On the day of the Royal Premiere of the new World War Two drama “Enigma” director Michael Apted and leading men Dougray Scott & Jeremy Northam spoke about their involvement with the film.

Dougray, can you tell us how you prepared for your role in this movie?

DS: Michael and I worked together for five months before we started filming, on my character, and I went to Bletchley intermittently. I spoke to professors of maths, and Tony Sayles at Bletchley stuck me in a room and made me finally understand things and taught me how to take an enigma machine apart & put it back together again. Also, talking to people who worked at Bletchley Park was a wonderful way to get an idea of how these people lived their lives. I also read and re-read the book a lot because it’s a wonderful source of research for the character. Robert Harris writes wonderfully and really paints a picture for what life was like during that period of history.

And I believe you also took the genuine enigma decoding machine that producer Mick Jagger owns home with you. What did you gain from that?

DS: Familiarity. I remember it was like learning to play the guitar when I was fourteen, you just take it around everywhere with you. It becomes second nature because, when you’re filming, the last thing you want to be thinking about is “how do I use this machine?” because the character knows how to use it. So I knew how everything worked, how you put it together and what you needed to do.

Jeremy, did you do much research for your role as a secret service agent? Were you influenced by any particular actors of that era?

JN: I certainly didn’t look at any one person’s work or any one performance. I suppose what did exercise my mind a bit was the way people articulate, and old movies are not always the best research for that because acting styles have changed. But he thing that struck me from the C4 documentary about Bletchley Park was somebody saying that the normal rules didn’t apply there as the military had invited a lot of people who weren’t normal espionage people. Somebody said the lid was lifted off, but the lid came back on resoundingly at the end, when people went anonymously back to their previous jobs and weren’t able to talk about what had happened there. In fact all the machines were busted up and all the records destroyed by Churchill at the end of the war. So what worked quite well for Dougray and myself is that there is an unspoken class tussle going on between these two, and, if you like, they represent – in my mind anyway – the forces of change and reaction.

Michael, could you tell us a little about Kate Winslet’s contribution to the film?

MA: We were lucky to get her. We got her because she was pregnant and couldn’t then do the film she was supposed to. She had always known about this film, I had asked her to be in it from the beginning but she had this other commitment. Its our loss – and a little hers – that’s she not here but we can understand that. But she made a massive contribution.

How was it working with Tom Stoppard on adapting so complex a novel for the silver screen?

MA: When I read the first draft it made my eyes water! I loved it but I didn’t understand a word of it. He had written a thing on the front explaining it, which was totally awe inspiring. But the years it took to write the script was down to trying to get a balance between the technicalities and the humanity of it. We didn’t want to get bogged down in the technicalities nor did we want to trivialise them, because I was making a film about brilliant people and if everybody could understand what they do, then what makes them so brilliant? 

Are you worried about what people that were actually at Bletchley Park during the war will think of the film?

MA: It doesn’t worry me but I would like them to like it, as we went to a lot of trouble to make it as authentic as we could, so it would be dismaying if people say it was nothing like that. But we’ll know after the big gala screening near Bletchley Park itself.

Why didn’t you actually shoot the film at the real Bletchley Park?

MA: The buildings that remain there have all been built right into so I wouldn’t have any scope. And it is a museum now so it would have taken a huge amount of work to restore it to what it should have been. And also…I thought it was as ugly as s**I if the truth be known! I had this idea that I wanted to see England at its best romantically, with the beautiful countryside and the little car.

In light of the controversy that surrounded “U-571” do you think American audiences will be surprised by this film, and the truth about the enigma machine?

MA: The general public in America haven’t seen it yet, so we’ll see, but I hope they’ll be surprised, yes. But I never got annoyed by that movie, it’s a good action thriller which never pretended to have historical verisimilitude in the sense that we do. It was just taking something and using it for its own ends, but its fun for us to be able to put the story right.

- Thanks to my pal Marla of Admiring Kate for the Film Review article & interview