Nuttgens

Composer

Thomas Adès

Artist

Audition

Susie Figgis

Editing

Lucia Zucchetti, Joanne Dixon
All team (182)

• Wash Westmoreland wrote the script for this biographical drama back in 2001, but work on the project had to be postponed at that time.
• During location shooting in Budapest, it was so hot that Dominic West (who played Willie) wore a special watersports vest under his heavy costume. It worked like a car radiator, evenly distributing water across the upper body, and thus cooling the body. West was recommended this method by John C. Reilly, who played Oliver Hardy in the John S. Baird biopic 'Stan & Ollie' (2018).
• During the historical period in which the film is set (late 19th – early 20th centuries), women in France were prohibited from wearing men's clothing. This explains the scandal caused by the protagonist's decision to start wearing trousers.
• For the role of Colette, the director and screenwriter Wash Westmoreland had planned from the beginning to cast Keira Knightley, and an agreement was reached when he met her via video link at the moment he received an invitation to the Shanghai International Film Festival. It was midnight, Westmoreland's phone battery was running low, but during a few minutes of conversation, he persuaded the actress to accept the role, after which the battery finally died.
• The film "Colette" owes its existence to Richard Glatzer, a screenwriter and friend of Wash Westmoreland, who became genuinely interested in the French writer Colette and her life. In 1999, Glatzer read several books about Colette and began to consider adapting her story for the screen. When Westmoreland and Glatzer found themselves in the public eye – this happened when their 2014 drama "Still Alice," which they also wrote, starring Julianne Moore, won an Oscar for Best Actress – they decided to finally start working on "Colette." Unfortunately, Glatzer fell ill with late-stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – a neurological disease that affects nerve cells responsible for controlling voluntary movements – and soon passed away.
• Filming on city streets took place in Paris, while scenes of the French countryside were shot in the counties of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. Due to a lack of budget to film the entire movie in Paris, filmmakers were also forced to shoot on the streets of Budapest and in the Origo studios soundstages.