CinemaBlend.com recently had a chance to take part in an interview with Lee Pace for his upcoming role as Michael in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Among other things, Lee talked about taking on an English accent for the role, the difference between TV and movies, and why he was at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.

It’s a great read and you should really check it out. Here are a few excerpts from the interview.

How did you work on the British accent you have in the film? How hard was it?
I think people are really picky about English accents. When a Brit comes over here and kind of does an OK American accent, everyone’s like “You were great! Fantastic!” But in England, even if you were doing a pretty good accent, they’re like “But where are you from?” “London.” “What part of London?” Accents are really precious over there. Joan Washington did both me and Frances’ dialect work. When I first read it, I saw the script as full of these posh English people. I just wanted to do something a little different with Michael. I did him with a northern accent– Albert Finney was what I had in mind. So he was more blue collar, heart on his sleeve, passionate. I don’t know it if makes much of a difference.

Did they instruct you to look at any old movies to get at the very specific way of speaking in this movie?
Pushing Daisies, is that old-fashioned romance where you’re not going to see the kiss until the very end of the movie, or there’s a good banter between the leads of it. We watch those Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn…. I don’t know if a modern audience would buy people talking the way they did back then. It’s a very specific kind of acting. About three years ago I saw this documentary with out-takes with people like Montgomery Clift. It was so cool to watch them doing their crazy acting talk, and then all of a sudden they would mess up their line, and they would talk like we talk. These are the guys who are supposed to have invented naturalism, and they’re not natural, they’re nowhere near natural. I don’t know if that style would really work now.

What is the difference for you between working in TV and film?
The day is different. The way the day runs if totally different. With TV, you have so much to get done during the day that you don’t really have a lot of time to feel your way through it. I know before I walk on the set exactly what I’m going to do. With film you can kind of find your way in it a little more, play with it some.
(continue reading at CinemaBlend.com)

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Lee Pace in “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day”

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