Film 2003 guest reporter Gaby Roslin met Julie Walters on the set of "Calendar Girls". The film tells the story of a group of Yorkshire women who made the headlines when they posed for an alternative Women's Institute calendar.
Gaby Roslin: Tell us a little about the film...
Julie Walters: Annie and her friends live in the Dales and they belong to the Women's Institute. People have this image of the Women's Institute being blue rinse and pearls and sort of middle class. And of course they're not, they're... funky is the word I like to use. Annie's husband contracted cancer and the place where he was having treatment was run down, and they decided they wanted to raise some money so they thought of this calendar. In the film, Chris, played by Helen [Mirren], has this idea. She says: "You know these boring calendars with bridges of Yorkshire... why don't we take our clothes off?". So they do and they have no idea of the response. They thought they would sell a few more calendars locally because it was fun... but suddenly there were news crews there the same day. It just caught everyone's imagination.
Did you know the story when they asked you to do the film?
Yes I did, and I haven't met anyone yet who doesn't know it. Where I live people keep asking what I'm doing and I say to them: "I'm doing the story of the ladies in the Women's Institute who took their clothes off", and they say: "Oh yes." Absolutely everyone knows it!
And did you jump at the chance of being in it?
Yes, I thought it would be a great gas. It was a great script, which it would have to be.
Do you think you've held on to that original story or has it turned into a nice gentle comedy?
Both things... I mean, you do hold onto that original idea. That's why [the calendar] was made. They did that so they could buy a sofa and they could have bought the whole hospital in the end with the amount of money they raised. [But] it is a gentle comedy as well.
You're Miss February. What's the pose?
They said to me "You'll be at a piano", and I said: "Well it better be an upright is all I can say!"
Are you surprised that from a calendar it's turned into a film?
I suppose you would never know that from the beginning, before the calendar and everything that happened there... but that's often the case isn't it? Things just mushroom. It just touched people, so I'm not surprised that it just got so massive. In America it sold more calendars than Britney Spears! Quite right!
"Calendar Girls" is released in UK cinemas on Friday 5th September 2003.
