Tagline: A fairy tale like no other.
Penelope is a modern day offbeat fable about a young woman who, having spent her life trapped by a family curse sets out to find love and discover her true self. In this modern day romantic tale, Penelope is about a young girl’s inspiring journey, a mysterious family secret and the power of love. With all odds against her, in order for Penelope to break the family curse, she must find true love with “one of her own kind.” The warm and funny adventure leads her to realize the most important life lesson, “I like myself the way I am.”
Penelope Wilhern, born to wealthy socialites (Catherine O’Hara and Robert E. Grant), is afflicted by the Wilhern spell that can only be broken when she finds love. Hidden away in her family’s estate, the lonely girl meets a string of suitors in her parent’s futile attempt to break the curse. Each eligible bachelor is enamored with Penelope and her sizable dowry … until her curse is revealed.
Lemon (Peter Dinklage), a mischievous and eager tabloid reporter wants a photograph of the mysterious Penelope and hires Max (James McAvoy) to pose as a prospective suitor to get the shot. The handsome down-on-his luck gambler finds he falling for Penelope, but not wanting to disappoint her or to expose his surreptitious ways, he decides to disappear. Fed up by his latest betrayal and determined to live life on her own terms, Penelope breaks free from her family and ventures into the world alone. She finds adventure and Annie, her first friend (Reese Witherspoon) and becomes the person she was meant to be.
Penelope is a 2006 British-American fantasy romantic comedy film directed by Mark Palansky which was first released in 2006 and stars Christina Ricci, James McAvoy, Catherine O’Hara, Peter Dinklage, Richard E. Grant, and Reese Witherspoon. The film premiered September 8, 2006 at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was also shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007.
The film opened in Russia and Ukraine in August 2007. Penelope was released in the United Kingdom on February 1, 2008. It opened in wide release in the United States and Canada on February 29, 2008. The film opened in ninth place and earned $3.8 million USD on its opening weekend in the United States. By October 5, 2008, the film had grossed $20.8 million worldwide—with $6.5 million in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Malta.
Director’s Statament
“What initially excited me about this material was the very strong central character, born into this world, different from everyone else. Penelope is very strong-willed and she doesn’t let her affliction really burden her. It’s everyone around her who is more affected by it and I think that’s what the film’s about. Penelope is passionate and excited by life. I liked the modern take on a classic fable.”
“There’s a painter by the name of Mark Ryden who a lot of the film was inspired by. When I first met with Reese and Jennifer about the directing job, I brought these paintings with me and talked through the visuals of the film. Then five or six months later, Christina had read the script and was very interested and met with me. What was funny was that the painter had painted Christina several times and all his figures are loosely based on Christina Ricci. At the time, his work was just an inspiration for the film and then her becoming attached to it was really quite extraordinary.”
“Christina did such a phenomenal job with the character that I never could see it with anyone else. She’s so expressive and so bold and her eyes are so powerful. Her eyes are by far her strongest asset as an actress because they say so much with her really saying very little and she’s sort of a living doll in a way, in a special way.”
“Catherine O’Hara was someone I also wanted from the get go. She’s able to bring a sympathy to the character that isn’t necessarily there and her sense of everything really is extraordinary. Richard E. Grant is obviously an English institution and I’ve been a fan of his work for a while and he climbed aboard really quite quickly. I think the script was something that brought a lot of people together because it’s really a unique script and because it’s not traditional in any way. It’s not a romantic comedy and it’s not really straightforward fairytale, it combines a lot of different elements and I think it’s very striking. I think you kind of gravitate towards it.”
“I met with James and we didn’t talk about Penelope at all, we talked about life philosophies and all sorts of things. That to me was much more like the character that he plays, Max or Johnny that’s what really made me want him. James McAvoy’s character had so much in common with the character. I think when you see this film, most of the leads have such extraordinary eyes and they’re able to say so much with their eyes. There are scenes between James and Christina that are just really their eyes and that’s it. They don’t have to say anything to one another and to me those are the most powerful scenes in the film. Just those things. So, he was just fantastic, so serious and so dedicated and had such a strong work ethic. Those are all things that I enjoyed abpit working with him.”
“When Reese was shooting with us, it was just after she’d won her Academy Award so everyone was very excited on set. As soon as she arrived everyone was congratulating her and it was wonderful to then have her be part of it at that time for her because she really energized everyone in the crew.”
“I had such a clear vision about everything, about the look, the shot, the scenes, the dialogue, the words, everything that was supposed to happen but what you can’t predict is the actors, what they bring to it in the moment. I look back watching the film now and those moments in the film, the ones that were, that just happened, that were unpredictable, were the most amazing.”
“The prosthetics was a process that we started as soon as Christina Ricci became attached. A very, very good friend of mine, Scott Stoddard did all of the prosthetics. He’s just an amazing artist, painter and sculptor and it was important for me to have someone who understood the human form, so it wasn’t just about thinking specifically about a prosthetic and how you apply it, you have to think about an entire form. I wanted the pig’s snout to look fleshy, but also it is a deformity and we were working in a fabled world and so it’s a metaphor. You can look at any kind of physical deformity or emotional deformity and create a heightened reality so then it becomes the snout of a pig.”
“Having the lead actress in a prosthetic in a film that isn’t a horror film is unusual – it’s not shadowy, everything right there for you to see. Big, bright, bold colour. It’s a very difficult thing for everyone to pull off because there’s nowhere to hide it, it is what it is, it’s on her face and that’s why I really just wanted something would really express all those things but would really allow Christina Ricci to come through.”
“What’s important to me is that it’s seen as a proper fairy tale or as a proper fable. Those are stories in films that I grew up enjoying. Too often now, you see watered-down fairy tales that are much more romantic pieces. I think this has all the elements of a true fairy tale. I’ve set it in a modern world and I want people to enjoy that aspect of it and really believe it can exist. Penelope’s character is so strong-willed, so fascinating and so wonderful, despite her affliction, that’s the main thing that really people should come away with. No matter who you are, no matter what you have, no matter how you look, you can really be who you want to be and do what you want to do in the world.”
By Mark Palanksy
The Story
The tale of a young woman overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds to win her Prince Charming has long been a staple of fairy tales but in Penelope, writer Leslie Caveny has given her story a contemporary spin. What if, for instance, the rich and handsome Prince Charming actually turned out to be a total cad, and true love for the heroine rested in the hands of an initially duplicitous card shark? And what if, more importantly, the story was less about a young woman finding true love and more about her learning to love and value herself?
It was these original qualities that first caught the attention of producers Jennifer Simpson and Reese Witherspoon, producing partners in Type A Films. They then shared the script with Stone Village founder Scott Steindorff. “I read it on a flight from L.A. to New York and loved it immediately,” recalls Steindorff. “As soon as I got off the plane, I made the call to say ‘let’s do it.’”
“I call this the ‘anti-Barbie movie,’” continues Steindorff. “Today everyone’s so concerned with how they look, it’s interesting to develop a story where a young woman overcomes the prejudice about how she looks and proves her strength of character and eventually triumphs, finds herself and finds true love.”
Screenwriter Caveny believes that the themes that the producers responded to in Penelope are themes that will resonate with the majority of audience members. “When you really think about it, it’s amazing what insecurity can do to a young life. Hopefully, everybody will relate somehow to what that feeling is—whether it’s a pig nose, acne, bad hair, a fear of something or how you speak. I wanted to explore the idea of reclaiming your life and not letting those insecurities stopping it from going on.”
“Love conquers all in Penelope” says producer Jennifer Simpson. “This is about a woman coming to terms with who she is and what she looks like and feeling comfortable in her own skin. There’s a lot of comedy, a lot of heartbreak and I think they are real things that everyone can relate to. The audience will have had a very magical ride. Penelope is a very beautiful, poignant story and they will be transported into this other world, yet it’s a world they will relate to and as a girl, Penelope is someone they’ll relate to. I think they’ll find it uplifting and what’s really magical is that it’s about a woman who goes into the big bad world for the first time and sees the everyday things with a new spin, so it reminds us all to take time to stop and smell roses.”
The Process
“I’d been working in TV as a writer-for- hire,” tells Caverny. I was feeling really depressed and it was Christmas Eve. Somebody had given me a book on writing by Stephen King and there was a line in there talking about how writing isn’t about making money, getting rich, getting girlfriends or boyfriends, it’s about getting up, getting even, getting happy. It just blew my mind and something snapped in my head and I realised that’s what writing was supposed to be for. So, I quit my jobs, forget the money, went broke but it didn’t matter because writing something you care about is what really matters.”
Because Caveny had been writing for TV, she was used to a very fast turnaround where you write and shoot two weeks later. The process for getting a feature film off the ground proved quite different. Her agent started sending the project to various Hollywood producers and Caveny had dozens of meetings and all of the responses were positive but the majority of them were wary of taking that brave step of making a movie that called for the lead actress to commit to wearing a pig’s nose.
Things changed when Academy Award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Simpson, her producing partner at Type A Films read Penelope. “They will be my heroes until the end of time.” enthuses Caveny, “They loved it and said they were going to make it happen and they did.”
“It’s just a very magical story about a girl coming to terms with who she is as a person and I think it’s just something that can touch everybody. Reese and I fell in love with it,” explains Simpson.
Debut feature film director Mark Palansky read Penelope when Caveny’s agent first started sending the script out. Caveny and Palansky met up and spent eight hours talking about Penelope. “I was so moved by this young man’s passion for this story – he was so connected to this script and his total passion for it just blew my mind. I kind of knew that night he was going to be the one to direct it. But, I was a first time feature writer and he was a first time director and we thought that could be kind of tricky getting people to believe in us.”
“Mark had done some great shorts a couple of years ago and when Reese and I originally got involved in this project we thought it was great to discover a first time director” explains Simpson. “He was someone who seemed to have his own vision of the movie and after meeting with him we really got his vision and understood it so we were willing to take the risk,”
The Location
Mark Palansky immediately went to work finding the locations for the film’s whimsical, storybook look. Various towns in the United States and Canada were considered to shoot the movie, but the team ultimately decided upon filming in London, which Steindorff says, “has a fairytale quality and is simply enchanting. Plus the crews are so talented, so nice and so focused.”
Palansky believes that the location was crucial in setting the proper tone for the film. “We came to London and I loved shooting there; it’s a wonderful city,” says the director. “I wanted the city in the film to be its own fabled city. The whole look of the film is strikingly unique – we’ve brought together a French cinematographer (Michel Amathieu), a production designer who is a New Zealander (Amanda McArthur) and a British costume designer (Jill Taylor) and I wanted everyone to be thinking on different levels all through the same vision, coming from different places and I think that really shows in the end result.”
“It’s such a universal story, it’s such a universal subject matter, but it’s clearly a fairy tale, so all those things allow you the freedom as a director to create something new, to create something that feels fresh. It’s more fun in that way to be able to give everyone that freedom.”
The Look
Palansky had very clear ideas about the look and feel of the Wilhern family’s ancestral home, which production designer Amanda McArthur brought to life on the screen. With a very particular idea of what the house should look like, it took a while to find the perfect location.
The filmmaking team eventually found Foxwarren, an estate located just outside of London, between Cobham and Weybridge in Surrey. With its sweeping gravel driveway and huge arched windows, Foxwarren had a sense of history that immediately appealed to Palansky, although the rolling countryside surrounding it had to be digitally altered in post-production to maintain the film’s urban look.
Filmed over eight weeks, a large amount of Penelope’s interiors were shot in Pinewood Studios in London. McArthur was able to use a great deal of imagination to create some of the sets, particularly Penelope’s attic bedroom, which was intended to reflect the scope of Penelope’s vivid imagination, which flourished even while living in confinement. The creative team meticulously designed and constructed the World of Penelope, working to capture an environment that would illustrate the hope and longing of the main character.
In creating this world, cinematographer Michel Amathieu and his team used lots of rich colours and surreal details to convey a sense of loneliness and magic.
Production designer Amanda McArthur and her team created a feast for the senses with colour texture and detail on Pinewood Studio’s E Stage and Penelope’s attic was born. With lots of rich reds, surreal paintings, tiny details and a sense of Penelope’s development from child to young woman, her whole environment reflects her and this is something director Palansky was passionate about getting right. Production designer McArthur and celebrated French cinematographer Michel Amathieu were both crucial to that.
Penelope’s costumes also reflect her eccentric, a vivid imagination and creativity in action. Emmy award-winner and BAFTA-nominee Jill Taylor is the woman responsible for the look and design of Penelope’s costumes.
Producer Scott Steindorff notes that director Palansky’s feel for the movie took it to a whole new level, “Mark has a real feel for it, he’s done a fantastic job and visually he knows how to make it into a bigger story. He really found his rhythm and from the outset knew exactly how he wanted to do it stylistically. A lot of people have compared him to Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam, but I think he has his own voice. He has a distinctive style that he has brought that to the movie.”
Producer Jennifer Simpson says, “The palette of this movie—the costume, the design as well as the photography—is very much a character in this story. Everyone worked together to bring Penelope’s unique perspective on the world to the screen.”
The Casting
Palansky and the producers were able to attract the attention of a large and talented group of actors, including Christina Ricci (Monster, The Opposite of Sex), Catherine O’Hara (A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration), Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) and Witherspoon, who appears in a comedic supporting role as a woman who befriends Penelope. Filming abroad meant that the film also was able to utilize a vast array of U.K. actors, including James McAvoy (The Chronicles of Narnia), Richard E. Grant (Bright Young Things), Simon Woods (Pride & Prejudice), and Ronni Ancona (Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story).
“When we first sat down trying to figure out which actress we all envisioned as Penelope, Christina Ricci was our first choice by far” says producer Jennifer Simpson. “She is such a beautiful girl and an amazing actress. We knew she would be bold enough to wear the prosthetic nose and her eyes are so expressive and so beautiful, we knew that people would just fall in love with her in an instant and wouldn’t be distracted by the nose. We sent her the script and she had read it immediately and was right on board from the beginning and was completely courageous with this part.”
“She has vulnerability about her, so she’s bringing a lot of life to this character,” comments Scott Steindorff.
“There is probably no one else but Christina Ricci who could pull this role off,” observes Dylan Russell. “From her history and the roles she’s played before to all the magical qualities that she brings to this, as a person there is something very unique and special about her.”
Academy Award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon is part of the producing team on Penelope and she also takes a cameo role in the movie. Her producing partner in Type A Films, Jennifer Simpson explains Witherspoon’s role in the project, “For Reese it’s about the material, about characters she can relate to and although her appearance is a cameo, I think it’s a very fun role to play.
Penelope’s first real female friend and think that’s a very important thing. She’s someone who Penelope can look at and learn from because she is a totally different kind of women with so much energy and somebody she is attracted to and interested by. She basically opens Penelope’s eyes and shows her the world.”
“Taking the role just shows Reese’s total dedication to the movie material. She’s very passionate about the project,” comments Scott Steindorff.
“Coming to the UK was our first exposure to Scottish actor James McAvoy and we were blown away, both in seeing a few of his films and meeting him, he just has this charm and charisma that is really perfect for the film. He’s also able to do the American accent so perfectly and that’s just a testament to his acting abilities” comments Dylan Russell. “We could have hired an American star or someone already well-established, but I don’t think it would have worked quite the same. I think having someone who is really breaking out in their career involved in this film, is exactly what we wanted and needed. He’s also a great match for Christina – they play off each other really well. What’s interesting about the story is both of them are these grounded characters where everything around them is absurd and comedic and I think that kind of the essence of who both of them are as people as well.”
Casting Peter Dinklage as Lemon was Mark Palansky and Jennifer Simpson’s idea. “We needed a really unique personality for Lemon,” explains Dylan Russell. “He’s such a great character and is kind of the glue that holds this kind of story together. He showed up and he’s such an amazing actor and he brought a whole other persona to the piece and made it his own character. You see him with the eye patch, and the suit, and the moustache – it’s just perfect. I didn’t know who that character really was until Peter showed up on set and that’s when you realize he is Lemon.
“Catherine O’Hara was our first and only choice as the mother” admits Jennifer Simpson. “She’s such a great comedian and yet she is so sympathetic, and so emotional. She’s a fabulous actress and it’s an absolute blast having her and Richard E Grant together.”
“Richard has a very distinctive, comic background that was important for this part,” says Steindorff. “The material attracted great talent so we’re really pleased with the casting.”
The Snout
US-based prosthetics specialist Scott Stoddard is responsible for the entire design, look and feel of the prosthetic pig’s snout worn by Christina Ricci. “The design process started with myself and Mark Palansky back in June 2005 when we started doing some drawings and it evolved from there. It’s been a long process and we went through four different make up designs and we sculpted and tested them on Christina to work out which ones worked best for her and her character and her own mobility and for the film itself” explains Stoddard.
The prosthetic appliance took around half an hour just to anchor it down onto Ricci, “You have to concentrate on every square inch because there are certain areas that are so thin. Most people might think the nose ends in one place, but it actually goes half way across her face so it covers a wide area. I wanted to do it that way so that your eye wasn’t going to go for the most obvious.”
“We started with a severe version and from that we started going backwards until we reached something that would be more acceptable for the audience to look at for a long period of time. You need to have the audience turned off by it a bit at first but be able to accept it throughout the film and get to love the character. It’s a very thin line and you can’t go too far. I think we struck a good balance.”
The Costumes
British Costume Designer Jill Taylor was initially briefed by director Mark Palansky on the look and style he wanted to achieve with the costumes for each of the characters. “When I met with Mark he had some great ideas and he had all this visual reference on his laptop that he wanted to incorporate into the look. We also worked in conjunction with the actors,” explains Taylor. “I always like to get their input.”
“My brief from Mark about Penelope was that she’s lived in her own little world. She’s had no outside influence and has never really been out of her room as she’s been hidden away by her parents. We tried to put things together for her in a sort of quirky ‘other-worldly’ way. That’s very difficult to do because when you look around the shops, everything has been done to death. It’s either retro or whatever you do has been done in some shape or form somewhere before.
“So, we took lots of ribbons, braid, buttons, brooches and cross-stitching and decorated pieces for her, so as to give the impression that she’d customized some of her clothes herself. Things have turned up in her room and she plays with them – she’s very inventive and quite eccentric and adds bits and puts things together in her own unique way. Mark wanted to incorporate his original art work, so we had these quirky tights and shoes and things put together in a weird way. The other factor we had to take into account was Christina’s size as she’s a tiny lady. You have to be careful what you give her so you don’t overwhelm her, so we followed the tights and the shoes but we kept them plainer in colour.”
One of the scenes that provided the greatest challenge was the Halloween party. “Because of a timing thing, my poor trusty assistant Charlotte and I were making Christina’s Halloween outfit over night for the next day! Mark had had an idea and wanted something different but I always assumed it was a continuity outfit from a previous scene and a couple of days before we shot it he said she should be in something different. So I did a drawing for a coat and Charlotte and I were up most of the night making and then decorating it. Mark loved it and asked when we’d finished it and I said, five minutes before she put it on!”
Christina Ricci on playing Penelope
“The script was sent to me and I read and really loved it. I thought it was great and I loved that it was a fairytale. It had a very slightly skewed sense of humour to it and then I met with Reese and Jennifer Simpson and just thought it sounded wonderful. I saw Mark’s short film and then I met with him and thought that visually what he was going to bring to the story was really interesting.”
“I was sent drawings of the pig’s nose, along with the script so I had an idea of what it would look like and we tried several versions of the pig nose. The first one was really hideous and pretty shocking – I always visualised it as being more of a cute little pig’s nose and that’s what we eventually ended up with.”
“The character I play has been kept indoors her whole life to avoid the tabloid journalists. Her parents pretended that she died when she was a baby so she’s been kept in the house for twenty-five years. Penelope is very creative and has found ways to decorate her world and her room is this gorgeous, really fantastic playroom. She is very idealistic and very naive for her age because she hasn’t ever been out in the world. Basically all she just wants is very simple – to have a life like everyone else.”
“I suppose you could make the comparisons between us. I’ve been working as an actress since I was a child. I’ve never felt famous and don’t remember much of a life before I was an actress, so to me this is my life. When there is nothing to compare it too, you don’t really notice the difference.”
James McAvoy on playing Max
“When I read the script, I liked the fact that was commenting in a roundabout way on the cult of celebrity and the interest and hysteria in celebrities. It’s all blown out of proportion and we are too concerned with image and people’s looks and this film directly comments on that. It has a brilliant, heightened, fairytale fable kind of style which I love.”
“I knew Christina was attached early on and I knew Reese Witherspoon was going to be producing and taking a cameo and on top of that knowing Catherine O’Hara was going to be in it was huge for me, because she’s one of the funniest actresses out there. Richard E Grant is amazing, I was so excited to hear Peter Dinklage was in it too – he was so good in The Station Agent, so when I found that on top of Christina and Reese I’ve got all these other amazing actors to work with, its very good company to be in.”
Peter Dinklage on playing Lemon
“I got the script and the offer at the same time. I judge my decisions after reading the script and I really liked it. I also heard who else was involved and talked to Mark Palansky and I just got a really good feel for it. So you’ve got to trust your own instincts about stuff like that.”
“I think Lemon needs to get the story to pay the bills, but he does go through a moral crisis and he questions what he is doing which is important to the story and for me as an actor.”
“I think what people will take from the movie is, just be happy with who you are. I just hope it brings a nice pleasant smile to people’s faces. I think it’s one those films where people will still be giggling with a warm feeling afterwards.”
Richard E. Grant on playing Franklin Wilhern
“I think this film is a moral fable about self-image and the pressure on teenage girls to be a certain shape and have a certain look and if you don’t fit into that you pay a terribly price or you have to have a nose job or surgery. All of those pressures that are on the very young today. It’s also about following your own nose and your own instinct.”
“In every scene I’m either put upon or obliterated by my wife and Catherine plays it so wittily and she’s so generous and such a firecracker of a person, I couldn’t ask for better really. The script proved to be original and different, so the combination of all those things made it very attractive to do.”
Penelope (2008)
Directed by: Mark Palansky
Starring: Christina Ricci, James McAvoy, Catherine O’Hara, Reese Witherspoon, Peter Dinklage, Richard E. Grant, Simon Woods, Ronni Ancona, Nick Frost, James McAvoy, Andrew Bailey
Screenplay by: Leslie Caveny
Production Design by: Amanda McArthur
Cinematography by: Michel Amathieu
Film Editing by: John Gregory
Costume Design by: Jill Taylor
Set Decoration by: Bridget Menzies
Art Direction by: Gerard Bryan, John Reid
Music by: Joby Talbot
MPAA Rating: PG for thematic elements, innuendo and language.
Distributed by: Summit Entertainment
Release Date: February 29, 2008
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