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The Women Behind The Little Drummer Girl: Screening and Q&A

Published: 02 Mar 2019

“I think we’re getting quite a few flawed women on screen now… And that’s only what it’s like in real life.” – Laura Hastings-Smith

We had the pleasure of hosting a panel celebrating the women in front and behind the camera on the 1st March at the Soho Hotel. On the panel were: Florence Pugh (Charlie Ross), Tatiana Macdonald (Set Decorator), Claire Wilson (Writer), and Laura Hastings-Smith (Producer), and was chaired by Rhianna Dhillon. Here are some highlights of the event.

When asked about adapting le Carré’s work, Claire talked about her passion for the novel, “I loved the duality of the story, and I loved the character of Charlie.” She into more depth with, “I’ve never seen anything so messy, and I thought there’s just so much potential with this really kind of crazy, but focused and complicated woman on screen.” Claire proceeded to talk about how important it was to be a part of the process of adapting The Little Drummer Girl with Mike Lesslie, “It was really, really exciting to be a part of the first female [protagonist of le Carré] and just to honour it the whole time. His book is a really big book and there’s so much beautiful prose in it, and character situations and descriptions of things and it kinda was just boiling all of that down and making sure that you’ve got it on screen. So it was really exciting but scary.”

“For me as an actor – my agent will agree – we’re always looking for bizarre, honest, real people.”
– Florence Pugh

Laura Hastings-Smith spoke about what attracted her to this project, “One, because it’s le Carré’s story with a woman in the central role, and also I just loved the complexity of the sort of psychology of the character of Charlie… that element of grooming, multiple roles, and what’s real and what’s fake, and I just found it absolutely fascinating.” When the question of the character of Charlie was brought up, and if The Little Drummer Girl redefined what it means to be a female protagonist, Laura replied, “I think we’re getting quite a few flawed women on screen now, aren’t we? And that’s only what it’s like in real life. So I guess thank goodness really. It’s real. It’s human. It’s emotional. It’s messy. It’s imperfect. It’s vulnerable. It’s all these things that women are. So maybe it’s just part of the journey to seeing real women on screen.” She stated that, “There is an appetite at the moment for women writers, stories about women, women directors… We’re getting more complex women on screen.”

Having worked on a previous le Carré production, Tatiana Macdonald was asked about the differences about working on Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and The Little Drummer Girl. “It was more of there were similarities in that both the directors were amazing and phenomenally visually. They both add to what we do.” She followed with when, “You’ve got a director that sees what you’ve done or has, and the conversations up until that point have led you doing something extraordinary for them because they’re so incredible. Then you get that thing where something looks phenomenal, otherwise it can just be background. It can just be wallpaper.” Tatiana then asserted that, “It’s having such an incredible director and then having the le Carré subject matter. The two together produce these two things.”

“It’s real, It’s human, It’s emotional, It’s messy, It’s imperfect, It’s vulnerable. It’s all these things that women are.”
– Laura Hastings-Smith

Florence Pugh talked about her experience of being an actress in this revolution towards female characters, “I am on the beginning of when interesting, confusing, complex emotions were key to a character and for a female character. I’d say that doing things like this only opens up more opportunities for people to maybe want big mouths on screen and want messy characters on screen. For me as an actor, my agent will agree, we’re always looking for bizarre, honest, real people so yeah I’d say that’s probably true.”

"I loved the duality of Charlie."

Claire Wilson

"I thought there’s just so much potential with this really crazy, but focused and complicated woman on screen."

Claire Wilson

"There is an appetite at the moment for women writers, stories about women, women directors… We’re getting more complex women on screen."

Laura Hastings-Smith

"More opportunities for people to want big mouths and messy characters on screen."

Florence Pugh