Plenty of luminaries, including the King and Queen themselves, have passed through the halls ofDownton Abbey.
“Everybody would love her,” McGovern muses.
“Everybody I talked to who ever worked with her really loved her.
Elizabeth McGovern ponders how Ava Gardner would fit in at ‘Downton Abbey’.Justin Bettman
She’s such a big, warm, expansive character.
She would have made quite a splash.”
The play, a two-hander, is based on the bookThe Secret Conversationsby journalist Peter Evans and Gardner.
Elizabeth McGovern as Ava Gardner in ‘Ava: The Secret Conversations’.Justin Bettman
Near the end of her life, Gardner recruited Evans as a ghost writer for a tell-all biography.
Check out the photos of McGovern and her thoughts on Gardner below.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: There’s so many incredible stars from the Golden Age era of filmmaking.
Elizabeth McGovern as Ava Gardner in the play ‘Ava: The Secret Conversations,’ which she also wrote.Justin Bettman
What was it about Ava in particular that captured your imagination?
They’re published pretty much verbatim.
You get Peter telling the story of his attempt to write her autobiography.
As I was reading it, it emerged that she was this absolutely, incredibly appealing character.
But also I thought this is such an interesting idea.
Because she wants to tell him and then she doesn’t want to tell him.
She feels vulnerable and she doesn’t want to betray people.
That is because it’s a journey toward intimacy.
That’s what I thought I would take a stab at capture in this play.
You and Ava are both ex-pats.
Was that a point of connection you found with her?
I mean, that is a lucky coincidence.
But there’s not a lot of that in the play.
She found, like me, a certain amount of peace and escape in the streets of London.
It was that aspect of her that I felt that I could understand.
This is a new venture for you in terms of adapting the book for the stage yourself.
What made you want to do that and how was that new challenge?
I started it a long time ago.
I had this idea, and at first, it was not particularly serious.
There was a producer here who was very encouraging, and he’s still attached to the project.
Over the years, we did a couple of workshops with various directors and with different actors.
It’s been a long process of experimenting and massaging and thinking and working.
Then we had the opportunity to do a production here in London.
I felt that my life history gave me confidence to venture to tackle the subject.
It’s been tweaked.
So, I could understand what they were understanding from the story and what they weren’t.
That helped me do a pretty in-depth rewrite, but I haven’t changed it massively.
I just figured out ways to enrich the thing that I was already trying to do.
Her character flies off the page of the book.
Much of that is literally just verbatim.
The thing that took a lot longer was the character of the journalist and his journey.
Because it’s not appropriate in the context of their relationship.
It took a lot longer for me to get that part right.
This is a two-hander, and clearly, the structure of the book lent itself to that very naturally.
It was very important to me to keep the simplicity of the two people.
If anybody else walked on stage, it would dilute it.
Because you flash back in time and they’re the that call the shots.
Their voice comes in and plays with the narrative, but you never see them.
She died in 1990.
Did you ever have any moments where you crossed paths, even from across the room or something?
No, sadly not.
But it seems like everybody else has.
She was such a people person.
It’s a beautiful movie; it really stands the test of time.
And then, the other movie I really liked is her first movie calledThe Killers.
Was there anything about her life experiences that really shocked you?
So, none of it was shocking.
I don’t know.
You’ll have to see it, and then, we can discuss.
Because it’s not at all a biopic.
It would take some kind of real visionary to figure out how to do the film or television version.
I’d be open to ideas.
It’s very much a theatrical conceit.
But that definitely wasn’t there in the back of my mind.
I’m not thinking, “I can’t wait till Hollywood gets their hands on this.”
She was really renowned for her beauty at the peak of her fame.
That was the ticker tape that was underneath her image.
But it’s an almost impossible thing to pull off.
Particularly in her case, because she never had any confidence.
But because she was so uneducated, she always had a big insecurity about that.
She was particularly vulnerable to being used by the system in that way.
But shewasbecause of her personality and because of the choices she made.
She lived by those choices.
But she never had any self-conscious idea about creating a movement or instigating change.
She just lived her life.
And that was her act of rebellion.
