Wonderful bunny.

Try another taste.

Well, I don't see why that seemed perfect to me when I was 16 years old.

My father told me that if I didn't give up music, he'd cut me off course he didn't understand.

Music is my life, Moon.

That's me, sir.

Maestro, this is the talented young man I was telling you about.

Let's get started.

Eyes remarkable, isn't she?

Can be a little flat flash.

It defies medical science.

Maestro, do you think I'm ready?

Her comes.

Expand your diaphragm, Florence.

Tha I think Madam Florence might need to.

More lessons, please.

My wife is ill singing.

It's her dream.

And I'm going to give it time.

We have to help her because without loyalty, there's nothing.

You know, I played for the president when I was eight years old.

Really Little Miss faster.

They called me.

I had very high hopes of becoming a concert pianist, but then when the nerves were damaged in my left hand, that's not to be.

Her condition is improving, but it's a secret music.

She lives for music.

That was Florence Foster Jenkins.

How did she get on the radio.

I lost my left leg Guadalcanal.

But that dance got me happy to be alive.

The lady is a lesson in courage.

And we love God.

She must never see this.

I'd like every copy of the post that you have.

Just think this might be too much for this.

My favorite place.

And I'm going to sing here.

I cannot play Carnegie Hall with Madam.

Florence will be murdered up there.

Music is important.

You should not be mine.

She has done more for musical life of this city than anyone.

And that includes you.

3000 people.

They need joy.

They need music.

Got Florence.

You must go on.

This is what we live for, isn't it?

It's going very, very, very well, but hi, guys.

Hi.

Hello.

I'm gonna open by asking.

How much did you guys know of the rial, Florence?

Because this is a real person and her singing voice.

And, well, I'm a kingdom called.

Uh uh, maneuverings.

Vocal maneuverings were thing of wonder.

I had not heard of her.

Um, luckily, I guess so.

I I didn't have to.

I I could just spend the time making this movie being exposed to that kind of shrill, uh, flailing.

And it was new.

My ears were were prepared and had never, ever been tainted by that sound.

But yeah, nothing.

Nothing Until I read the script, Have you?

Have you heard of her?

Well, as a very strange sound up.

Do you think it's strange?

It's Zoe.

Continue here because I can't hear myself.

Could be saying anything.

Yes, I want.

In my twenties, people used to pass around cassette tapes off Florence Foster Jenkins.

They were kind of viral.

It was the old viral analog bar on dhe.

Just because it was a funny thing to listen to, you know, parties and stuff.

So I knew she existed.

But I didn't know the details.

Yeah, I had.

Ah.

Why do you think he stayed with her for so long?

Why did my character Yes, thank husband.

Stay with her for so long?

Her common law husband, right?

What?

Well, that's right.

How how you would define the relationship.

Yeah, well, that's that's kind of, um, one of the subjects of the film, because you sort of wonder is this Does this man really love her or is it self interest?

You know, because he was a penniless, bad bit part actor when he met her.

And, of course, she provided him with a wonderful, affluent lifestyle on a position in New York society on dhe.

So you ask yourself, Is a unit for that?

Or did he really love this strange old woman with terrible voice?

And hopefully, by the end of the film, it's It's becomes clear that he did properly love her.

He was a monologue assed, right?

I love that title.

Yeah, really?

I feel like my next career.

I need to be a monologue assed.

You shall be.

Yeah.

When she performed her singing, hey was occasionally allowed to perform a monologue, a little soliloquy from Shakespeare or something, which he was as bad at doing as she was bad at singing.

And Simon, how did you come to the project?

Uh, it was I got an email that I thought was spam because it had Meryl Streep ce name, innit?

And Stephen Frears and Hugh.

And, uh, I didn't understand what's happening, but I had worked with the casting the casting director, uh, who ironically is named Kathleen Chopin.

Um and she steven was looking for this guy, I I think all he had said was he sort of muttered, I think Buster Keaton I don't even know.

Maybe he was just dreaming and he muttered something out loud.

Um, he doesn't speak always in full sentences, So, uh, but she came toe, she send him to l.

A.

And now he met with me.

And I think I was the only person that he met with, and he just he just trusted her, uh, blindly.

So somehow there, there I was.

Yeah.

And then And I was that I don't know if he just didn't want to look at anybody else because he was didn't have the patients, but I kind of cut in line and yeah, I would have done anything to be in it.

Just I didn't have to do anything.

Now, as you were saying backstage, you do you know how to play piano?

But how did you become so proficient?

I mean, you made especially you play Carnegie Hall in the movie.

So how how do you How did you make it so believable?

Um, why?

I played it all I decided.

I guess it was.

That's how it was believable.

Um I, uh Yeah, I played really well, but I didn't play classical or operas, so I had to.

I took about, I think, five or six lessons, and I practiced for three or four months.

Um, and I learned the pieces as best I could, And I learned how to fake classical technique.

I guess, um and then I got better at it, and better.

And ah, And then when I met with Meryl once I knew all the songs backwards and forwards, I was able to just were able to just take a sledgehammer to it and kind of, you know, destroy them.

Merrill has a pretty amazing singing voice in real life.

How did what process did you guys see her go through to sound this abysmal?

Well, she she learned all these pieces.

I think also, uh, well, so she she actually could sing.

She really could sing these very well.

And then I think once you know that your ableto once we're able to kind of do the, uh you know, the realistic that the realism you can you can do the abstract version.

So she she could she could kind of come right up next to the note and sort of dance around it and kind of pop through it from time to time.

And she's very close to hitting all the right notes, and so is Florence.

I think that's what makes it tolerable and actually kind of intriguing.

And Hugh, I have to ask you, you are really selective.

You don't work very much.

What about this project?

Said I need to do this.

Well, it is true that, uh, a couple of years ago I was largely doing other things in life.

But Stephen Frizz get bumping into him political events in London, and he kept saying this to a film or do a film on.

Then, to my great surprise, he actually suddenly sent me the script, which was funny and touching and had rather a good part for me and had him directing.

He's pretty classy on DDE Merrill.

19 Oscar nominations.

Streep is the other part, so I had to do it.

Plus, you guys shot in London.

Well, that's no particular temptation.

I mean, if we had the money with you, we'd have shot here.

Still, and so much of the story is how you guys both in the movie protect her from the realities of her own weaknesses, I guess would be the right word.

Do you think that was the right thing to do?

Um, well, I'm a great believer in lying on I Sometimes, you know, after I a premiere of mine or a ah play or something, friends will come backstage and say, Do you mind if I'm honest?

And the answer is Yes.

I bloody do.

I I require you to lie on.

Um I think honesty is greatly overrated.

What about you?

You've always told me I was so great.

So that's uh Okay.

Well, maybe I like lying to them.

Uh, yeah.

Ah, yeah.

What you said, um, I will, I think that, but what was the question with whether it was a good thing or a bad thing to know that she was so coddled and protected from the realities?

I think it's Yeah.

I mean, I think the movie is more of a question.

I guess then it is a statement.

So I think there is a little bit of moral ambiguity, um, in terms of, you know, allowing allowing somebody to live the life that they wanna live and to bring the joy that they want to bring to something, even if they don't have the ability.

Um, I think it just brings up the question of perception.

I mean, her perception of herself is very different than other people's perception.

And I guess that's always the case.

Uh, and this, you know, walks that line of, um, I guess you know her dreams could we could have killed her dreams and it's It's, I don't know who would have really benefited from that.

So do you think of Florence would be possible today?

Well, no, because of there's this thing called the Internet, which, you know, she would have been absolutely taken to pieces.

I think Twitter in two seconds flat, and it would have been impossible for people like the character I play a character Simon plays to protect her from bad reviews because they just would have been all over her telephone and a computer.

Whereas in the film, of course, you know, I bribe the six mute music critics of New York to write nice things about her on the 7th 1 who does dare to write something bad?

I just buy up all the newspapers at the local newspaper stand to make sure she doesn't see it.

I don't think that would be possible anymore.

I know that was actually so quaint when he does that.

I was like, Ah, those were the days when you could actually control the spread of information or vitriol as the case may be.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's right.

Did that really.

I kind of felt especially with the work that you've done with Levinson and hacked off Hugh, that when the New York Post reporter wrote that damning review basically for no reason that that must have really resonated with you.

Well, no.

The stuff I do the politics stuff I do in London hacked off is nothing to do with them anything to do with show business or celebrities.

Or certainly not with opinion pieces written about, you know, artistic endeavors or anything like that.

Heaven forbid, you know, the more than area freedom of speech.

No, it's it's completely different thing.

It's just about.

For instance, victims of terrorist incidents or Children have been abducted, the families being having their privacy intruded on for financial gain of those newspapers.

So it's a it's a very different kettle of fish, Donna.

Well, you know, I thought it was a little bit maybe a little bit tiny sip, but since similarity, but good point.

What was the most enjoyable part of the shoot for both of you?

I can't remember enjoying anything.

You misery?

Uh, no, I Well, I, uh let me think.

Oh, man.

I think that some of the well I enjoy, I I got to watch you dance, which was for me was fun because I just had to I think I had to sort of raise a hand up that he had to do a lot of heavy lifting.

Um, but some of those bigger scenes, actually, I thought were really fun.

Some of the Carnegie Hall stuff was in the concert stuff, huh?

You'd think it would be overwhelming, but they set up so many cameras and, uh, it felt, I mean, sometimes on the 10th take of doing a concert, it was exhausting.

But I think that's that's kind of fun.

I mean, you've been on film sets, you know what it's like, And I would have thought for you, because I'm fascinated by his other life doing the big bang theory secretly that it's done in half and I recorded in half an hour ago.

Now it's It's a few hours, but it is very terrifying flight.

And it's a whole shirts half an hour.

Where's the film?

You know, you do two pages a day, if you're lucky.