| 首頁 Home | 電影 Films | 評論 Opinions | 戲院 Cinemas | 資訊 Information | 網站地圖 Site Map

首頁 -> 電影 -> 香港每年上映電影 ->
Home -> Films -> Films Released in Hong Kong by Year ->

《魔法保姆麥菲》
Nanny Mcphee

佢?係 「反斗天王」
無數保姆俾佢兩下攪掂
可惜強中自有強中手
保姆麥菲魔咒一出，呢班小魔怪集體舉手

Working Title Films 將金像級編劇及演員愛瑪湯遜變身超級保姆
一位外表醜陋但心地善良的魔法保姆麥菲，加上7位鬼馬貪玩的小孩子，勢將發放出連串笑彈，不過令觀眾笑破肚皮之餘，這亦是一齣感人而溫馨的家庭電影。

由《４個婚禮一個葬禮》、《摘星奇緣》、《BJ單身日記》、《真的戀愛了》、《愛情插班生》幕後搞手Working Title Films新作，憑李安導演作品《理智與感情》勇奪奧斯卡最佳改編劇本的愛瑪湯遜(Emma Thompson)再度執筆，把兒童故事《Nurse Matilda》改寫成這部老少咸宜的合家歡電影。愛瑪湯遜更繼《真的戀愛了》及《哈利波特阿茲卡班的逃犯》後再度粉墨登場，以金像級的演技，飾演戲中的魔法保姆麥菲(Nanny McPhee)。

愛瑪湯遜(Emma Thompson)憑《此情可問天》(Howard's End)成為奧斯卡及金球獎雙料影后，此外又憑《告別有情天》(The Remains of the Day)及《因父之名》(In the Name of the Father)分別獲奧斯卡最佳女配角及女主角提名。

她在本片中將伙拍《BJ單身日記》、《赤裸真相》男星哥連卓夫(Colin Firth)及《小飛俠前傳之魔幻童心》女星姬莉麥當奴(Kelly Macdonald)。在戲中扮演長子的湯瑪士辛斯達(Thomas Sangster)，是曾參演《真的戀愛了》的後起新秀。

故事大綱
布朗家一門七傑，這七位「反斗天王」百厭搗蛋，媽媽早於一年前離世，爸爸布朗先生(哥連卓夫 飾)又忙於生計，根本無暇照顧精力旺盛的子女；對於新來的保姆，「反斗天王」不消一會便把保姆們嚇得雞飛狗走，更詳細地記錄了一連嚇走17位保姆的輝煌事跡；現在，布朗先生需要的是傳說中的魔法保姆麥菲 (愛瑪湯遜 )飾 !

醜樣的魔法保姆麥菲一出，她跟「反斗天王」的長期扭計大戰隨即展開，不過無論孩子們怎樣捉弄這位新來的保姆，她都總有方法解圍，更把種種鬼主意倒過來用在他們自己身上，實行以牙還牙；每逢「反斗天王」成功地學得一課，麥菲的大鼻縮小了，臉上的黑痣亦消失得無影無蹤，額下一條粗粗的眉毛亦變成正常的兩條。到底是麥菲的樣子改變了？還是孩子們對她的觀感改變了呢？

另外，阿姨阿特萊一向是布朗家的經濟支柱，為了讓七子女教得像個紳士淑女，她要布朗先生在一個月內結婚，否則她便不再給予布朗家一分一毫；更把其中的子女帶走撫養；面對這個危急關頭，「反斗天王」不得不求教於魔法保姆的幫助…

魔法保姆麥菲奇醜樣貌大公開
˙兩條眉毛粗粗的連一直線
˙長了兩顆滿是毛髮的黑痣
˙大得像兩個馬鈴薯的鼻子
˙嘴巴更突出一隻礙眼的大爆牙

「反斗天王 」7傑
「反斗大佬」西蒙 - 湯瑪士辛斯達 (Thomas Sangster) 飾
「大胃王」塞少 - 森荷利活 (Sam Honywood) 飾
「話事人」多拉 伊拉莎貝拿 (Eliza Bennett) 飾
「諸事精」姬絲 荷莉吉絲 (Holly Gibbs) 飾
「戴夢夢」莉莉 珍妮花拉戴堅 (Jennifer Rae Daykin) 飾
「麻煩友」艾力 拉菲高爾文(Raphael Coleman) 飾
「塞豆窿」芝芝 希比 / 仙莉亞 湯馬士 (twins Hebe and Zinnia Thomas)分飾

強勁陣容　炮製合家歡魔法童話
憑《此情可問天》勇奪奧斯卡最佳女主角大獎的愛瑪湯遜，早已證明自己的演技出眾，近年她更加積極參與幕後創作，提起筆桿當編劇。她給華人大導李安寫的劇本《理智與感情》，更取得奧斯卡最佳改編劇本獎，在編劇方面的才華得到全世界影迷的肯定。《魔法保姆麥菲》的故事改編自一系列名為《Nurse Matilda》的兒童故事，原著者是兒童讀物及偵探小說作家姬絲頓娜白雅(Christianna Brand)。

在本片中飾演爸爸布朗的哥連卓夫，其實早在《真的戀愛了》中與愛瑪湯遜合作過，他在《BJ單身日記》中搶眼的演出，令觀眾留下深刻的印象。他最近更在加拿大導演伊高揚的新作《赤裸真相》中擔正當主角，與《懸河殺機》型男奇雲培根(Kevin Bacon)合演，得到影評界很高的評價。

而對飾演阿特萊姨的安祖娜蘭絲貝莉 (Angela Lansbury)而言，本片是她闊別大銀幕二十年後的首部電影作品，個人意義特別深遠。飾演女傭伊芬芝蓮的姬莉麥當奴正是cult片《迷幻列車》中的搶鏡少女，及後曾參演羅拔艾特曼(Robert Altman)橫掃各大頒獎禮的名作《高斯福大宅謀殺案》，近期作品則有《小飛俠前傳之魔幻童心》。

布朗氏一家的廚師拜花域太太(Mrs. Blatherwick)，則由依曼達史托頓(Imelda Staunton)擔任，她在英國大師米克李(Mike Leigh)備受爭議的作品《地下觀音》中飾演女主角Vera Drake，並憑此角得到奧斯卡最佳女主角的提名，與及英國電影學會、英國獨立電影大獎、芝加哥影評人協會大獎、歐洲電影獎等多個頒獎禮中「最佳女主角」的獎項。

《魔法保姆麥菲》由蓮茜黛倫(Lindsay Doran)監製，本片已是她與愛瑪湯遜繼《理智與感情》及《再世驚情》後第三次合作。

關於電影
當金牌編劇遇上Nurse Matilda
自從1990年，愛瑪湯遜和蓮茜黛倫(Lindsay Doran)在《再世驚情》的拍攝場地中認識，兩人便已開始編劇／監製的合作模式。當時，黛倫正在找他找一位可以滿意地把Jane Austen經典小說《理智與感情》改編成電影的編劇。當他看過由愛瑪湯遜撰寫劇本的電視喜劇《Thompson》，他便知道終於碰到能勝任的人 － 儘管當時愛瑪湯遜還未試過為電影撰寫劇本。

本身已是Jane Austen書迷的愛瑪湯遜，欣然答應了黛倫的邀請。5年後，由李安執導、愛瑪湯遜親自出演的《理智與感情》，終於在大銀幕上與觀眾見面。這部廣受觀眾歡迎的電影不單非常賣座，更一口氣獲得七項奧斯卡提名，包括最佳電影、最佳女主角等，最後愛瑪湯遜成功地把最佳改編劇本的大獎捧回家。此片當年更得到金像獎及英國電影學會最佳電影的殊榮，風頭可謂一時無兩。

「湯遜實在是一位非常出色的編劇！」黛倫佩服地說，「她既有喜劇觸覺，又有拍攝劇情片所需的節奏。她寫的東西足以感動得令人心痛，但又不會顯得過分濫情。她可以把發生在不同年代的劇本寫得很有說服力，但又不會令現代的觀眾感到突兀。她的劇本上的每個字，都像是經過精心挑選的一樣。」

乘著《理智與感情》大獲全勝的成功先例，湯遜和黛倫繼續尋找其他合作機會，希望可以覓得好像《理智與感情》這種能讓他們全情投入的題材。雖然他們不時會給對方提出一些建議，但始終未能擦出同樣閃亮的火花。直至1997年湯遜向黛倫提到一系列名為《Nurse Matilda》的英文兒童故事，他們才感到，這大可以作為下次合作的題材。

「我是在自己的書架上找到這部書的。」湯遜笑道：「我實在很喜歡它們，也很喜愛書中的插圖。這部書給人的感覺既有點諷刺性但又很溫馨。我在七年前翻閱了這部書的第一冊，心想這部書應該是很有趣的創作材料。」

兩人在公共圖書館找到這三本早已絕版的圖書《Nurse Matilda》、《Nurse Matilda Goes to Town》和《Nurse Matilda Goes to Hospital》，黛倫繼而選定愛瑪湯遜為改編的指定人選，於是《魔法保姆麥菲》漫長的製作過程便正式踏出了重要的第一步。

《Nurse Matilda》的原著寫於60年代，內容講述一位外表醜陋的魔法保姆，漸漸令一班頑劣小孩變得馴良的感人故事。這故事原本經由作者姬絲頓娜(Christanna Brand)家族成員口傳了好幾代，最後由這位知名的兒童故事作家編寫成書。

把《Nurse Matilda》改編成電影，比起改編《理智與感情》困難得多，因為Jane Austen的小說已有十足的情節，愛瑪湯遜要做的就是把長篇故事撮寫成一部精彩的劇本。但《Nurse Matilda》幾乎要由愛瑪湯遜來進行創作，皆因原著中並沒有明確可依的情節。

黛倫和愛瑪湯遜一致同意把保姆的名字改掉。在故事發生的年代，Nurse與Nanny一字的意思是相通的，而McPhee這名字則由湯遜的母親提出，大家都認為這名字聽起來特別順耳，所以魔法保姆的名字便定為《魔法保姆麥菲》。

當導演遇上合家歡喜劇
當監製蓮茜黛倫聽見導演卻克鍾斯(Kirk Jones)的名字時，初時以為對方是位年事已高的長輩。黛倫憶述首次見面時說：「很多人以為卻克鍾斯是位90多歲的愛爾蘭人，因為他上一部作品《孖你有得發》講述一班年老愛爾蘭人中了彩票的故事。當我看見眼前的鍾斯竟然只是位30多歲的年青人，實在把我嚇了一跳。」

英國導演卻克鍾斯是一位獲獎無數的廣告導演，包括1996年在康城獲得銀獅獎。他拍過首部長片《孖你有得發》(Waking Ned)之後，一直在尋找一個好劇本執導的機會。

導演解釋說：「找一部好的劇本就像買一層合心水的房子一樣，你可能要找上好幾年才找得到心頭好。面對芸芸眾多選擇，有時會令人感到困惑，但只要你一旦作出了正確的決定，你便會有回到家裡的幸福感覺。」

「當我一讀到《魔法保姆麥菲》的劇本，我便知道這是我一直在尋找的東西了。」鍾斯興高采烈地說道：「這劇本充滿了魔法，非常迷人、非常豐富，我覺得它將會成為一部經典！」

在拍攝過程中，導演尤其享受引發孩子們頑皮天性的環節。「我們本來設計把萬能膠塗在門柄上，後來竟然改成把帶電的電線纏在門柄。」導演憶述拍攝過程時說道：「從我自己的兩位兒子身上可以知道，孩子們對越反斗的把戲反應越是熱烈。」

導演卻克鍾斯對愛瑪湯遜以編劇和演員的雙重身分全情投入工作感到非常滿意，他說：「湯遜付出了很大努力把劇本寫得最好，但若果在拍攝過程中有任何細節需要更改，有甚麼場次不能依足劇本拍攝，有哪句對白要換掉，她都不會有微言。假如能把劇本改善得更加完美的話，她通通都會照單全收。有時我會大叫：『湯遜，我要多四句對白啊！』，她便會隨即順暢地說出幾句台詞，而且總是十全十美的，因為她對戲中每位角色都瞭如指掌。」

當愛瑪湯遜遇上魔法保姆麥菲
打從一開始，湯遜便有興趣扮演魔法保姆一角，她認為這將會個非常過癮的角色；對於慣演傷感、幽默、細緻一類角色的愛瑪湯遜來說，魔法保姆麥菲實在是一個勇敢的新嘗試。

愛瑪湯遜把角色比喻為東方禪學大師 ，她為布朗家混亂的生活，提供一點令人舒暢的平靜和諧。「要成為禪學大師，並不代表你的心靈要平靜得空白一片；」湯遜這樣描述她扮演的角色：「真正的禪學大師，可以給予別人一點空間，讓人看清楚自己，讓別人感應到平常不能察覺到的東西。」事實上，這位魔法保姆以她獨特的方法，啟發「反斗天王」建立自信，引導他們逐步走上正確的道路。

湯遜非常忠於原著和插圖中魔法保姆的外表。為了把這位傳奇人物變成活生生的角色，有賴幕後一班工作人員的衷誠合作。從構思到製作過程，足足用了7年的時間，愛瑪湯遜終於以全新姿態出現：一雙大耳朵、兩顆長了毛的大黑痣、兩條在中間連合為一的眼眉毛、大得像兩個馬鈴薯的鼻子和一隻突出嘴唇外的爆牙。這一臉註定嚇人一跳的出位形象，悉數由曾獲金像獎的《魔戒三部曲》化妝師彼得京(Peter King)一手包辦。

「這個不是湯遜！」導演憶述他首次看見化身成魔法保姆麥菲的愛瑪湯遜時說：「絕大部分演員，無論他們的演出如何具說服力，你總能看穿化妝和戲服之下的是誰。但當我看見麥菲時，她一身裝扮和她的演出實在太出色了，我完全認不出眼前的人就是湯遜，我還以為是另一位我從未見過的演員。」

當哥連卓夫當上窮爸爸
如像從天而降的神奇保姆麥菲，與非常人性化、帶點寂寞、帶點煩惱的一家之主布朗形象成了強烈的對比。這位角色需要集幽默與浪漫於一身，他一方面要表達出電影輕鬆惹笑的娛樂性，亦要演出戲中極為重要的愛情部分。導演由一開始便已選定要哥連卓 (Colin Firth)來演這個高難度的角色。

哥連卓夫在以往演出的劇情片如《畫意私情》、《赤裸真相》，又或是浪漫喜劇如《真的戀愛了》、《BJ單身日記》都深得影評人和觀眾的讚賞，本片中他將會再舒展他的演戲天賦 : 「一個好的故事往往能夠讓人一時從大笑捧腹變成熱淚盈框，然後下一秒鐘又讓你再次開懷大笑。」哥連說：「作為一位演員，能夠參演這樣的電影，實在是個很吸引、很震憾的經歷。」

當哥連首次讀劇本的時候，他自覺就像一位在乖乖聽故事的小孩子。「《魔法保姆麥菲》有齊任何好故事必須的元素，就像你小時候一直渴望別人給你講的精彩故事。」哥連這樣比喻這部電影：「一點點驚嚇的元素，同時又想有點點浪漫的情節。這電影很有趣，有迷人的愛情部分，也有大團圓結局。正是那種讓孩子一看入迷，乖乖坐著連眼也忘記眨的好電影。」

扮演戲中七位百厭星的爸爸，哥連在拍攝過程中可謂勞心勞力；他自言演出這個角色令他累透了。哥連歎了口氣說：「說起來也有點諷刺，一些很細微、很傻氣的搞笑情節，往往需要最長的時間拍攝。」幸好，他所付出的努力並沒有白費，導演對這位出色的演員總是讚不絕口：「哥連天生就很有喜劇的觸覺，他唸對白時的語氣總是恰到好處，從不會讓人覺得過分誇張，又很能表達出戲劇化的效果。」

當愛瑪湯遜變身成魔法保姆麥菲 《魔戒三部曲》金像化妝師彼得京操刀
服裝設計師力克艾迪(Nick Ede)和《魔戒三部曲》、《King Kong》特技化妝師彼得京(Peter King)在電影製作過程中以拍擋的形式工作，合力為電影設計出最適切、最搶眼的服裝和造型。導演和工作人員為保姆麥菲應有怎樣的外貌，進行了很長時間的討論。「她要長得嚇人，但又不要太嚇人。」以《魔戒三部曲:王者再臨》奪取奧斯卡金像獎最佳化妝的彼得京說：「她樣子要惹笑，但又不可以太搞笑，否則觀眾便會分心，忽略了故事更深遠的寓意。」

要變身成魔法保姆麥菲，愛瑪湯遜要戴上一個假鼻和一雙假耳，在嘴邊塞上一隻大假牙，臉上貼上兩顆大黑痣，一條粗眉毛，當然還要一頭假髮。但是原來這張在劇情發展中也不斷在變，每逢孩子學到一課後，麥菲的樣貌便會改好一點；黛倫說 : 「麥菲的耳朵會變小了，髮線也漸漸後退，最初可能是假髮，最後是愛湯本人的頭髮，鼻子也會越變越小。」

就連保姆麥菲的身段也有變改，服裝設計師艾迪花了很多時間研究如何在湯遜身上貼上不同的墊子，為求造出原著插畫中Nurse Matilda的外貌。因此負責服裝的艾迪，在愛瑪湯遜的變身過程中，為同一件戲服設計了五個不同的版本，以迎合她在「變身」過程中的不同外型。

And there she was - Nurse Matilda! - with her bun of hair sticking out at the back of her head like a teapot handle, and her wrinkly round face and two little, black, boot-button eyes. And her nose! - her nose was like two potatoes!
- Christianna Brand

"Nurse Matilda Goes to Town"
That which is loved is always beautiful.
- Norwegian Proverb

NANNY MCPHEE

Production Information

The seven Brown children - Simon, Tora, Eric, Lily, Christianna, Sebastian and Baby Aggy - may well be the naughtiest children in the history of the world. Their beleaguered father, Mr. Brown, has his hands full taking care of his troublesome offspring by working long days at the local funeral parlour. The children's mother died only a year ago but Mr Brown's imperious Aunt Adelaide, who supplements his inadequate wages, has threatened to cut off her allowance to the family unless Mr. Brown remarries within a month. Debtor's prison awaits him if he doesn't comply, and the fate of the children would be unimaginable.

Mr Brown decides not to tell the children but they find out and assume he doesn't care enough about them to tell them they're about to have a new stepmother. As a result, their behaviour worsens, and their acts of outrageous mischief send yet another nanny screaming from the house. Simon, the oldest boy and the leader of the pack, keeps a chart showing the amount of time it's taken to drive away each of their 17 nannies along with the act of mischief that did the trick

Mr. Brown keeps hearing that the nanny he needs is someone named Nanny McPhee, but he has no idea who she is or how to find her. "There will be snow in August before this family is straightened out," grouses their weary cook, Mrs. Blatherwick, to their scullery maid, Evangeline, who adores the children in spite of their behaviour. What the Brown family needs is a miracle. What they get is Nanny McPhee.

One night, as the children are wreaking havoc in Mrs. Blatherwick's definitely-off-limits kitchen, there appears at the front door the legendary Nanny McPhee - a stern and comically ugly little woman whose features include a bulbous nose, a single repulsive eyebrow, a pair of hairy warts, and a particularly unsightly snaggle tooth. Mr. Brown has doubts about this person he supposedly needs, but finds himself unable to give satisfactory answers to her questions about his children. "Do they say 'please' and 'thank you'?" she asks. "In what context?" is his weak reply. Nanny McPhee makes her assessment - "Your children need me" - and finds her way to the kitchen where she encounters for the first time the dreadful behaviour of the Brown children. The children are somewhat put off by this creature with the alarming appearance, but they pretend not to see or hear her and defiantly resolve "to play in the kitchen all night long."

But one bang of Nanny McPhee's magic stick changes everything. Suddenly the children's antics are speeded up beyond their control and they realize they'll have to play in the kitchen all night long, whether they want to or not, unless they ask Nanny McPhee to let them stop. A battle of wills takes over between Simon and Nanny McPhee as to whether or not he will say "please," but when it looks as though he's on the verge of getting "Cook blown up and Aggy boiled," Simon relents and says the word he never says. And says it politely.

In an instant, the kitchen is neat as a pin, and neither Cook nor Evangeline have any memory of the havoc, or the magic, they just witnessed. But the children remember, and the younger ones worry they may have met their match.

When Nanny McPhee appears in their bedroom, they give her a series of rude names instead of their real names to show that she can't scare them. But Nanny McPhee knows all their names already, and before she leaves the bedroom she gives them her credo: "When you need me but do not want me, I must stay. When you want me, but no longer need me, then I have to go." "We will never want you," says Simon, as defiant as ever. "Then I will never go," Nanny McPhee replies serenely, and disappears down the stairs.

In the days that follow, the children find that any mischief they make will be used against them by Nanny McPhee who seems to enjoy giving them a taste of their own medicine. Meanwhile, a new complication arises for Mr. Brown when Aunt Adelaide arrives and announces her intention to take one of his daughters away to live with her. The children overhear the plan and rebel by dressing up the family's animals in the girls' frilly best clothes, hoping the short sighted old woman will take an animal with her instead. But when Aunt Adelaide spies one of the real Brown girls and grabs her, the other children realise they have no choice but to turn for help to the woman who has said that she'd be there for them whenever they need her.

Nanny McPhee answers their appeal and distracts Aunt Adelaide by making the family's donkey dance. But the reprieve is only momentary, and she reminds the children that someone must be in Aunt Adelaide's carriage when she leaves. The Brown girls respond with surprising selflessness, but Simon saves the day by asking Evangeline, who longs to be an educated lady, to go with Aunt Adelaide. The switch is made, the girls are safe, and the children begin to reevaluate this nanny whom they thought was their enemy. They also notice that something very mysterious is happening; as they learn Nanny McPhee's lessons, her looks appear to change. The warts go, the nose gets smaller, the single eyebrow separates into two normal ones. Has she really changed? Or is it just their attitude towards her that has changed?

As Mr Brown's marriage deadline approaches he begrudgingly invites to tea the dreadful Mrs Quickly, a woman so eager for his affections that she flirted with him throughout her third husband's funeral. Simon tries to talk to his father about Mrs Quickly, but when his father won't listen, the boy turns to Nanny McPhee for help. Though she refuses to help directly, she agrees not to interfere if the children try to drive Mrs. Quickly away.

Mrs. Quickly arrives and the pranks commence. A toad in the teapot, worms in her sandwiches, a tarantula lowered into her silly blonde curls all backfire and drive her and Mr Brown closer together. In the end Mrs. Quickly leaves in a fury, sure that Mr. Brown has been attempting to seduce her all afternoon without the benefit of marriage. Left without hope, Mr. Brown confesses all to the children and tells them that the family is about to be pulled apart. Nanny McPhee challenges the children to figure out on their own what to do. The children go to Mrs. Quickly's house and persuade her to return to Mr. Brown, then persuade their father to propose to the awful woman. That night, Mr. Brown apologises to his children for not trusting them and they apologise to him for their bad behaviour. They are now a happy family once again, if only for the few days before the wedding. Nanny McPhee reveals to Mr. Brown that he has learned one of her most important lessons: to listen. And once again, her looks seem to change.

On the day of the wedding, it seems that the Browns face an impossible dilemma. Will Mr. Brown really have to marry Mrs. Quickly? Will the children be able to figure out on their own how to save the day? Nanny McPhee's magic, in tandem now with the children's own cleverness, brings about a series of hilarious and emotional surprises, transforming the dreaded wedding day into an occasion of glorious happiness for the family and a sad reminder for Nanny McPhee that when children want her, but no longer need her, she has to go.

Universal Pictures and Working Title Films present the family comedy adventure "Nanny McPhee," starring Emma Thompson ("Love, Actually," "Sense and Sensibility," "Angels in America") in the title role and Colin Firth ("Love Actually," "Bridget Jones's Diary") as Mr. Brown. The film is directed by Kirk Jones ("Waking Ned") from a screenplay by Emma Thompson, her first since the 1995 Oscar winner "Sense and Sensibility," adapted from the Nurse Matilda children's book series by Christianna Brand.

Produced by Lindsay Doran (in her third collaboration with Thompson, following "Sense and Sensibility" and "Dead Again") and by Working Title's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, the film is co-produced by Glynis Murray. Angela Lansbury ("Beauty and the Beast", "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," "Murder, She Wrote") returns to the screen for the first time in twenty years to play Aunt Adelaide. The film also stars Kelly Macdonald ("The Girl In The Cafe", "Gosford Park," "Trainspotting") as Evangeline, Imelda Staunton ("Vera Drake") as Mrs. Blatherwick, and Thomas Sangster ("Love Actually") as Simon Brown. Newcomers Eliza Bennett, Jennifer Rae Daykin, Raphael Coleman, Sam Honywood and Holly Gibbs play the younger Brown children, and identical twins Hebe and Zinnia Barnes play Baby Aggy.

The director of photography is Henry Braham ("Bright Young Things," "Waking Ned "). The production designer is Michael Howells ("Bright Young Things," "Shackleton"). The costume designer is Nic Ede ("Bright Young Things,"), and the hair and make-up designer is Peter King ("The Lord of the Rings"). The score is composed by Patrick Doyle ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," "Sense and Sensibility").

ABOUT THE FILM

Bedtime Stories:

Thompson and Doran Meet Nurse Matilda

Emma Thompson and Lindsay Doran have been working together as a screenwriting/producing team since 1990 when they met on the production of "Dead Again," which Thompson starred in and Doran produced. At the time, Doran was in the 10th year of her search for someone to adapt Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility" into a feature film. When she saw some episodes of a comedy TV series that Thompson had written (titled, appropriately, "Thompson"), she felt sure she had found the right person for the adaptation, even though Thompson had never written a feature screenplay.

Being a devotee of Austen's work, Thompson took the assignment just as she was finishing up her role in "Dead Again," and five years later "Sense and Sensibility" was released. The critical and box office hit was nominated for seven Academy AwardsR, including Best Picture, and won Thompson the award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture - Drama and the Best Film award from BAFTA.

"Emma is an extraordinary writer," says Doran. "She has a wonderful sense of both comic and dramatic rhythms, and her writing can be heartbreakingly emotional without ever being sentimental. She also has a remarkable ability to write period language in a way that feels absolutely accurate while at the same time being accessible to the modern ear. Even her stage directions are delicious to read. Every word is considered and precisely chosen."

Following their experience on "Sense and Sensibility," Thompson and Doran looked for something else they could work on together, hoping to find the kind of passion project that "Sense and Sensibility" had been for both of them. Though they often contacted one another with ideas, nothing lit a fire with either of them until Thompson told Doran about the Nurse Matilda series of English children's books over lunch in 1997. "I had never heard of them," recalls Doran, who at the time was President of United Artists Pictures. "I thought maybe it was just me, but later I learned that very few people have heard of these books, even in England."

"I found the books on my bookshelf," Thompson says. "They weren't my main fare but I loved them and I loved the illustrations. The books were very dry and witty and dark, but also very sweet. I came across the first book again about seven years ago and thought, there's something rather interesting about this."

"Emma told me the most basic premise of the story at that lunch," Doran continues. "And without hearing anything else, without reading the books, without knowing anything except what she told me that day, I thought it was a terrific idea for a movie. As the days went by, the basic concept kept growing on me. I kept thinking about how this would work and how that could work and how it could be funny and how it could be emotional. For me, that's the best way to begin the development process - in a state of high excitement and enthusiasm."

After tracking down the three out-of-print books (Nurse Matilda, Nurse Matilda Goes to Town, and Nurse Matilda Goes to Hospital) in a public library, Doran optioned them for Thompson to adapt and the development for "Nanny McPhee" began.

The books, written in the early 1960s by Christianna Brand, recount the legend of an unsettling-looking magical nanny who tames a large family of extremely unruly children. She uses magic to teach them lessons, and as they learn the lessons her appearance seems to change. The tales of Nurse Matilda were orally passed down for generations through the author's family. Christianna Brand was a pen name for Mary Christianna Lewis, an award-winning mystery writer, and she first wrote about the character in her anthology "Naughty Children" (illustrated by her cousin, the famous children's book illustrator Edward Ardizzone) and then later in her three books.

The books contained a rich well of material that resonated with Thompson and Doran who both felt that the characters, situations and relationships had universal appeal. "What parents would not want to have somebody around who could bang a stick and make their children good?" asks Doran. "Who wouldn't want that? And what group of children wouldn't want a magical person to come into their house, even if they were the victims of her magic for a while? It's just fun to have somebody around who can bang a stick and make a donkey dance. Everybody understands the wish-fulfillment of that.

The process of adapting Brand's books had more "blood, sweat and tears" in the writing than "Sense and Sensibility" because with the Jane Austen text, Thompson adapted everything in the book, then distilled it down to its essence. Nurse Matilda, she says, "was much more a creation because the books don't have any plot. There are so many disciplines - drama, comedy, physical comedy, farce, spookiness. But the process has been much more beguiling than anything I've ever done before because it's so multi-layered."

As Thompson worked on shaping the material into a story, she often turned for aid and comfort to Doran, as she had during the writing of "Sense and Sensibility." "Lindsay epitomizes the word 'producer,'" says Thompson. "There's no other person I've ever worked with who has her qualities - because she's also a great script editor. My scripts wouldn't be what they are without her. Especially since I was just beginning with 'Sense and Sensibility,' I would never have gotten that done without her shaping and formulating. She is extraordinary."

One of the first things Doran and Thompson agreed to change was the nanny's name. At the time in which the story is set, the word 'nurse' was synonymous with the word 'nanny.' "But after a number of people asked me about my 'nurse project' with Emma Thompson, it was clear we had to change the word from 'nurse' to 'nanny,'" recalls Doran. There was also the Roald Dahl book and film adaptation of "Matilda" to contend with, and that was another reason to make the change. "We went through a couple of possibilities, but eventually our nanny emerged as Nanny McPhee," says Doran. "It was Emma's mother [the actress, Phyllida Law] who came up with 'McPhee,' and it immediately sounded right." It is also Phyllida Law who intones the words Mr. Brown hears many times at the beginning of the film: "The person you need is Nanny McPhee."

By 2002, the five-year process of writing the screenplay was done and "Nanny McPhee" began its search for a director.

Eating the Baby:

Director Kirk Jones Joins the Company

When Doran heard that Kirk Jones wanted to meet with her about directing "Nanny McPhee," she expected to meet someone much older. Jones was the writer/director of "Waking Ned" but had not directed another feature since that film's release in 1998. "A lot of people thought Kirk Jones was a ninety-year-old Irish gentleman," Doran says. "It made perfect sense - he made this movie about very old Irish people and then nobody in America heard from him again, so there was this assumption that he had probably died, poor old chap. It was a big shock to me when I found that Kirk Jones was thirty-six years old and not even Irish."

"Waking Ned" - an emotional comedy about an old man who dies of shock upon learning he has won the lottery, and the small Irish village that bands together to try to claim the money - struck a chord with audiences all over the world.

"'Waking Ned' is a great film he made for tuppence ha'penny," comments Thompson, "and it made so much money because Kirk made something universal out of it. The tone of it was exactly what we wanted, funnily enough, because it was about somebody dying, and much of the emotion in 'Nanny McPhee' comes from the subject of the dead mother, while much of the comedy comes from Mr. Brown's job at the funeral parlour."

This deft touch at coaxing humour out of dark situations and bringing emotion and humanity to a wickedly funny scenario put Jones permanently on Doran's radar. "'Waking Ned' has humour that actually makes you laugh out loud," she comments. "You don't just smile, you laugh, and that's very important to me. Audiences loved that movie and it was an enormous hit all over the world because it's a story that works everywhere. That kind of universality was exactly what we were striving for in 'Nanny McPhee,' and it was clear that Kirk knew instinctively how to provide it."

A successful commercials director who had won awards, including the 1996 Silver Lion at Cannes, Jones had been looking for a project he believed in since making "Waking Ned." "After directing my first film, I found it very difficult to commit to another project," he explains. "Finding a script is like buying a house - it might take years to find it, the choice might at times be confusing, but when you finally walk through the door of the right one, you suddenly feel at home."

Jones responded to Thompson's screenplay just as Thompson and Doran had responded to "Waking Ned." The relief at finding the right script was enormous. "When I read 'Nanny McPhee' I knew immediately that this was a project that I wanted to direct," Jones says. "It had a great sense of theatre and magic; it was full of charm, humor and emotion, but above all, it was obvious to me that it had been carefully crafted and nurtured in a way which already made it feel like a classic."

"This is perfect territory for Kirk," says Glynis Murray, Jones's producing partner for over a decade, who co-produced "Nanny McPhee." "Kirk has a genuineness with which he portrays people. He has an ability to see the whole character, not only the more exaggerated characteristics."

Doran recognised these qualities in Jones in their very first meeting when he confided that one of his favourite characters in the script was Mrs. Brown's chair. "Kirk spoke with incredible passion about this chair," Doran says. "He said if he did his job right, the chair would get a Supporting Actress nomination. It was clear he completely understood the emotion that went with the chair, and he completely understood why it's both funny and moving when Nanny McPhee bows to the chair as though there's somebody in it."

"It was a detail in the script which absolutely fascinated me," Jones explains. "Mr Brown used to sit in front of the fire in the evening and share his concerns with his wife, and he has just gone on doing that in the year since she died by talking to the little pink chair where she sued to sit. I thought Emma had succeeded in making an inanimate object one of the most important, moving and memorable characters in the whole film." Jones's preoccupation with Mrs. Brown's chair continued through the shoot, particularly when it was injured in a fall. "Colin fell back on it during the tea party scene and one of the legs broke," he recalls. "I stood over the carpenter as he drilled into the body of the chair, making sure I was at the chair's side during the whole operation."

Jones's strong affinity for the material brought dimensions and scope to the project that even Thompson had not anticipated. "You don't write a screenplay in order to preserve it," says Thompson. "You try to write it and build it so well that when a director comes in and starts making changes, it's still all there but it's evolved into something larger than what it was originally. The whole point is to find someone with a vision and a sensibility that complements yours."

Plus, she adds, "the wonderful notion of the children pretending to eat the baby is Kirk's. He found a reference in one of the Nurse Matilda books to the children pretending to eat a boy and he desperately wanted to get something like that into the movie."

Pumping up the children's naughtiness was an exercise Jones savoured. "Putting glue on a door handle was replaced with electric wires on the door handle," he recounts. "I also thought it was important that Mrs. Quickly actually ate the worm in the tea party scene rather than just put it near her mouth. (Celia Imrie actually did pop a worm in her mouth during this scene). I just know from having two boys of my own that they react very positively to acts which are truly naughty."

Thompson made it clear from day one that although she was very involved in the project as writer and star, this was Jones's film. "I never had any concerns about approaching her with changes which developed as the shoot progressed," he says. "She works very hard to get the script as good as it can be before the shoot, but once we started shooting, if a change needed to be made, if a scene wasn't playing as well as expected, if the dialogue needed attention then she would address it. She is not precious about the word on the page; she will change it if she thinks it can be improved. I would say, 'Emma, we need four extra lines of dialogue,' and she would give them straight back and they would be brilliant. No thinking time, no reading of the script, no discussion. She is completely in tune with each and every one of the characters that she has created."

The Zen Master:

Breathing Life Into Nanny McPhee

After finishing the shooting script for the film and incorporating Jones's notes, Thompson's work on "Nanny McPhee" was only half-complete. "She said from the very beginning that she wanted to play the magical nanny," recalls Lindsay Doran, "She thought it would be a really fun part."

Nanny McPhee is a departure for an actress known for poignant, comedic and very human portrayals throughout her stage and screen career. Thompson likens the figure to an eastern Zen Master - from the moment that Nanny McPhee appears at the family's door, she interacts with their chaotic lives from an inner reservoir of absolute calm. "She's a kind of chimera but her presence is very powerful," Thompson describes. "To be a Zen Master doesn't mean that you're a vacuum but what you present is an atmosphere or an influence that is utterly non-judgmental. It therefore wields an extremely powerful influence because it allows people the space to see themselves and feel themselves in ways they can't under normal circumstances."

This nanny, Thompson points out, does not tell the Browns what to do; rather, she guides them using her extraordinary methods into trusting themselves to find their own right paths. "The whole point of the Zen Master is the dissolution of ego," she says. "Nanny McPhee has got no ego at all. There's no person there as we understand a person to be, but there is a calm and a peace and total lovingness right from the start."

In the script, Thompson remained faithful to Christianna Brand's physical description of the character and Edward Ardizzone's simple yet exacting illustrations. But breathing life into this particular character would become a group effort. After a seven-year journey from conception to production, Thompson finally appeared at a costume test in full Nanny McPhee regalia - complete with two large ears, two hairy warts, thick eyebrows that join in the middle, and what Christianna Brand described as "a nose like two potatoes and a tombstone tooth" (all crafted by Academy Award-winning make-up effects artist Peter King). She was dressed, much like the Ardizzone drawings portrayed her, in shape-altering body prosthetics and a dramatic yet whimsical costume designed by costumer Nick Ede.

"Suddenly, two days before we started filming, this complete stranger turned up and introduced herself as Nanny McPhee," remembers Jones.

The entire cast and crew watched the character come to life before their eyes. "The minute she came onto the set, the effect was so moving," Doran recalls. "The character just grew out of the look. Suddenly there was a voice and an accent and a way of moving and a tilt of the head that belonged entirely to Nanny McPhee. She doesn't blink. She looks at people as though she's never quite seen people before, a weird way of observing that has a slight otherworldly, space alien quality. And none of this had been there in any of the other incarnations that we'd seen while she was rehearsing with the children."

"We saw this big, fat, humungous lady in a black costume and two warts and a squashed tomato nose, and Holly and Sam were just like, 'Ha! Who's that?" remembers 12-year-old Eliza Bennett, who plays Tora. "And then she goes, 'Hello, I'm Nanny McPhee.'"

"It just wasn't Emma," adds Jones. "With most actors, no matter how convincing their performance, you can identify them beneath the surface. When I saw Nanny McPhee, the disguise was so complete and Emma's posture and performance were so convincing that I couldn't see Emma Thompson anywhere, not even beneath the disguise. There was another person on set, someone I had never met before… and I wasn't sure I liked the look of her," he adds.

"She pretended that she killed Emma Thompson," Daykin remembers with a smile. "So all the children were like, 'Ah! Nanny McPhee's on set!'"

The Harried Dreamboat:

Colin Firth Plays Mr. Brown

The otherworldly Nanny McPhee provides a stark contrast to the very human Brown household, overseen by the harried, lonely, and sometimes desperate Mr. Brown. This central character - who provides the connective tissue between the comedic and romantic aspects of the film - was a crucial part to cast. "Let's face it: we needed an impossible combination," says Doran. "We needed somebody who was believable as the father of seven children, and we also needed a dreamboat, since the love story is a very important part of the film." Kirk Jones had no doubts about who he wanted to play Mr. Brown. "Colin Firth had always been top of my list," he says.

Equally acclaimed for his work in both drama ("The Girl With the Pearl Earring") and romantic comedy ("Bridget Jones's Diary"), Firth was game to exercise both disciplines in "Nanny McPhee." "One of the most interesting manoeuvres a story can make is to take you from tears to laughter and back again," says Firth. "It's incredibly powerful and very attractive for an actor to be part of that."

Thompson notes, "Colin is probably one of the few actors in our country who combines the capacity for farce and profoundly funny stuff with a capacity for romantic drama." Jones adds, "He was in touch with the broad comedy as well as the sensitivity of the character. A lot of actors can convey both of these emotions but few can mix them so effectively."

While reading the script, Firth felt like a child being told a story. "'Nanny McPhee' has all the elements that you want from a story, that you longed for in a story when you were a child," says Colin Firth. "You wanted to be a little bit scared, well, a lot scared; you wanted perhaps to have a bit of romance. It's a good solid story. It doesn't reverse time; it doesn't go into some impressionistic zone. It's very funny; its rather menacing; it has romance and a happy ending. It really has all those fundamental, very old-fashioned story elements in abundance, working at a very high pitch. It's the kind of thing that you hope children are going to sit there watching, wide-eyed, wanting more of, and I certainly felt that myself."

Mr. Brown, the widowed father of the seven Brown children, is clearly in over his head. He has no faith in himself, or his children, or, at first, the strange figure who appears at his door. He is also muddled romantically, caught between longing for the counsel and comfort of his late wife and the need to release his heart for the sake of himself and for his children. "Mr. Brown is the embattled father of seven extremely naughty children and he loves them all to distraction," Firth explains. "I think he's a very sentimental man who wouldn't deny them anything really and because he's recently widowed it's now incumbent upon him to try to keep order and really to keep his life on the rails."

"We live in a time in the story where very terrible things happen to people who fall into debt," Firth continues. "The threat that hangs over them is basically debtor's prison for him, the poorhouse for the kids and the break-up of the family. This is all of course black comedy but his real dilemma is the fact that he's got to hide it from them, he's got to hide his anxiety from them, what he wants to present to them is a smiling face."

"Mr. Brown is very peace-loving; whereas, his children are not," says 9-year-old Raphael Coleman, who plays the professorial Eric, the second-oldest of the Brown boys. "The kids are mischievous, mean - just evil, really. And he's the opposite."

Playing the father of these naughty children required from Firth a great deal of physical comedy, which he points out is both exhausting and panic-making. "It's a paradox that the very lightest and silliest stuff is often the most agonizing process in reality," he says. But Firth's agonies paid off. "He made us all laugh on- and off-set, and delivered a performance which I think is warmer and more comically endearing than anything he has done before," says the director. "Colin was very sensitive to the level of comedy. He pushed the tone when he knew it was needed but insisted on holding back when he felt there was a danger of overkill."

Throughout the production, Firth relied on Jones to provide the Nanny McPhee-like centre of calm amidst the madness of the action. "It's a great strength," says Firth. "Kirk is uncompromising in getting the shots he wants, yet at the same time very generous in letting other people's imaginations flourish. If you want to try something different, he will always allow you to try it, but he's very determined when he decides the way in which we shoot."

The Spinster Aunt, The Widow, the Undertakers and the Cook:

The Players of "Nanny McPhee"

Mr. Brown's terrible dilemma is exacerbated by the demands of the children's formidable Great Aunt Adelaide Stitch, played by acclaimed actress Angela Lansbury in her first feature film role in 20 years. "She's like the Wicked Witch of the East," Lansbury describes. "She really is an arch-villain but she couches it all in phrases like, 'I never break my word.' You watch her in amazement because you notice what an incredible nose she has, rather like Lord Nelson, and a tiny red mouth, which is the meanest mouth you've ever seen in your life. I'm having a wonderful time doing this part because it's like going back to playing the sort of role that I haven't done in many years."

Known and loved by millions as Jessica Fletcher on the long-running series "Murder She Wrote," Lansbury's more recent career sometimes obscures her legendary history as a Grande Dame of stage and film - she is a four-time Tony Award winner for her work in Broadway productions of "Mame," "Gypsy," "Dear World" and "Sweeney Todd," as well as a three-time Oscar nominee for her performances in the films "Gaslight," "The Picture of Dorian Gray," and, most famously, as the manipulative mother in "The Manchurian Candidate." Lansbury also starred in Disney's family classic "Bedknobs and Broomsticks".

"I obviously worship the ground she walks on and grew up watching her," comments Thompson. "We didn't think we were going to have much luck getting her. But she really wanted to play Aunt Adelaide. She knew that she could play this frightful woman, absolutely foul, and she went for it 100%. Fantastic woman and a marvellous artiste." Firth concurs, "She has an enormous sense of humour, a huge amount of experience, and is prepared to make a complete fool of herself. I do find her really quite terrifying when she's Aunt Adelaide; she's very frightening to look at when she's got that nose and giant hat on."

Jennifer Rae Daykin explains that all the children loved being with Lansbury but also loved pretending to hate her. "All of us Brown children liked acting with her," she says. "We liked not liking her because it was quite fun to be on the receiving end of her being nasty to us."

The film's supporting roles are filled out by a number of acclaimed actors, including Celia Imrie as the garish Mrs. Quickly, whom Mr. Brown seeks to marry to fulfill Aunt Adelaide's pronouncement that he must marry within the month or lose everything. "Mrs. Quickly thinks she's rather gorgeous," describes Imrie. "All the children and everybody else in the town think she's absolutely monstrous, but she's awfully good fun to play."

Imelda Staunton plays Mrs. Blatherwick, the Cook, who carries out her work in the kitchen with military zeal. "She has been in this household for 15 years," reveals Staunton, an Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner for her work in "Vera Drake." "She's always thinking she's going to go, but she's been there for quite some time and runs a bit of a strict kitchen. It's a great opportunity for me to be mad and grumpy downstairs in this fantastic kitchen."

"Imelda has been a hoot," says Kelly Macdonald, who plays Evangeline, the scullery maid and Cook's charge. "She's just mad. She's got this mad, red, curly wig and mad, red face. There's just a plethora of really great, funny, talented people in this film and I feel privileged to be amongst them."

Staunton did her part to maintain the atmosphere of humour both on- and off-camera - as did Thompson. "We all knew Imelda was going to get tons of awards for 'Vera Drake' so we thought grab her now while the going's good!"

Also along are Derek Jacobi and Patrick Barlow as the mischievous and joking undertakers, Mr. Jowls and Mr. Wheen, with whom Mr. Brown works at the funeral parlour, Midgewaller and Sons. Says Barlow, "We are his colleagues and we play pranks on him, which we find very amusing but he doesn't." "That's all we do," Jacobi adds, "make coffins and try and make him laugh."

"It was especially a thrill to have Derek there," comments Jones on one of England's most honoured actors. "He came aboard at a point when his part was only six lines long. He was there every day during the wedding sequence, and I was so grateful to him for agreeing to be part of our cast."

Jones feels having great actors even in smaller roles ultimately made for a better film. "One of the great things about Emma's writing is she makes even the small characters very, very attractive. She writes characters that great actors want to play, however minor the role."

Lansbury was amused and delighted with Thompson's dual role on the set. "It's quite a rare and unusual situation, but this whole production is a rare and unusual one," she says. "When you get a group of people who are so devoted to doing original new kinds of work, you are going to see a lot of wonderful inventive magic in front of your eyes." Lansbury also saw something else from Thompson in front of her eyes - it was Thompson who was elected to stand off-camera and throw the pie that hits Aunt Adelaide in the face in one of the film's climactic scenes. In her seven decades as a performer, Lansbury had never received a pie in the face. Thompson accomplished the bulls-eye throw in one take, but both women confessed to being a bit relieved when it was over.

Secret Toast:

The Children of "Nanny McPhee"

Though Mr. Brown does not communicate his woes to his children, they have their own way of communicating theirs to him. "They are the most badly behaved children in the history of the world, but there's a reason for that," notes Doran. "They're actually wonderful children who are in a terrible situation that is making them behave badly and of course once Nanny McPhee understands that and treats them accordingly you begin to see how lovely and sweet they really are."

To find this vital combination of sweetness and mischief, children's casting director Pippa Hall cast a wide net to find children that would express not only their own unique personalities but also work as a family onscreen.

Limiting the search to the South East of England to ensure similarity of accent, the search encompassed professional actors, drama group children and, children who had never acted before but answered the call to an open audition.

"Kirk looked at tapes on his own; I looked at them on my own; and Lindsay looked at them on her own, and then we would confer afterwards about which we thought were good for recalls," says Glynis Murray. "And usually we concurred. If more than two of us thought a child was good then we had him or her back."

The filmmakers made their shortlist, inviting those children to take part in workshops over the course of a few weeks, so they could see the children work as individuals and together, eventually casting a mixture of professional and inexperienced children in the roles.

The oldest child is played by the actor with the most experience. Thomas Sangster, who played Liam Neeson's heartsick son in "Love Actually," plays Simon, the eldest of all the children. "Simon is the team leader, so he rounds them all up and thinks up all the naughty ideas," explains the fourteen-year-old actor. "He is also very separate from all the other children who are all younger than him. He looks after them but behind everything he's actually quite sad."

The rest of the group solidified, each with his or her own unique qualities that the filmmakers hoped would carry over into their roles. In addition to Sangster, the Brown brood is played by a group of imaginative and spirited children: Eliza Bennett as Tora, the oldest (and most responsible) girl; Raphael Coleman as Eric, the professorial mischief-maker; Jennifer Rae Daykin as Lily, the romantic; Sam Honywood as Sebastian, who is obsessed with food; Holly Gibbs as Christianna, the embodiment of the children's sense of loss for their mother; and twins Hebe and Zinnia Thomas as Agatha, the baby.

Director Jones brought in acting coach Celia Bannerman to work with the children throughout the casting process and production. Bannerman's mandate was to help the children discover their characters and understand the plot, leaving Jones to focus on the performances when they were on set. A father of two boys himself, Jones's extraordinary patience kept the children in the cast up to professional standards without intimidating their vital spirits. "I think it's very important to not get overly friendly with the children," Jones says. "They should know that they're there to do a job. I always said to them, 'You come to the stage as professional actors and actresses,' and I think they rise to that challenge. They enjoy that responsibility."

He also observed from the beginning of their work together that these characters were written with exquisite attention to detail in terms of how children actually behave. When Mr. Brown sends the children to bed without supper, the food-loving Sebastian, played by Sam Honywood, is horrified. "I play basically a really hungry character," says seven-year-old Sam. "He always sneaks down to the kitchen with the others. And he sometimes does stuff in the kitchen that's really, really naughty."

When Evangeline, the scullery maid, comes to their room, Sebastian asks, "Could you bring me some secret toast and jam?" When she ignores him, he changes his tactic: "All right, forget the jam, just some secret toast!" "Kirk just loved that detail," says Doran. "These kinds of beautifully observed pieces of behaviour are what make Emma's writing so good."

Emma Thompson describes the spectre of working with so many children over the film's 12 weeks of production as "blind terror." "A film set is not a child-friendly environment," she explains. "It's dark, it's dusty, it's hot, they have to concentrate, be quiet, and above all, perform."

Jones approached each day with the children in terms of things that could possibly go wrong. "There are tight restrictions, as always, with their education and the amount of time I have with them. I just have a little chat with them to say, 'Let's just remember why we're here.' They're very good kids. They like to have fun and play around, but as soon as they come onto the set, in general they are very, very good. I'm thrilled with their performances." Thompson adds, "They have coped with it all absolutely brilliantly. Over the months I have become much more interested in watching them than anybody else because they are absolutely wonderful, totally engaging." "The children are the stars of this story," adds Lansbury, "they're so real and charming and wonderful, it's very hard for me to be mean and nasty to them."

The desire for a fairy tale ending holds true for the children as well. "Children get such enormous satisfaction from adults loving each other," says Thompson. "They want the adults who love them to love each other - the two things are of almost equal importance, I think. Seeing their mothers or fathers loving and being loved gives children everything that they need to know about that later on."

From Scullery Maid to Fairy Princess:

Kelly Macdonald as Evangeline

"Poor Evangeline!" writes Christianna Brand of the Brown family's maid in the first Nurse Matilda book. "She was dreadfully put upon by the rest; but she was a cheerful little lump and I don't think she really minded." In Emma Thompson's adaptation of the Brand books, Evangeline has been expanded from a cheerful little lump into a full-fledged woman played by Kelly Macdonald, the young star of "Trainspotting," "Finding Neverland," "Gosford Park" and "The Girl In The Cafe." And the film version of Evangeline very much minds how much she's put upon at the Brown house. She loves Mr. Brown, but he doesn't seem to notice her at all. She loves the children, but they dismiss her feelings for them as an obligation of her job. She does her best at her work, but meets with nothing but criticism from the grumpy Cook. And she longs to be "an educated lady" that a gentleman might love, but she knows it's just a hopeless dream. Only Nanny McPhee seems to recognize Evangeline's sad longings, but she keeps quiet about what she sees as she does about everything at the Brown house.

Macdonald describes Evangeline as "an angry little person. She's got far too much to do in the house. They've not got a lot of money coming in and they've only got Cook and herself to help them. She can't read and that's a real problem for her. And so, Lily, one of the children, is teaching her to read. She's sort of ashamed of that."

Unlike Mr. Brown, Evangeline understands instinctively how to deal with the children's naughtiness. She knows when to be strict and when to laugh at their pranks: "You've been doing measles!" she remarks cheerfully when she sees their crayon-spotted faces on the day they pretend to be sick.

As the story unfolds, circumstances whisk Evangeline away from the house, only to have her return as the educated lady she'd hoped to be. "Evangeline is a character who starts out looking like a grimy scullery maid and ends up looking like a fairy princess," Doran explains, "but Mr. Brown doesn't see any difference, and that's one of the themes of the story. There's a Norwegian proverb which says, 'That which is loved is always beautiful.' It has resonance not only for the way the family sees Nanny McPhee, but for the way Mr. Brown sees Evangeline. It even applies to the way the children come to think of a stepmother. It never occurred to them that someone they loved could be a stepmother."

That Which Is Loved:

The Transformation of Nanny McPhee

When Nanny McPhee arrives at the Brown house, the children are immediately suspicious. "They don't really like her," says nine-year-old Jennifer Rae Daykin, who plays Lily. "They think she's ugly, really nasty and maybe a witch. A spooky, scary nanny."

Nanny McPhee has five deceptively simple lessons to teach the family: To go to bed when they're told. To get up when they're told. To get dressed when they're told. To listen. To do what they're told.

With each lesson comes a little magic, a day's adventure, and the necessity for the children to use their own resourcefulness and child wisdom to put things to right. "There are silly food fights and ridiculous behavior, but these badly behaved kids are little lost souls, really," says Kelly Macdonald. "And Nanny McPhee teaches them how to save themselves."

For Simon, the oldest and perhaps most wounded by his father's distance, learning what this particular nanny has to teach is the rockiest journey. "At first, Simon wants to get rid of her, straight away, like with all the other nannies, and then she doesn't go," Sangster says. "She defends herself; she's got this stick that makes magical things happen. So, he grows slightly more respectful of her over the course of the film, and by the end he really likes her."

Their receptiveness to her methods hinges on gaining, and giving, trust. As the story progresses, Simon finds himself venturing to Nanny McPhee's room, where none of the children has yet been, to test out a plan of his and secure her blessing. "When Simon goes to her room, he asks for her help in a very respectful, trusting way," says Doran. "He trusts she's on their side, he trusts she'll keep her side of the bargain, and he trusts that she cares about them. Which is partly why he succeeds in his conversation with her; he trusts her before he says anything. And this is exactly the kind of trust that was missing in his previous conversation with his father."

Her lessons seem designed to give the children a slightly clearer picture of the consequences of their actions, and the role each of them plays in his or her fate. Thompson likens Nanny McPhee's effect to a balanced pull of gravity: "She becomes this still centre and all these people, all just up in the air, slowly start to move around her like little quiet planets until suddenly she goes, leaving this settled constellation, a family that's found its own orbit and is just moving gently and quietly as it should … with the occasional collision."

They also effect subtle changes in Nanny McPhee's appearance. Sam Honywood expresses the children's point of view succinctly, "As we get nicer, one of her ugly bits goes away."

"The moments at which she changes are very specific," explains Doran. "When they say 'please' for the first time willingly, she changes. But does she change because they've said 'please'? Does she change because they've started to love her? Does she change because she's started to love them? Does she actually change at all? It's really up to the audience to decide, just as Christianna Brand left it up to the reader in her books."

As the Brown family begins to find room for her in their hearts, what Thompson calls her "large wartiness" is no longer visible to them, leaving the children to behold their beautiful Nanny, a vision Thompson describes as "the memory of someone who adored them. She's as loving and good at the beginning as she is at the end."

"Nanny McPhee walks into a family full of good people with good intentions and makes them all see their own goodness and each other's goodness," says Jones. "Once they all love and trust each other again, it's time for her to go. She doesn't make them good. She shows them that they're already good."

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

A House Any Child Would Love to Live In:

Creating the World of "Nanny McPhee"

The story is set some time in late Victorian/early Edwardian England, in a small village on the edge of London. A non-specific fairy tale period without rigorous dedication to any single era liberated Jones and production designer Michael Howells to create an imagined world for "Nanny McPhee." "It's late Victorian, but it's a picture book Victorian," Howells describes. "We weren't tied down to any specific dates, which is actually quite nice. It's just a fantasy Victorian period that people will step into with this family and watch the story unfold."

Jones created an environment in which Howells, director of photography Henry Braham, costume designer Nic Ede, and hair and make-up designer Peter King could collaborate with unprecedented creative freedom. "I think the four departments have come together incredibly successfully and often you don't find that," says director Jones. "You can have very talented heads of department in all of those areas but sometimes they don't gel because they each see the film differently. I see it as my job to make sure they are all heading in the right direction but then just let them do their thing and try not to restrict them."

A large portion of that freedom was expressed through the use of colours in the film -- a vivid mix of blues, greens, reds, purples, and pinks. Howells, says Jones, "has gone completely bonkers. That's Michael's genius."

Director of photography Henry Braham, who had worked with Jones on "Waking Ned," elected to use a new film stock which would be best suited to the strong use of colours. "We hit upon this idea very early on," says Braham. "This is an extreme version of colour photography and design because were using very saturated colour in every area of design. It dictates the look of the film in a very strong way."

Braham also points out, "There needs to be some reality for the magic to work. Those elements bind together to create a kind of magical, and I suppose timeless, world."

"One of the things I absolutely agree with Kirk about is that most period English movies have a palette that runs the gamut from black to brown," says Doran. "It's as though colour wasn't invented until some time after Dickens died. Kirk said, 'I want to make a movie with bold colours" and that's exactly what he did. Kirk praises Braham for his efforts. "Henry works very hard outside of his own department and made a significant contribution to the process of selecting the colours which were featured throughout the film."

The setting at the heart of the film is the Brown house, a rambling mansion that might have belonged to someone very wealthy at one time but which is now in the hands of people with neither the time nor the income to maintain it. Jones imagined a house that any child would immediately want to live in. "I just wanted children to look at it and think, 'What an amazing house, that looks like a really fun place to grow up in," he says.

The size of the family and the amount of action that takes place in the house dictated its size and structure. "It started as a small brown house, and then it grew with the different ideas we came up with," says Howells. "We used a real mishmash of architecture, pulling favourite details from all over the world - little bits of French Colonial, steamboat gothic, Victorian gothic, and arts and crafts."

Jones gave Howells a brief about the basic physical requirements, which led to a huge number of designs. "It needed to have a character all its own," says Howells. "Something that's attractive to an audience, something that you immediately want to go in and start exploring."

From both a financial and artistic point of view, the filmmakers decided their best option was to build the Brown house and surrounding village from scratch. "What it means is that you can always tie the two in together," says Jones. "I think audiences are subconsciously aware when the geography of the set doesn't exist. Of course you can cut from one location to another, that's film making, but if you build the sets for real, if you can pan and reveal that sets relate to each other then that can only help the audience believe the world that you have created. It seemed absurd to travel to existing locations which we knew would be nowhere near as visually interesting as what Michael could design."

The intricacies of the sets were detailed on paper and in small scale models to allow the filmmakers to work out all the kinks prior to building. "The configurations that were fitted together determined the shape of the house," Howells explains. "To that, we added little flourishes and odd-drawn windows or a porch here or there, but it started from the centre of the house and we worked our way out."

After looking at two other locations, the production discovered the perfect blank canvas on which to create the world of "Nanny McPhee" on the sprawling grounds of a private estate in Penn, Buckinghamshire. "We chose it primarily because of the quality of the trees," Howells explains. "There are large trees that are not in perfect condition, but that only adds to the look of the house."

"It was pouring with rain and very foggy on the day we first visited the Penn estate," remembers Doran. "Kirk and Michael and Henry and Glynis and I and a few others traipsed through ankle-high mud into the middle of nothing - just big old trees and grass and nothing else. And I looked over at the Kirk and Henry and Michael and they were all smiling these enormous smiles. This was the place. And when you see the film, you have to struggle to keep this in mind - that every single thing you see, everything except the largest trees, was put there for the filming of "Nanny McPhee.'"

Howells, a gardener in his spare time, relished the opportunity to create a wild garden down to the barest details. The team planted hundreds of smaller trees, dense shrubbery, thousands upon thousands of flowers, and built a tree house, a pigpen, a chicken coop, an arbour, and a greenhouse. Explains Howells, "We wanted to create a child's dream garden - a perfect garden with places to hide and places to play. It's a magic place. All the way through, we tried to capture people's imaginations."

Howells's art department beaded the grounds with silk flowers and added nasturtiums and grass seed to the furniture and scarecrows to "grow" into the place a sense of time and disrepair. A mixture of meadow flowers was likewise sewn into the hedgerows. "It's very clear that the Brown family doesn't have much money," comments Jones, "and I don't imagine that Mr. Brown has any time to look after the garden. So we wanted to be surrounded by brambles and nettle beds and uncut lawns. I think that in itself adds more character than a well kempt garden."

The house itself is held up by 40 tons of steel in its body and the interiors were constructed to allow for maximum flexibility in terms of where Henry Braham put his lights.

Mr. Brown's study needed to be designed to accommodate the Rube Goldbergian tricks the children spring on Mrs. Quickly during her tea with Mr. Brown. "I wanted to make sure it was believable that the children could be hiding and spying from behind bookshelves and windows but at the same time be dangling spiders on fishing rods and trying to get a jelly on Mrs. Quickly's head," explains Jones. "A lot of the early conversations between Michael and me revolved around what was needed from a practical point of view and a comedy point of view." And that encompassed a space beneath the stairs from which to catapult a gob of porridge and a staircase that would be suitable (and strong enough) for Mr. Brown to tumble down.

One of the most crucial sets was the entryway leading to the front door, where Mr. Brown first lays eyes on Nanny McPhee. "I was very keen that the hall be quite narrow," says Jones. "I imagined Mr. Brown going down a very narrow, very long hallway and being drawn towards the front door, towards her silhouette. It was very important to me that the design had a practical purpose."

Extraordinary attention to detail is made evident inside the Brown house in the sourcing of elaborate wallpapers, exquisite fabrics, period furniture, and authentic props, and nowhere more so than in the children's chaotic nursery. "We found some real gems at auction," says Howells. "Really beautiful old Victorian dolls and other toys, original pieces that would have been very expensive to recreate and look much better in any case when they're genuine and show the wear of actual toys that have been played with for generations."

Says Firth, "It's an incredible help for an actor to walk onto a set and into this magical world which has been so perfectly created. You can't help responding to it, it helps you suspend disbelief."

For a day on which Nanny McPhee takes the children to the seashore, Jones chose to shoot the scene against the backdrop of the cliffs at the remote and nearly inaccessible Durdle Dor, Dorset. "I just find that a lot of locations which are accessible tend to be very flat," he explains. "They don't tend to be as dramatic and as rocky as Durdle Dor, and when I saw the photographs and then came down for a location scout, I thought this is exactly where we should be shooting."

The beach scene, in which the children learn of the impending arrival of Mrs. Quickly, was originally written to take place in the Browns' garden. "But we decided to move it to the seaside," says Jones, "to have some big open landscapes and seascapes." Those landscapes and seascapes came at a price, however. "I thought Kirk was crazy to choose that location," laughs Doran. "It was a long walk from our base camp to the cliffside and then 170 stone steps down a very steep cliff to the sand. The equipment was flown in and out by helicopter, but the human beings, children included, had to walk up and down those steps several times each day, including every time we wanted to use the toilet facilities. But now, when I look at that beautiful sequence, I don't think about the steps or the cold or the wind; I only admire the beauty and perfection of the location. Which is what Kirk knew form the beginning: the discomfort lasts only a couple of days, but the scene lasts forever."

The art department also built a handful of sets on soundstages at Pinewood Studios. These included the nursery, the bedroom, the kitchen, and Nanny McPhee's room - mostly composite sets which link to one another to allow the camera to drift in and out of rooms.

Some location shooting also took place at Warren's Green, a simple rural cottage, which was transformed into Mrs. Quickly's fuchsia paradise.

Large Wartiness:

Nick Ede and Peter King Transform the Cast

Nick Ede and Peter King approached their costume and make-up design work very much as a team. "This is the first time I've ever worked on a movie where the make-up person's first question was who was costuming it," says producer Doran. "Nic and Peter created the characters together - building, with the actor and director involved, a look for the characters that Emma has written."

Creating Nanny McPhee's look was a subject of constant discussion among the filmmakers. "It had to be scary, but not too scary," says Peter King, who created myriad wizard, trolls and hobbits on "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. "It had to be funny, but not too funny or it would detract from the more profound themes in the story."

"What we began with was the two warts and the nose and the single eyebrow and the tombstone tooth, but it was really Peter and Nick who said, 'Maybe we shouldn't just change the four things on her face; maybe her whole body should change," Doran recalls. "Maybe her ears begin to get smaller, and her hairline begins to recede. Maybe it's a wig at the beginning and maybe it's Emma's real hair at the end. And maybe the nose grows smaller gradually instead of all at once."

Nanny McPhee's extraordinarily gradual change as she grows closer to the Brown family proved a delightful challenge for King. "We had to start off somewhere quite extreme so that we could do that many changes and turn her into Emma at the very end," he explains.

The transformation required Thompson to wear a prosthetic nose and ears, pumpers inside her mouth to pad her cheeks, warts, a tombstone tooth, one eyebrow, and, of course, a wig. To form Nanny McPhee's unusual body shape, Ede experimented with different layers of sculptured padding before both he and Thompson were satisfied that they had best emulated the silhouette in Edward Ardizzone's original illustration, which they'd agreed could not be topped.

Since Nanny McPhee wears only black, Ede sought fabrics with texture to them to ensure the costume would read on film. Howells had recently been to Ghana and mentioned to Ede the exotic and breathtaking fabrics he'd seen there. The lead drew Ede to a shop in Cricklewood with loads of textured fabrics from which to choose, including some from Africa. "I found a black brocade for the skirt, and then this extraordinary crimped fabric for the blouse," he describes. "We did, in fact, spray a very light layer of pale grey paint onto the blouse, just to bring it up a little further and give it more depth."

As Nanny McPhee changes from bulky beginnings to the silhouette of Emma Thompson herself, Ede created five different versions of the same costume to accompany her transformation.

The creation of Colin Firth's wardrobe grew out of the filmmakers' mandate not to strand the film in any particular time period. "If we'd had to stick to the period it would have been very difficult because it was a deeply conservative time," says Ede. "I wanted to make him look wonderful, as did Peter. He had to look absolutely brilliant."

So, letting go of period, an experience he likens to "jumping off a cliff," Ede added much more fullness and fluidity to Mr. Brown's costumes, creating a wardrobe of rich fabrics in bold colors. He even added a couple of inches to Mr. Brown's top hat. "I think it's much easier for the audience to accept a costumed piece if it's outrageous or if it's understated, so we've got a mixture of the two," he notes.

Ede was particularly excited by the prospect of dressing the statuesque Angela Lansbury, who "looks fantastic in the clothes." For Aunt Adelaide, he created costumes which are extremely sophisticated and regal-looking but all in shades of grey to match her very sour mood. "She's a woman of money, a terrific snob but she has great taste that's very muted, no colour there at all," describes Ede. "Hers is the nearest thing we have to a period costume but of course I had to ruin the whole thing by giving her the completely wrong period hat."

Since the hat winds up on the donkey's head, "you couldn't have a little 1880s pill box," Ede laments. "It had to be a big Edwardian hat."

Her distinguishing characteristic - an absurdly large nose - became Peter King's second most challenging prosthetic, as the appendage only shows itself in profile. "The whole designing of Aunt Adelaide's nose was front-on," says King. "You couldn't see that she had a different nose at all. It wasn't until she turned her head that you actually saw this 'hooter the size of Scotland' as Emma described it."

Lansbury wore the prosthetic nose like a pro, even thought it was the first of her career. "She was incredibly amicable and very surprised at how easily it went on. I think because of that she went with it and then sort of innocently fell in love with it and couldn't imagine not having the nose."

Mrs. Quickly, played by Celia Imrie, is dressed in outrageously flamboyant costumes in vibrant shades of pink and green, with custard yellow hair. "Mrs. Quickly and the clothes are one and the same in the film," says Ede. "We're very fortunate that Celia's a wonderful actress and she wears them with gusto."

Mrs. Quickly also expresses her love of all things shepherdess in her styling. "I think she thinks of herself a little bit as Marie Antoinette, so I did a sort of quasi-1770s/third half of the 18th Century dress with overtones of Victoriana. It's an extraordinary conglomeration, really. And the rest of her costume just went from there."

Ede concentrated on making the children's basic costumes as contemporary-looking as possible, working with denim, corduroy, and knitwear in muted colours. "I've used clothes that would fit in any period, basically," says Ede. "But more important than that is that modern children will be able to identify with them. We didn't want them to look ridiculous - unless we wanted them to look ridiculous, and, of course, in their Sunday best they do look ridiculous. Kids will go, 'Uggh!' when they see them, which is what it's all about." "Everything about their best clothes is exaggerated," says Thomas Sangster, who plays Simon. "Everything's over the top, which is a really nice feel. It feels like you're living in fairytale land."

Ede also found himself having to dress animals for the first time in his career - chickens in tiny white mopcaps, a donkey in a hat and shawl, a pig in oversized pearls and a baby bonnet, and Bassett Hounds in straw hats - while King was charged with the task of applying make-up to a pig and dyeing baby lambs acid green and fuchsia pink to match Mrs. Quickly's wedding dress. "It was an interesting experience," muses Ede. "But in the end, I think I prefer people. They stand still, and they don't eat their hats."

# # #

About The Cast

EMMA THOMPSON

Nanny Mcphee

Emma Thompson was born in London. Her father was theatre director Eric Thompson, also the creator of the successful children's series, The Magic Roundabout. Her mother is actress Phyllida Law. She read English at Cambridge and whilst there, she appeared in many Footlights performances including Cambridge's first all-women revue, Woman's Hour and The Cellar Tapes, which won the Perrier Pick of the Edinburgh Fringe and was later broadcast by the BBC.

After Cambridge, Thompson made appearances on television and in 1985 she played opposite Robert Lindsay in the original cast of the musical Me and My Girl.. That same year, her own TV special, Up For Grabs, aired on Channel 4. Following this, she played Suzi Kettles in the John Byrne BBC TV series Tutti Frutti and then played opposite Kenneth Branagh in The Fortunes of War. For these performances, she won her first BAFTA for Best Actress.

She went on to write and record her own series, Thompson, for the BBC.

She followed this with her first feature film, The Tall Guy, directed by Mel Smith, co-starring Jeff Goldblum and Rowan Atkinson for Working Title and then returned to the BBC to film The Winslow Boy, directed by Michael Darlow.

In 1988, she filmed Henry V, directed by and co-starring Kenneth Branagh and the next year filmed Impromptu directed by James Lapine.

Thompson then joined the Renaissance Theatre Company and toured the world playing play Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Fool in King Lear.

In 1990 Thompson filmed Dead Again, directed by and co-starring Kenneth Branagh. Roles followed in Peter's Friends and Much Ado About Nothing, both directed by Branagh. She played opposite Anthony Hopkins in the Merchant-Ivory film The Remains of the Day for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. She then filmed Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father with Daniel Day-Lewis for which she was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Thompson won the 1993 Academy AwardR for Best Actress, as well as the Golden Globe Award; the New York, Los Angeles and National Film Critics Awards; and the BAFTA Award, all for her role in the Merchant-Ivory production of Howard's End.

In 1994, she appeared in The Blue Boy, an independent feature shot on location in Scotland for America's PBS, and Junior, a comedy co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito for director Ivan Reitman.

A year later she starred in the title role in Carrington, Christopher Hampton's story of the strange love affair between artist Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey. She also starred in and wrote the screenplay adaptation (based on Jane Austen's novel) of Sense and Sensibility for director Ang Lee. For her writing accomplishments on that film, she received an Academy AwardR for Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Published, as well as a Golden Globe Award, the USC Scripter Award and Best Screenplay awards from the Writers Guild, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Broadcast Film Critics, the Chicago Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics and the New York Film Critics. She also received a nomination from the British Academy of Film and Television. For her performance in Sense and Sensibility, she received her third BAFTA and National Board of Review awards for Best Actress, along with an Academy AwardR nomination, a Golden Globe nomination and a Screen Actors Guild nomination.

Thompson followed that with starring roles in a succession of films including The Winter Guest, shot on location in Scotland and co-starring her mother Phyllida Law for director Alan Rickman ; Primary Colors, with John Travolta, Billy Bob Thornton and Kathy Bates for director Mike Nichols; and the independent feature Judas Kiss with Alan Rickman, this time as co-star.

More recently Thompson starred in the HBO telefilm Wit, for which she received a Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe and Emmy Award nomination, and (as the film's co-screenwriter) the Humanitas Award, director Mike Nichols' screen adaptation of Angels in America, co-starring Meryl Streep and Al Pacino, for which she received an Emmy Award nomination, and opposite Antonio Banderas, in writer/director Christopher Hampton's film adaptation of Imagining Argentina.

Most recently, Thompson starred in Richard Curtis' directing debut Love Actually, for which she received the BAFTA award for Best Peformance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, the Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress, and the Empire Award for Best British Actress.

She has completed filming Stranger Than Fiction, co-starring Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Queen Latifah, to be released in 2006. Stranger than Fiction was directed by Marc Forster and produced by Lindsay Doran, marking Thompson's fourth collaboration with producer Doran.

COLIN FIRTH Mr Brown

A classically trained British theatre actor, Colin Firth is a veteran of numerous television and film roles. Most recently, Firth has starred in Atom Egoyan's Where The Truth Lies and was last seen reprising his role as the dashing Mark Darcy in the hit British comedy Bridget Jones; The Edge of Reason.

Prior to this he starred in the psychological thriller Trauma, opposite Mena Suvari and Girl With a Pearl Earring, based on the best-selling novel by Tracy Chevalier, as the 17th century artist Johannes Vermeer opposite Scarlett Johansson and Tom Wilkinson. In October 2003, Firth appeared in the Working Title production Love Actually, written and directed by Richard Curtis, together with an outstanding ensemble cast that included Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and Keira Knightley. In 2002, Firth was seen starring opposite Rupert Everett and Reese Witherspoon in the Miramax film, The Importance of Being Earnest. In 2001, Firth charmed audiences worldwide when he first starred as Mark Darcy opposite Renee Zellweger in the hit British comedy Bridget Jones's Diary

In 1998, Firth starred in Shakespeare in Love, where he portrayed Lord Wessex, the evil intended husband to Violet De Lesseps, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. In 1996, Firth appeared in the multi-OscarR nominated film, The English Patient, opposite Kristen Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes. His other film credits include What a Girl Wants, Hope Springs, Relative Values, A Thousand Acres (with Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange), Apartment Zero, My Life So Far, The Secret Laughter of Women, Fever Pitch, Circle of Friends, Playmaker and the title role in Milos Forman's Valmont.

On the small screen, Firth is infamous for his 1995 breakout role, when he played Mr. Darcy in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, for which he received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor and legions of female admirers. Firth's most recent television appearance was as the host of NBC's Saturday Night Live in March 2004. He was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2001 for Outstanding Supporting Actor in the critically acclaimed HBO film Conspiracy and has also received the Royal Television Society Best Actor Award and a BAFTA nomination for his work in Tumbledown. His other television credits include Windmills on the Clyde: Making Donovan Quick, Donovan Quick, The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd, Deep Blue Sea, Hostages and the mini-series Nostromo. He made his London stage debut in the West End production of Another Country playing Bennett; he was then chosen to play the character Judd in the 1984 film adaptation opposite Rupert Everett.

KELLY MACDONALD

Evangeline

Kelly Macdonald's career took off after her role as Ewan McGregor's one-night stand in Trainspotting in 1996. She followed that with starring roles in numerous feature films, most poignantly as the teenage prostitute in Stella Does Tricks, as the feisty girl who charms a schizophrenic Daniel Craig in Some Voices, and more than held her own in the all-star cast of Robert Altman's British country-house thriller, Gosford Park, for which she received an Empire Award nomination for Best Actress and shared the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a theatrical motion picture.

Other feature film credits include Cousin Bette, My Life So Far, Elizabeth, The Loss of Sexual Innocence, Splendour, Entropy, House!, Two Family House, for which Macdonald was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead, Strictly Sinatra, and Brush With Fate.

Most recently she has starred in Richard Curtis' The Girl In The Cafe broadcast on the BBC; Intermission; and Marc Forster's highly-acclaimed Finding Neverland as Peter Pan. A Cock And Bull Story in which she stars for Michael Winterbottom and All The Invisible Children, for Mehdi Charef and Emir Kusturica. She has just completed filming Lassie directed by Charles Sturridge.

ANGELA LANSBURY

Aunt Adelaide

Angela Lansbury has enjoyed a career without precedent. Her professional career spans more than half-a-century, during which she has flourished, first as a star of motion pictures, then as a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway musical star, and most recently as the star of Murder, She Wrote, the longest running detective drama series in the history of television.

Angela Brigid Lansbury was born in London on October 16, 1925. Her father, Edgar Isaac Lansbury, was a timber merchant. Her mother, Moyna Macgill, was a popular actress. At age ten, Lansbury saw John Gielgud as Hamlet at the Old Vic and vowed that someday she would become an actress. She attended the Webber-Douglas School of Dramatic Art in London.

In 1940, in order to escape the London Blitz, Moyna Macgill evacuated fourteen-year-old Lansbury and her younger twin brothers, Edgar and Bruce, to the United States. The family lived in Putnum County for a year, during which time Lansbury commuted to the Feagin School of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan. She received her first professional job at age sixteen when she performed a cabaret act in Montreal.

Eventually the family relocated in Los Angeles where seventeen-year-old Lansbury landed a seven-year contract at MGM after director George Cukor cast her as Nancy, the menacing maid, in Gaslight. Her cunning performance won her a 1944 Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The following year she received a second nomination, again as Best Supporting Actress, as the doomed Sybil Vane in The Picture of Dorian Gray. That poignant role earned her a Golden Globe Award.

Lansbury has appeared in 44 motion pictures to date. They include such classics as National Velvet, The Harvey Girls, Frank Capra's State of the Union,Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah, The Court Jester, The Long Hot Summer, The Manchurian Candidate (for which she received a second Golden Globe Award, the National Board of Review Award and her third Academy Award nomination), The World of Henry Orient and Death on the Nile (a second National Board of Review Award). In 1991 she was the voice of Mrs. Potts in the Disney animated feature, Beauty and the Beast, and in 1997 she was the voice of the Grand Duchess Marie in the animated movie, Anastasia.

The actress made her Broadway debut in 1957 when she starred as Bert Lahr's wife in the French farce, Hotel Paradiso. In 1960 she returned to Broadway as Joan Plowright's mother in the season's most acclaimed drama, A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney.

In 1964, she starred on Broadway in her first musical. Anyone Can Whistle closed after only nine performances, but Lansbury returned to New York in triumph in 1966 as Mame. She played the role for two years on Broadway and later to sell-out audiences in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Mame earned Lansbury the first of her unprecedented four Tony Awards as Best Actress in a Musical. She received the others as the Madwoman of Chaillot in Dear World (1968), as Mama Rose in the 1974 revival of Gypsy and as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (1979). In 1978 she starred as Mrs. Anna for a limited engagement of The King and I.

Concurrent with her musical ventures, Lansbury continued to act in serious dramas. In 1971 she returned to London to appear in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Edward Albee's All Over. In 1975, again in London, she played Gertrude to Albert Finney's Hamlet in the National Theatre production. In 1976 she acted in two Albee one-act plays, Counting the Ways and Listening, at the Hartford Stage Company.

She was to find her largest audience on television. Although Lansbury had acted in live dramas during "the golden age of television" in the 1950's in such shows as Robert Montgomery Presents and Lux Video Theatre, when she starred as Mrs. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in the 1982 mini-series Little Gloria...Happy at Last, she had not acted on television in seventeen years. She followed that Emmy-nominated performance with roles in the mini-series Lace and A Christmas Story: The Gift of Love.

From 1984-1996 she starred as Jessica Fletcher, mystery-writing amateur sleuth, on Murder, She Wrote. In 1992, Lansbury added to her responsibilities by becoming the series' executive producer.

During the past decade she has also found time to star in the motion picture-for-television, Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris, Shootdown, The Love She Sought and the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation, The Shell Seekers. She developed a video and co-wrote a book, both titled Positive Moves, about fitness and well-being.

After Murder She Wrote concluded its twelve season run in May 1996, Lansbury returned to her theatrical roots by starring in Mrs Santa Claus, the first original musical for television in four decades.

In 1997 Lansbury appeared in South by Southwest, the first of a series of two hour Murder, She Wrote movies for CBS. In 1998 she completed The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, which also aired on CBS. In Spring of 2000, Angela completed the second of the Murder, She Wrote movies, A Story to Die For

She has been unstinting of her time with scores of civic involvements, ranging from the American Red Cross to the Salvation Army. As a member of the AmFAR National Council, her energies in the war against AIDS have raised several millions of dollars. She is the National spokesperson for Childreach.

In 1982 she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame. In 1990 she received an honourary doctorate in humanities from Boston University. In 1992 she received the Silver Mask for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 1994 she was named a Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. In 1996 she was inducted into the TV Hall of Fame, and in 1997 she was given a Lifetime Achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild. She has been nominated for 16 Emmy Awards (twelve for Murder, She Wrote). She has won six Golden Globe Awards (four for Murder, She Wrote) and has been nominated for an additional eight. In September 1997 President Clinton presented her with the National Medal of the Arts. In November of 1999, Meadows School of the Arts at Texas' Southern Methodist University presented Lansbury with their Lifetime Achievement Award. In December of 2000, Lansbury was recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor in Washington D.C.

CELIA IMRIE

Mrs Quickly

Celia Imrie is perhaps best known for her performances in Victoria Wood's highly acclaimed series As Seen on TV, Dinnerladies and the award-winning BBC film Pat and Margaret. She has also appeared in Ruth Rendell's A Dark Adapted Eye, Oranges are not the Only Fruit, The Riff-Raff Element, Wokenwell, Mr White Goes to Westminster, The Canterville Ghost, the role of Lady Groan in BBC TV's Gormenghast, Aunt Sadie in Love in a Cold Climate, Station Jim and A Gathering Storm for HBO and Daniel Deronda. Recently she has filmed Zhivago for Granada Films in Prague, Sally Wainwright's Sparkhouse for Red Productions and The Plan Man with Robbie Coltrane for Ideal World.

Her feature film credits include Highlander; The House of Whipcord; Murder on the Moon; The Harmfulness of Tobacco - which won the 1991 BAFTA Award for the Best Short Film - Blue Black Permanent; Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein and In the Bleak Mid Winter; The Borrowers; the role of Iris Dupre in Hilary and Jackie; Lucky Break; Una in Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason;

and Thunderpants. Imrie enjoyed critical acclaim for her role in Calendar Girls. Imrie was the winner of the Clarence Derwent Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the Royal National Theatre production of Edward Bond's The Sea and played in The Hothouse with Harold Pinter. More recently, she has appeared in Habeus Corpus at the Donmar Warehouse, Dona Rosita at the Almeida Theatre; Mrs Candour in the RSC's production of School for Scandal and the hugely successful musical Acorn Antiques at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, directed by Trevor Nunn.

This year, Celia has performed a one-woman play Unsuspecting Susan in New York to packed houses, a play she first performed at the King's Head in Islington in 2003.

DEREK JACOBI

Mr Wheen

Derek Jacobi is one of Britain's most brilliant stage actors, who has also appeared in films and on television. He is perhaps best known in the UK for his stunning portrayal of the title character in the BBC series I Claudius, for which he won a BAFTA TV award for Best Actor, and for his portrayal of Hitler in Inside The Third Reich.

More recently Jacobi has been seen in feature films including Robert Altman's Gosford Park; Ridley Scott's Gladiator; and Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, Dead Again, and Henry V. Other feature film credits include Christine Edzard's Little Dorrit; Otto Preminger's The Human Factor; Jade Gold's The Medusa Touch; Ronald Neame's The Odessa File; and Fred Zimmerman's The Day of the Jackal.

Jacobi studied at Cambridge and trained at the Birmingham Repertory Company until Laurence Oliver saw him perform and invited him to join the National Theatre Company. There, Jacobi performed in countless roles and was featured in the Olivier produced films of Othello and Three Sisters. Later stage work includes Hamlet (Old Vic tour), Anthony & Cleopatra (Cambridge Theatre Co), Much Ado About Nothing (1987, RSC Tour of NY and Washington), for which he received a TONY award, Cyrano de Bergerac (1987, RSC Tour of NY and Washington), Breaking The Code (1987-88, Neil Simon Theatre), for which he received a TONY nomination, and more recently Uncle Vanya (1996, Chichester Festival & National Tour), and The Tempest (2002, Sheffield Crucible, Old Vic).

Other television performances include Granada's Philby, Burgess and Maclean; the BBC's Richard II, Hamlet, Breaking The Code, Randall & Hopkirk, Peter Ackroyd's London, and The Long Firm; NBC's Frasier; and HBO's A Lonely War.

He recently starred in the acclaimed West End production of Don Carlos.

Jacobi was awarded the CBE in 1985 and was knighted in 1994.

PATRICK BARLOW

Mr Jowls

Patrick Barlow has starred in several feature films including Ugly Americans, Bridget Jones's Diary, That Girl From Rio, as well as Shakespeare in Love and Notting Hill.

On television he has featured in episodes of the immensely popular comedy programmes French and Saunders and Absolutely Fabulous, as well as Victoria Wood As Seen On TV and A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Other television work includes Murder in Surburbia, Goodbye Mr Steadman, Is It Legal, The True Adventures of Christopher Columbus, Van Gogh, and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole.

On stage, Barlow has appeared in The Wonders of Sex at London's National Theatre and The Messiah at the Bush Theatre, London. Other stage work includes Love Upon The Throne, at the Comedy Theatre, and also at Edinburgh, The Bush Theatre London, and the Berlin Festival; Wind and the Willows at the Royal National; Shakespeare - The Truth, a one-man show at the National Theatre Berlin; and Loot, at the Royal Exchange.

Barlow has appeared regularly on BBC's Radio 4 and has also written and directed for television.

IMELDA STAUNTON

Mrs Blatherwick

Imelda Staunton has starred in numerous feature films, including the much-lauded Vera Drake, her first collaboration with Mike Leigh, in which she plays the title role and for which she received an Academy Award nomination and Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress. She won the Best Actress Bafta Award for her role. She also starred in the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love and Sense and Sensibility, as well as Crush, Much Ado About Nothing and Peter's Friends. Recent television roles include the Queen Mother in Cambridge Spies and Mrs Micawber in David Copperfield.

For her stage work, Imelda Staunton has won two Oliviers, the UK's most

prestigious theatre award; one for The Corn is Green at the Old Vic and a joint award for Alan Ayckbourn's A Chorus of Disapproval at the National Theatre and Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. She has appeared regularly at the National Theatre, most notably as Miss Adelaide in Richard Eyre's production of Guys and Dolls. At the National, she also worked with Eyre on The Beggar's Opera and Schweyk in the Second World War, and with Matthew Warchus on Life X 3. Other London stage appearances include three productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company; as Sonya in Michael Blakemore's production of Uncle Vanya at the Vaudeville Theatre; in Sam Mendes' production of Habeas Corpus at the Donmar Warehouse; and Michael Hastings' Calico at the Duke of York's Theatre.

THOMAS SANGSTER

Simon

Thomas Sangster's television debut was in the BBC Film The Adventures of Station Jim, playing alongside Prunella Scales, George Cole and Frank Finley. The telefilm was a delightful story about a runaway orphan finding sanctuary on a steam railway. This was followed by a lead role in the Showtime Original film Bobbie's Girl, in which he was cast alongside Jonathan Silverman, Bernadette Peters and Rachel Ward.

Immediately after, he was whisked off to Vancouver to take the lead in The Miracle Of The Cards, the telefilm version of the true story of Craig Shergold, who was diagnosed with cancer at age ten and recovered with the help of an anonymous benefactor and enough get-well cards to enter him into The Guinness Book of World Records.

Thomas then appeared in the BBC's Emmy and BAFTA award-winning adaptation of Clive King's wonderful story, Stig of the Dump. It tells the tale of Barney and his friendship with a caveman named Stig. Thomas received glowing reviews as Barney, all wide-eyed wonder and innocent adventurer.

He next appeared in the action telefeature Daddy, which gave him the opportunity to work alongside Klaus Maria Branduer. This was Thomas' first thriller and he loved all the action scenes, explosions, shootouts and car chases. His performance won him the Best Actor in a mini-series award at the 2003 Monte Carlo Film Festival.

Love Actually was Thomas' first international feature film in which he played Liam Neeson's son, and for which he received a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a musical or comedy. His training for Love Actually involved learning how to play the drums, perform cartwheels and (most challenging of all), have his first screen kiss.

Thomas has since filmed a new BBC TV series called Featherboy.

ELIZA BENNETT

Tora

Eliza made her screen debut opposite James Fox and Julia Stiles in The Prince And Me, after playing the role of Jemima in the London Palladium's production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Other film credits include Quiet Whisper Moment, The Inbetweener, Isabelle, Sweets from Strangers, Comedy Series, Model Citizen, and Movie Craft.

RAPHAEL COLEMAN

Eric

Nanny McPhee is Raphael Coleman's first professional acting role. He was suggested for the role by a friend of his mother who is a casting agent.

JENNIFER RAE DAYKIN

Lily

Jennifer makes her feature film debut in Nanny McPhee. A student at the Centre Stage section of LaFour in Sandhurst, Daykin has performed in several theatrical school productions including Whistle Down The Wind, Princess Whatshername, and Baboushka.

SAM HONYWOOD

Sebastian

Sam also makes his feature film debut in Nanny McPhee. Previously he has appeared in television commercials for McDonalds Happy Meals, Andrex (in which he co-starred with an Andrex puppy), and AXA Insurance. He has also modelled for clients including Dairylea.

HOLLY GIBBS

Christianna

Holly lives with her mum and brother in London. Her professional credits include television commercials for Playdoh and COI as well as a role in the BBC drama Daddy's Girl. She attends the Michael Sobell Sinai School where her favourite subjects are art and story writing. Gibbs attends drama classes and was recently awarded Honours in her LAMDA Poetry examination. She also attends modern dance classes and achieved Honours for her primary jazz examination. Gibbs has also performed the role of Leena in a local youth club production of Bugsy Malone.

About The Filmmakers

KIRK JONES

Director

Kirk Jones graduated from Newport Film School in 1987 after winning a National student film competition. He started to work for London based production company BFCS as an assistant film editor but continued to write and direct his own films in his spare time.

He collected a Silver at the Creative Circle awards for his Mercedes test commercial in 1990 and was invited to join Xenium productions as a director. After winning an award for his Absolut Vodka commercial, which he wrote and directed, he started to direct commercials full time in Europe and in the U.S.

In 1991 Kirk joined producer Glynis Murray at the newly formed Tomboy Films and continued to direct commercials for clients including Coca Cola, Reebok, The National Lottery and MacDonalds.

He won awards at the Creative Circle, British Television Awards, NABS and in 1996 was awarded the Silver Lion at Cannes.

Kirk wrote and directed his first feature film Waking Ned in 1998 with a budget of $3m. The film went on to gross almost $90m worldwide with awards in the US and Europe including New York Comedy Film Festival (Best Feature) Comedy D'alp, France (Grand Jury Prize and Critics Prize), Guild of German Cinema (Gold Award Best Feature) Paris Film Festival (Audience award) Golden Satellite Awards (Best Motion Picture nomination) and BAFTA (Most Promising Newcomer nomination).

After Waking Ned he returned to writing and developing his own film projects and continued to direct commercials.

LINDSAY DORAN

Producer

Lindsay Doran launched her career in the motion picture business in 1979, when she became assistant to the director of creative affairs at Avco Embassy Pictures. Eventually, the company evolved into Embassy Pictures, and she advanced to vice president of creative affairs. While at Embassy, she served as the executive in charge of production on two films directed by Rob Reiner - This Is Spinal Tap (her first film credit) and The Sure Thing.

In 1985, Doran joined Paramount Pictures as senior vice president of production, and was eventually promoted to executive vice president of production. At Paramount, she oversaw the development and production of a number of films, including Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, The Naked Gun, Pet Sematary, and Ghost.

Doran left Paramount Pictures in 1989 to join Sydney Pollack's Mirage Enterprises. As its president, she produced Dead Again, written by Scott Frank and directed by Kenneth Branagh; Leaving Normal, written by Edward J. Solomon and directed by Edward Zwick; and Sense and Sensibility, written by Emma Thompson and directed by Ang Lee. Sense and Sensibility won the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture, Drama, and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (by Emma Thompson). In addition, it was nominated for six other Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won the Best Film award given by the British Academy of Film and Theatre Arts (BAFTA), and the Golden Bear award for Best Picture at the Berlin Film Festival.

While at Mirage, Doran served as executive producer on The Firm and Sabrina, both directed by Sydney Pollack. She was also the executive producer of A Private Matter, an HBO telefilm written by William Nicholson and directed by Joan Micklin Silver. She also served as one of the producers on the Showtime anthology series, Fallen Angels, and produced for that series the episode The Frightening Frammis, written by Jon Robin Baitz and Howard A. Rodman, and directed by Tom Cruise.

In 1996, Doran became President and Chief Operating Officer of United Artists Pictures. While at United Artists, she presided over production of the 18th and 19th instalments of the James Bond franchise, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World is Not Enough. She also oversaw The Man in the Iron Mask and Ronin as well as the hit remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.

In 1999, Doran left United Artists and resumed her career as a producer. She is currently the President of Three Strange Angels Inc, a motion picture production company based at Sony Pictures. Through Three Strange Angels she has also produced "Stranger than Fiction" directed by Marc Forster, written by Zach Helm, and starring Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah and Emma Thompson. The project marks her fourth collaboration with Thompson, a creative partnership that has lasted 15 years.

TIM BEVAN and ERIC FELLNER

Producers/Co-chairmen of Working Title Films

Working Title Films, co-chaired by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner since 1992, has become Europe's leading film production company, making movies that defy boundaries as well as demographics.

Working Title, founded in 1983, was recently presented with the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema at the Orange British Academy Film Awards and the Alexander Walker Film Award at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. Together, Bevan and Fellner have made more than 70 films that have grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide. Their films have won 4 Academy Awards (for Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking, Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo, and Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth), 20 BAFTA Awards (including ones for Richard Curtis' Love Actually and Mike Newell's Four Weddings and a Funeral), and prestigious prizes at the Cannes and Berlin International Film Festivals, among other honors. Messrs. Bevan and Fellner were recently made CBEs (Commanders of the British Empire).

In addition to those films mentioned above, Working Title's other worldwide successes include Roger Michell's Notting Hill; Mel Smith's Bean; Sydney Pollack's The Interpreter; Peter Howitt's Johnny English; Joel and Ethan Coen's O Brother, Where Art Thou?; Chris and Paul Weitz'About a Boy; and both Bridget Jones movies (directed by Sharon Maguire and Beeban Kidron, respectively). The company has enjoyed long and successful creative collaborations with writer/director Richard Curtis; actors Rowan Atkinson, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant; and the Coen Brothers filmmaking team, among others.

Upcoming Working Title films include Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice starring Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Brenda Blethyn and Donald Sutherland; and Phillip Noyce's Hot Stuff, currently in pre-production, to star Tim Robbins and Derek Luke.

In 1999, a new division, WT2, was formed with the purpose of providing an energetic and creatively fertile home for key emerging U.K. film talent and lower-budgeted productions. Its first film, Stephen Daldry's Billy Elliot, was released in 2000 and became an international critical and commercial hit. The film grossed over $100 million worldwide, earned three Academy Award and two Golden Globe Award nominations, and was named Best Feature at the British Independent Film Awards. The film's director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter Lee Hall have reunited for a stage musical version, with newly composed songs by Sir Elton John. The production, marking Working Title's debut theatrical venture (co-produced with Old Vic Prods.), opened at London's Victoria Theatre in May 2005 to glowing reviews.

WT2's subsequent films have included Mark Mylod's Ali G Indahouse, starring Sacha Baron Cohen, which was a smash in the U.K.; Marc Evans' acclaimed thriller My Little Eye; Terry Loane's Mickybo & Me; Damien O'Donnell's Inside I'm Dancing, which won the Audience Award at the 2004 Edinburgh International Film Festival; and Edgar Wright's award-winning sleeper hit "rom zom com" (romantic zombie comedy) Shaun of the Dead.

GLYNIS MURRAY

Co-producer

Glynis Murray is one of UK's most prominent commercials producers. Over the past twenty years she has produced ads for Tony Scott, Paul Weiland, Stephen Frears, David Bailey and Kirk Jones. She has also produced two feature films, Shooting Fish and Waking Ned.

Murray has a degree in history from London University. Her early career was spent at the BBC working in the drama department. She left there in 1976 and joined Ridley Scott Associates working with Tony Scott. After that she joined Paul Weiland and ran his company for ten years. At that time she produced Weiland's BAFTA nominated short film.

Murray set up her own production company, Tomboy Films, in 1991 with Kirk Jones and Stephen Frears directing. Since then, Tomboy has consistently been one of London's top production companies winning many awards and growing to a company of twelve film directors.

In 1997, together with Richard Holmes, Murray produced Shooting Fish directed by Stefan Schwartz starring Kate Beckinsale and Stuart Townsend. In 1999, she produced the highly acclaimed Waking Ned with Kirk Jones directing.

HENRY BRAHAM

Director of Photography

Nanny McPhee marks Henry Braham's second collaboration with Kirk Jones after Waking Ned. He has also worked with Jones on several television commercials. Braham's other film credits include Tony Bill's Flyboys, Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things (on which he collaborated with Nanny McPhee's Nic Ede, Michael Howells and Peter King); Charles Sturridge's Shackleton, for which Braham won an Emmy Award for Best Cinematography and received a BAFTA nomination for Best Cinematography; John McKay's Crush; Adam Brook's The Invisible Circus; David Leland's The Land Girls; Stefan Schwartz's Shooting Fish, Paul Weiland's Roseanna's Grave; Gary Sinyor's Solitaire for 2; and Soft Top Hard Shoulder, also for Stefan Schwartz.

His television credits include most notably Peter Richardson's Four Men and a Car and Paul Weiland's Oliver II - Let's Twist Again.

In commercials, Braham has worked for clients including Coca Cola, Mcdonald's, Playstation 2, Ford, British Airways, Polaroid, Walkers Crisps, and Budweiser.

JUSTIN KRISH

Editor

Justin Krish's previous editing feature film credits include Bride and Prejudice, Bend it Like Beckham (which was nominated for the American Cinema Editors Best Edited Feature Film), The Piano Player, Al's Lads and Sorted.

Justin is currently editing Appointed Limits a drama/documentary for Director Gerry Rothwell and Producers Alison Morrow and Jonny Persey at APT

NICK MOORE

Editor

Nick Moore's editing feature film credits include Along Came Polly, Love Actually, About a Boy (nominated for Best Edited Feature by the American Cinema Editors); Roger Michell's Notting Hill; David Caffrey's Divorcing Jack; David Leland's Land Girls; and Peter Cattaneo's The Full Monty, for which he received a shared BAFTA nomination for Best Editing.

MICHAEL D HOWELLS

Production Designer

Howells' credits are as extensive as they are impressive and encompass film, theatre, opera, ballet, fashion, and exhibitions. His film credits include Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things, which received a Best Technical Achievement nomination from the British Independent Film Awards, Charles Sturridge's Shackleton, for which he received both a BAFTA TV nomination for Best Production Design, and a Royal Television Society Award nomination for Best Production Design; Mike Figgis' About Time Too and Miss Julie; Oliver Parker's An Ideal Husband, for which he received a Golden Satellite nomination for Best Production Design; Andy Tennant's Everafter aka Cinderella; Charles Sturridge's FairyTale - A True Story, Doug McGrath's Emma; Michael Austin's Princess Caraboo; and Chris Menges' Second Best.

His theatre, opera and ballet credits as a designer include Dance Umbrella 99's Julius Tomb, the Royal Ballet's Towards Poetry at Sadlers Wells, Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin's Der Damon, Broomhill Opera's Tolemeo, DV8 Physical Theatre's MSM at the Royal Court Theatre and Nottingham Playhouse, and Memoirs de Montmartre at the Royal Academy of Arts.

In the world of fashion, his set design credits include shows for John Galliano for Christian Dior: Haute Couture 1997-99, John Galliano: Pret a Porter Autumn/Winter 1998, and John Galliano for Christian Dior: Pret a Porter Autumn/Winter 1998; and Christian Lacroix: Haute Couture and Pret a Porter. He has also designed sets for Mario Testino shoots for American and French Vogue.

NIC EDE

Costume Designer

Nic Ede most recently designed the costumes for Tony Bill's Flyboys. Other film credits include Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things, Brian Gilbert's The Gathering; Eric Styles' Relative Values; Marc Evans' Resurrection Man; Brian Gilbert's Wilde; John Henderson's Loch Ness; Chris Menges' Second Best; Brian Gilbert's Not Without My Daughter; Roland Joffe's Fat Man and Little Boy; Aisling Walsh's Joyriders; Chris Menges' A World Apart; Bernard Rose's Paperhouse; and Nic Roeg's Castaway.

Ede has extensive credits in television including most notably Canterbury Tales - The Knight's Tale for the BBC; Roland Joffe's Undressed; Lorna Doone for the BBC; Dash & Lilly with Sam Shepard and Judy Davis, for which Ede received an Emmy nomination for Best Costume Design; Far From the Madding Crowd and Band of Gold (Series II), both for Granada; Seaforth for the BBC; and The Borrowers.

He also works in commercials and promos and counts amongst his clients Lloyds Bank, Dulux My Way, Halifax, British Airways, and Martini.

PETER KING

Hair and Make-Up Designer

Peter King received an Academy Award for Best Make-Up (shared with Richard Taylor) for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. For the same film he also received a BAFTA nomination for Best Hair & Make-Up (shared with Richard Taylor and Peter Owen). King was also hair and make-up designer on the first two films in Peter Jackson's epic trilogy: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, for which King received a BAFTA nomination for Best Hair and Make-Up, and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, for which he won a BAFTA award for Best Hair and Make-Up.

Other feature film credits include Kevin Spacey's Beyond the Sea; Jonathan Frakes' Thunderbirds; Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things; Oliver Parker's The Importance of Being Earnest; Philip Kaufman's Quills, for which King received a BAFTA nomination (shared with Nuala Conway) for Best Hair and Make-Up; Mike Figgis' Miss Julie, Oliver Parker's An Ideal Husband, which also saw King nominated for a BAFTA nomination; Mark Herman's Little Voice; The Avengers, on which King served as Uma Thurman's hair stylist and make-up artist; Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine (for which he received a BAFTA nomination); Charles Sturridge's Fairytale: A True Story; Sally Potter's The Tango Lesson; and Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady. King has recently worked again with Peter Jackson on his forthcoming King Kong.

PATRICK DOYLE

Composer

Patrick Doyle studied piano and singing at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and graduated in 1974. His first music score was written in 1978, and subsequently Doyle has written the music for a host of radio, television, theatre and film productions.

In 1987, Doyle joined the Renaissance Theatre Company as composer and musical director. During this time he completed a world tour of the productions King Lear and A Midsummer Night's Dream. He has since composed music for their productions of Hamlet, As You Like It, and Much Ado About Nothing" for directors Derek Jacobi, Geraldine McEwan and Judi Dench. Doyle later worked with Judi Dench on both the theatre and television productions of Look Back in Anger.

In 1989 Director Kenneth Branagh commissioned Doyle to write the film score for the Renaissance Film Company production of Henry V. The song Non Nobis Domine, from the film, was awarded the 1989 Ivor Novello Award for Best Film Theme.

In 1990, HRH The Prince of Wales commissioned Doyle to write The Thistle and The Rose, a song cycle for full choir, in honour of the Queen Mother's 90th birthday. During that year he also wrote the music for a Disney feature Shipwrecked. In 1991, Doyle wrote the score for the blockbuster Dead Again directed by Kenneth Branagh, and his music was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.

Doyle's other projects include the music for Indochine, starring Catherine Deneuve and directed by Regis Wargnier, (the film won an Oscar for 'Best Foreign Film', five Caesar awards and a Golden Globe); Into the West, a feature film written by Jim Sheridan and directed by Mike Newell, the soundtracks for the Renaissance Theatre/BBC Radio 3 co-productions of Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, and King Lear, Frankenstein, Much Ado About Nothing, both directed by Kenneth Branagh. Also, the Castle Rock production of Stephen King's novel Needful Things, directed by Frazer Heston, Carlito's Way, directed by Brian De Palma, A Little Princess, directed by Alfonso Cuaron (the score won the LA Critics award for best Film Soundtrack 1995), Mrs Winterbourne, directed by Richard Benjamin, and Sense and Sensibility, directed by Ang Lee (Doyle's score was nominated for a Golden Globe and also received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Dramatic Score and a BAFTA nomination for Best Film Score).

Doyle's score for Hamlet, a four hour epic directed by Kenneth Branagh for Castle Rock, received an Oscar nomination, and his score for Donnie Brasco, directed by Mike Newell, received an ASCAP award.

Doyle also wrote the score for Great Expectations, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, and the animated feature The Quest for Camelot/The Silver Sword, directed by Frederik Du Chau.

In 1997 Sony Classical commissioned Doyle to write a piece of music to accompany a children's story entitled The Face In The Lake. This piece was premiered in February 1998 at Carnegie Hall, New York, along with two other stories with music written by Wynton Marsalis & Edgar Meyer. Sony Classical released a CD of the piece, narrated by Kate Winslet, together with a companion children's book published by Viking Press.

In 1999 Doyle completed the score for East West, directed by Regis Wargnier and starring Catherine Deneuve. The film received both an Academy Award and Golden Globe nomination in the category of best foreign film. Doyle wrote the music for Love's Labour's Lost, directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Doyle completed the film, Blow Dry in 2000, and in 2001, the music for Bridget Jones's Diary, directed by Sharon Maguire, in addition to completing the score for Killing Me Softly for Montecito Pictures directed by Chen Kaige the same year. Since this time, Doyle has scored the film Gosford Park, directed by Robert Altman for which he was nominated as Composer of the Year at the AFI Film Awards.

Doyle has also recently worked on the multi award winning comedy Calendar Girls, starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters; Second Hand Lions, starring Michael Caine and Robert Duvall; Nouvelle France, starring Gerard Depardieu, Tim Roth and Jason Isaacs; and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, directed by Mike Newell.

註：以上資訊由片主或其推廣代表提供。本網並不保證此等資訊是否正確。
Note: The information above is provided by the owners of the film or their agents who are responsible for the promotion of the film. We do not guarantee the accuracy of such information.

相關連結 Related Links

• 最近公影電影 Recent, Current, and Upcoming Films