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Friday, August 29, 2008, 11:29
So, naturally, only the very finest locations would do.
Much of the shoot took place at Chatsworth, the elegant Derbyshire estate where the current Duke and Duchess of Devonshire still live. Other locations included Kedleston Hall, at Ashbourne and a hotch-potch of other stately homes across the country.
The settings for the story shift between the Devonshires' Derbyshire home, their London residence and fashionable Bath, where they go to take the waters. It is in Bath that Georgiana (Keira Knightley) becomes drawn to Bess Foster. Georgiana is depressed about her sterile marriage to the Duke (Ralph Fiennes) and her failure to provide him with an heir. The manipulative Bess (Hayley Atwell) has recently parted from her own husband and has been forbidden from seeing her children.
Seizing her opportunity, Bess ingratiates herself with the Devonshires as a means of obtaining access to the children. Her seduction of the Duke leaves Georgiana trapped in a menage a trois and she turns to Earl Grey (Dominic Cooper) for comfort.
Unlike, for example, the BBC's Robin Hood series, which reconstructed Nottingham in Hungary, The Duchess's director Saul Dibb was keen to have authentic settings for his drama.
He explained: "Something I was certainly very keen on was to shoot in the real places, where possible, or real locations that were as grand and wealthy and fantastic as the original ones would have been.
"If I'd had ten times the budget, I still would have chosen to do that. It helps me understand the period, the place and I hope it helps the actors, too."
Shooting in some of England's most spectacular homes helped give the cast a sense of their characters' backgrounds.
Ralph Fiennes, who plays the buttoned-up Duke of Devonshire, said: "I think to shoot in real locations and to have the actual fabric of the times around you is fantastic.
"Aside from the room you are shooting in, all around you are the bookshelves, corridors, paintings, gardens, vistas, ceilings. You soak all this up. Just being in the space that someone of that standing lived their life in helps you take on the confidence and assurance of the place.
"Chatsworth was inherited and trying to get your head around inheriting a lot of land, a lot of people even, requires such a different mentality from today's life so it helps to be in the actual place."
Costume drama regular Keira Knightley was familiar with Chatsworth, having worked there during the filming of Pride and Prejudice. She welcomed the chance to return.
"It made a huge difference actually being in the houses, in the actual spaces, knowing how cold they are," she said.
"The sheer scale of them and the beauty of them is quite astounding.
"It's very different to being in the studio. You really get a sense of where these people were, of the scale they lived in and their reality."
Some of the cast made the most of the chance to do a bit of tourism.
Dominic Cooper, who plays Earl Grey, admitted he hasn't much experience of visiting stately homes.
"These are places you never go and see, but you get the experience doing a job like this," he said.
"Whenever you enter those buildings, you're struck by the thought that what those walls would have seen and what those buildings have been through. When you research a part, you can look at 18th-Century paintings and you can understand these people existed but it's hard to truly believe that and not make them too stilted.
"When you go into those buildings you really get a sense of them. After you've worked on the scenes, you suddenly enter those incredible spaces and you really feel the part. It's an incredible sensation."
Hayley Atwell, who is also due to star as Julia in the film remake of Brideshead Revisited, is already a fan of trooping around National Trust properties.
She, however, noticed a huge difference between her Sunday afternoon strolls at the likes of Chatsworth and the imaginative leap it takes to play characters who dwell in such settings.
"There's a big difference for me, who visits these places as a tourist, to actually spend time thinking what it would be like if this was my home," she said. "To live somewhere like that would give you this extraordinary sense of entitlement and status. As an actor, you have to grasp the concept of relaxing into those large rooms and feeling like they're your own but not being particularly cosy at the same time."
The Duchess is released on September 5.
jennifer.scott@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk
Sense of history: Charlotte Rampling, Ralph Fiennes, Hayley Atwell and Keira Knightley on location
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