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All In A Day’s Work
As a child in Coventry, Sharon Maguire, pictured above right with Renee Zellweger, dreamed of being a director one day. Following a circuitous route she has fulfilled that unlikely dream, making her feature bow this year with the highly successful Bridget Jones’s Diary. Anwar Brett hears how she did it.
24 There was no-one better placed romantic comedy that follows the
“When you direct documentaries, you’re out there and you have to bring something back and inevitably if some- times goes wrong you have to think on your feet and decide on a course of action when that happens. I didn’t think that would prove useful, but it did.”
She currently has a pile of 35 scripts to read before deciding exactly what she will do next. There is a suggestion of an American movie sometime next year and Maguire should not be discounted
from the mooted Bridget sequel, though nothing is in place as yet.
It’s a blossoming directorial career that is all the more satisfying because of the promise that this ebullient thirtyish year old (“all I’ll say is that I’m just the wrong side of 35,” she laughs), once made to herself.
“I always knew I wanted to make films,” she says, “and I vowed that
I would make my first feature before
I was 40, so there was a vague plan there. But I don’t think I ever voiced it to anyone except myself.” ■
than Sharon Maguire to direct efforts of ‘singleton’ Bridget in finding
the film version of Helen Fielding’s best-selling book, Bridget Jones’s Diary. Not that
true love in her increasingly hectic London life.
she arrived on set with a huge amount of screen hours under her belt, but her friendship with Fielding and her conse- quent presence within the story in the guise of Bridget’s pals Shazza and Jude meant that she had a unique insight into the world that the film was recreating.
“I think the actors appreciated that,” she says, “nearly everyone on the set had more experience than me, but what they didn’t have was the knowl- edge that I had. I also knew how to deal with crews, I know what type of shots
I wanted and how I wanted the film to look. And I can’t quite explain how amazing that was. I came home exhila- rated from the first day of rehearsal, thinking ‘hooray, we’ve cast the right people’. I loved what they did.”
So too have audiences, who have been beguiled by a warmly amusing
While the experience of making the movie was a new one for Maguire, the subsequent publicity whirl was even more bewildering. “I used to get asked questions like: ‘do you think the kind of intimacy distance dance that men and women do will go on forev- er?’. What do you say to that?”
Although she was not formally trained as a film director, Maguire brought a diverse range of experience to the project. A graduate of Aberystwyth University, where she read English and Drama, she also stud- ied journalism at City University, worked in publishing, and fulfilled vari- ous production duties on programmes such as The Late Show, Omnibus and Bookmark in the early 90s.
“I was surprised really how much use all that other stuff was to me when I came to make the film,” she adds.
SHARON MAGUIRE’S
SEVEN
Best Film
Asking me to choose my favourite film is like asking a politician for a one word answer. It cannot be done. But I can nar- rowitdownfrom100to20. Sohere goes: Star Wars, The Wizard Of Oz, Ma Vie En Rose, The King Of Comedy, The Castle, The Party, Life Is Sweet, Wild At Heart, Toy Story 2, Sunset Boulevard, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, Rear Window, Entertaining Mr Sloane, Happiness, Scarface, Fargo, Blood Simple, The Last Dragon, Jean De Florette.
GAIL PORTER’S
6 OF THE BEST
Industry personalities hand out their very own BAFTAs
Most Memorable TV Quotes
Alan Partridge - “You’re a mentalist” (when driving away from his stalker.)
Classic TV Quiz Shows
Roy Walker’s Catchphrase - “It’s good, but it’s not right.” Richard and Judy’s Midday Money: Q “Is the Eiffel Tower: (a) a tower
(b) a type of flower (c) a baby weasel ?” A: Doh!
Gail Porter, hosting last year’s BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards, is a TV presenter.
Worst Film
The Waterboy. In fact, anything with Adam Sandler in it. Boring, stupid and lazy. Runner up: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. What the blooming heck happened?
Best TV Programme
Anything with Louis Theroux or Alan Partridge.
Worst TV Programme
The Weakest Link - especially the repeats!
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Photos: Toy Story 2 and Star Wars (Archive photo courtesy Kobal)