what’s great is her humour,” says the director.
“We also went to Paris, to the Napoleon Museum, to Malmaison. I even went to Josephine’s tomb.
“She’s got a great sense of humour and a very natural intuitive sense of timing that set her apart and made an interesting, striking match opposite Joaquin.” The combination of the two actors’ performances and character studies created a fascinating portrait of the man we think we understand, the tyrannical leader who led some of history’s greatest battles but also had great, visceral, passionate love for his wife. “He ends up snivelling in tears – the man we have seen command his way to the throne of Europe, the tactical genius, turned into this little helpless man, who is completely in love with the woman next to him on his couch, admitting he is nothing without her,” says Scott of Napoleon’s arc through fervent love. “His letters to her are comically rude and juvenile, overly romantic, and even quite dirty. He was absolutely enchanted by her. And after they parted for the last time, she never even read them.When she died, they were all in a drawer by her bedside table.”
“It was a deep immersion in that history and that period, and it was such a privilege to learn about her.”
However, playing the role was “painful and uncomfortable”, Kirby adds: Josephine’s story involves tragedy, including the annulment of her marriage to Napoleon because she did not bear him children.
“It is the story of so many women,” Kirby says.
“I had so much compassion for her, because she wasn’t allowed to have a voice even though she had an incredibly strong, potent energy.” “She was an outsider, just like he was,” she adds, talking of Josephine’s upbringing on Martinique before marrying into aristocracy and almost following her aristocratic first husband to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror. “Joaquin and I always felt like it was something where they just understood each other. She was not a person anyone wanted to marry – she was a widow with two children and six years older than he was. “But she captivated him.There was something that they had in common – they identify, and they feel recognised, and they understand each other as outliers.” “When she marries Napoleon, she has to adapt, to change completely, in order to survive,” Kirby adds. “She has to become a better wife, the wife he wants.”
Kirby’s approach to understanding her role involved hitting the books and immersing herself in French history.
“I knew nothing about French history – I was actually quite astonished that I knew so little,” says the actress.
“So it was a pleasure: I locked myself away and just read every book I could, about her and about him.
mccarthyholden.co.uk | 77 Photo:Vanessa Kirby and Joaquin Phoenix
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