The director remembers holing up in his in-laws’ garage with Stoppard to work on Anna Karenina, teasing him about his accent – and trying to turn him into a surrogate father
In 2010, I was preparing to direct Anna Karenina and told the producer, Tim Bevan, that if anyone should adapt Tolstoy’s novel, it should be Stoppard. Surprisingly – because he was already a hero – Tom agreed to meet.
I went to his apartment and we talked about the novel and the idea of love as a form of madness. It was a theme that was quite personal to him. I think he’d lived that a few times, and it became the thesis for the adaptation. Tom very simply went through the book and removed anything that didn’t relate to it.
