Romola Garai Talks ‘One Life’ And Playing An “Extraordinary Woman”

Actress Romola Garai (Miss Marx, Suffragette) stars with Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Flynn in One Life. She plays Doreen Warriner, a humanitarian who aided Nicky Winton’s (Flynn) rescue of over 600 children in pre-World War II Czechoslovakia. I’m a huge fan of Garai’s directing debut Amulet, and she also discussed hher filmmaker ventures during the interview.

One Life, directed by James Hawes, is based on Barbara Winton’s book If It’s Not Impossible . . .

Anthony Hopkins co-stars as the elderly Nicky Winton, Helena Bonham Carter is Winton’s mother, and Lena Olin plays Winton’s wife. One Life is now playing in theaters.

The Romola Garai interview is available below in Q&A and video form.

When you’re inhabiting a character who is actually not just a character or real person, what are the considerations involved specifically with this project? 

Romola Garai: Well, I think when you play a real person, you have a completely different job to do and a much greater sense of responsibility. You know, I, I really tried to imagine that if that person was alive, like, how would they want to be depicted? 

Doreen Warriner had achieved so much in her life. She was this incredible intellectual. She was a linguist. She was a humanitarian. So I really just wanted to try and get as much of that as possible as I could across in the scenes in order to be a testament to the extraordinary woman that she was. 

On a universal level, One Life really talks about making a difference in the world and also just with another person. Can you just talk about that theme? Is that something that resonated with you, and was that a huge reason why you wanted to be part of this project?

Romola Garai: Yes. When I picked up the screenplay, I didn’t understand the resonance of the title. And then as I was reading the screenplay for the first time and going through it, I understood what the title meant. 

You know, obviously the impact that one person, Nicholas Winton or Doreen Warriner or you or I or anyone can make on the world. And also how in the face of humanitarian catastrophe, you think, well, there’s nothing I can do. It’s just too many people. But actually just one person, like making a difference to one person can sometimes be all you can do. And that that is enough.

I found that incredibly potent and powerful because, you know, I imagine, like a lot of people, I often feel very overwhelmed by the level of need in the world. If you’re looking at something like Haiti, you think, well there’s just nothing as an individual that you can do. 

I love this film and I love the message of the film, which is that there’s always something and there’s always one person whose life you can make a difference to. 

As you grow as an actor does your scope as far as what you want to portray and the stories you want to tackle evolve as well, or is that not even the case? Has it always been a very constant focus? 

Romola Garai: I wish I had that much control over my career!  I think when you’re an actor who kind of has to audition for roles, your level of control is is different. 

And yes, there are certain jobs that you desperately want to be part of.  Maybe that will happen and maybe it doesn’t. But I think what definitely changes as you get older is that I don’t want to go and waste my time when I could be looking after my children or writing. I write and direct and I have a greater sense of who I am and what I want to do with my time. 

I actively kind of seek out projects which I think means something or to collaborate with people who I really like or whose work I like and (I want) to spend my time wisely. When I was younger, maybe I just thought, well, I’ve got limitless time. I can do the things that means something to me. And then I can do other things that are just filling a gap. I don’t really feel like that anymore, but I wish all projects were as meaningful as this one. 

Well, after Amulet, I’m a very selfish person. I just want you to not take care of your life or your family or act. And I just want you to direct another horror-thriller! 

Romola Garai: I’ll let them know! I’ll let them know that you’ve said I just have to do the directing full time. I’m sure they’ll understand! 

Amulet is such a singular film. I looked at your IMDB (resume). You might have another directing project in your future?

Romola Garai: Yeah. Thank you. I’ve been working on 3 or 4 other films for the last four years. But, you know, it’s a really difficult (hill to) climb. Amulet was a really small movie. We had a really small budget, and you kind of do what you can to make that work. 

And then I think I had this idea that you would move up to a bigger budget, but then that step up can be difficult. So I’m still still trying to find what is the the film with the right kind of budget level and the right cast and the kind of story that I feel passionately about that’s going to happen. 

But I’m traveling very optimistically. And I have four completed screenplays, so it’s just trying to get one of them over the line, which is, I’m not going to lie, it’s not like the favorite thing that I’ve done in my career! But you know, I’m doing my best. 

Check out our review of One Life on YouTube and/or Apple Podcasts:

I always tell people I don’t have the time to write. How do you have the time to write?

Romola Garai: I was very lucky when when I was really young, I worked with this amazing French auteur called François Ozon and I (asked him), “How do you write? I want to write, I can’t write.” And he said, “I’m not a writer, I can’t write, I just write the films I want to direct.” 

And that was like somebody just switched on a light for me, and I realized, I don’t have to be a writer, with all of the weight and pressure of that, I just have to imagine the film that I want to direct and then write it down. So I just try and do that. 

I feel very lucky that I had someone kind of take all of that weight off me, at a time in my life where I really needed to hear it. 

What is the biggest lesson that you learned from Amulet that you’re going to take to your second directing project? 

Romola Garai: I think the great thing about making a first film, or the great thing about making a first film for me, is that you get to make all your mistakes, and then sometimes the mistakes become like genius moments. Wherein you do interviews afterwards and people are like, “how did you decide to do that?” And you’re like, “that was not something I planned to do, or that was an error!” 

I guess when you go into your second film, I  know so much more about filmmaking, and I understand so much more about the things that can go wrong on the day. So I will be much more prepared. And that will be the thing that I will have learned predominantly is how much preparation I can do to make the piece of work. But then also, I think there’s something about responding very closely or clearly to what you have on the day, which can be an advantage as well. 

A lot of the decisions that were made creatively on Amulet were made quite instinctively, without a great deal of thought and that I think led the film to have quite an unusual tone and energy. So maybe I’ll try to retain some of that. 

Final question is a two parter. First part is you mentioned Border a couple of years ago. Can you, for our listeners, recommend another film that really resonates with you? And then the second part of that question from your own resume, can you recommend a project that you’ve done, film or television that you feel is underrated, and you would like our listeners to check out? Thank you for your time. 

Romola Garai: Sure. Well, I the one of the best films I’ve seen in the last year was a film called Speak No Evil, a Danish horror film. Did you see it? 

Oh, it broke my heart! 

Romola Garai: Yeah. Really amazing film. It really destroyed me. That is a film which, for me, really delivered on the kind of absolute terror of staying away for the weekend with another couple, which is such a horrific experience. But also, you know, for me, it really went really deep into the sort of essence of what it means to be a human being and how much people are prepared to just go along with things like how we’re just made to kind of accept and acclimatized to the things that we’re told to do and to not push back against things. 

I thought it was a really brilliant and profound film. And it had a huge impact on me. 

In terms of projects that I’ve been involved in that I think might have gone under the radar. I’m a really great fan, a great lover of this French director Lucille Hadzihalilovic and her first film, Innocence, (which) is one of my favorite films. And then I got the amazing opportunity to work with her on a film called Earwig, which is an English language film.

I just like to premise it by saying it’s a very unusual film. It’s kind of like a dream. I think in our era of like hyper structured storytelling and like people trying to turn screenwriting into a science, particularly with AI, that the kind of elusive, immaterial nature of art, like sometimes you’re not supposed to understand it. Sometimes it’s supposed to be just an experience, you know? It can get a bit lost. And that feels very an important part of film and an important part of being a human being and making art. And that film is really like a dream. So I would encourage people to watch that, although I’m sure a lot of people would say, what is it about? And I would go, I don’t know!

Thank you so much for your time. Really love One Life and you’re one of the coolest cinephiles I get to talk to you every couple of years. So really appreciate the time. 

Romola Garai: Thank you. Nice to speak to you again. Have a great day.

One Life is now playing in theaters.