Lambert Wilson: 'Of Gods And Men' (And James Bond)

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20110222
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Fresh Air
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Lambert Wilson: 'Of Gods And Men' (And James Bond)

TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

The new film, "Of Gods and Men," won the grand prize at last year's Cannes Film
Festival. It's based on the true story of seven French monks in Algeria who
were kidnapped by Islamic insurgents and later found beheaded.

The film is set in a mountain village in Algeria in 1996, during a civil war in
which Islamic insurgents are fighting the military-run government. The monks
belong to the Cistercian, or Trappist, order and spend several hours each day
in silence and several hours singing prayers together.

They're also working with the local villages and run a medical clinic. When the
Islamic insurgents demand that all foreigners leave the country, the monks must
decide whether to stay with the villagers, knowing they will likely be killed,
or to flee. Much of the movie is about how the monks arrive at their decision.

My guest, Lambert Wilson, stars in the film as Brother Christian. Wilson is
well-known in France for his many roles in movies and TV shows. He starred in
the first French production of the Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music."

His father, Georges Wilson, was also in my films and directed the National
Popular Theater. In America, Lambert Wilson is best known for his appearances
in "The Matrix" trilogy and "Catwoman." I talked with Lambert Wilson about "Of
Gods and Men."

Lambert Wilson, welcome to FRESH AIR. Why were these monks, the monks that you
and the other actors portray, why were they in Algeria?

Mr. LAMBERT WILSON (Actor): They went to Algeria for different reasons. My
character had a complete passion for that country. He was in Algeria as a
little boy. He was raised in Algeria, and then he went back to France, and then
he returned to Algeria when he was in his 20s during the Franco-Algerian war in
the '50s. He chose to go to this small abbey to be a monk.

Most of them had a passion for their cause, which was to help the local
villagers, to help them read, to take care of them. This little abbey was in
the middle of nowhere, and I think you have to remember that this is an order
that is very strict, in which people, monks, speak as little as possible.

They work. They pray. They sing. And I think it was a sort of an ideal place
for them to do these things, as well.

GROSS: What did you do to get into character? I read that you lived in a
monastery for about six days.

Mr. WILSON: Well, first of all, we read a lot of material that's written about
these monks. So there was all this documentation that we could absorb. And then
the first step was to go to a retreat in one of these monasteries in France, in
the French Alps.

The director decided to split the group of actors in two groups. So we were
four and four. And we spent a few days observing the monks, eating in silence
with the other people who were going on the retreat. That was the first contact
with the monastic life.

And then we started singing, and that was really the best preparation. We
learned Gregorian chanting. We learned liturgical singing. And that was the
cement of the group. This is really what got this group of French actors
together.

We took a lot of lessons with a specialist, and...

GROSS: Why did you need a specialist? What's different about the kind of
chanting and singing that you had to do in your roles as monks, compared to
what you've done on CD and on stage in musicals?

Mr. WILSON: Well, it's very specific. I think the director and the producers
wanted the actors to be as close to the real thing as possible. And there is
something very specific about the rhythms of this singing, about the use of the
voice.

You know, it's - you don't use vibrato like you would for a musical or for an
opera. It's something that's much, much cleaner, much purer. And that's what
they were looking for.

And also we had to sing in harmony. We had to learn and memorize all these
chants. And we had to find, among ourselves, among actors, is this sort of -
the unity, the melting of the voices, the sense of elevation that you get
together, which has absolutely nothing to do with theatrical singing. It's
something completely different.

And that did it, in a way, because after that, we were on the set, and we put
on our habits, and that was it.

GROSS: When you say it has nothing to do with theatrical singing, theatrical
singing is about communicating something to the audience. And this kind of
singing is about a way of being in the world and a way of just communicating
with the other monks, a way of finding unity with God and unity with the monks
and calm within yourself.

Mr. WILSON: It's about merging. It's about merging towards something bigger
than yourself. It's not about performance. In fact, I had to - how can I say -
turn myself down. I wanted, as any trained actor, I wanted to have the most
beautiful sound. I wanted to - it was very difficult for me at the beginning
not to perform, not to come up with these sounds.

But that was the best training because we communicated. In fact, we loved it so
much that on the set, we would sing in the middle of waiting, let's say, for a
scene to be lit. Normally actors go and have a cigarette, you know. They go and
play cards, or they go on their cell phones. No, we would gather and sing. We
would sing all day, in fact. We would sing on the set. Suddenly, we would
embark on this chanting, and it was extraordinary.

GROSS: Let me play one of the hymns from the film so we can hear what you're
talking about. And this is during the part of the film where the monks are
deciding whether they're going to stay or go. They know their lives are in
danger if they stay. And their lives would probably be in danger if they left
because getting out would be very difficult.

So this is the translation. It's sung in French. This is the translation that's
given in the American version: Like parched earth, I stand before your love. Oh
lord, hear my prayer. Listen to my cry for mercy. In your faithfulness, answer
me. Enter not into judgment with your servant for no man living is righteous
before you. The enemy persecutes my soul. He has smitten my life to the ground.
He has made me dwell in darkness with those long dead. My spirit grows faint
within me, my heart within me dismayed. Answer me quickly, oh lord. My spirit
fails.

Here's my guest, Lambert Wilson, with the other actors playing monks in the new
film "Of Gods and Men," and Lambert Wilson is leading the chant. You'll hear
him sing solo lines and then the monks joining in.

(Soundbite of film, "Of Gods and Men")

Mr. WILSON and Unidentified Men: (Singing in foreign language).

GROSS: That's Lambert Wilson and the other actors playing monks in the new film
"Of Gods and Men." Have these hymns stuck with you?

Mr. WILSON: Oh yes, they have. When I hear what I just heard, I'm immediately
back in the little chapel where we were performing, filming. And some of them I
really love. For instance, I went back after the film to the monastery where I
had gone on a retreat, and I was so happy to be able to sing with the monks. I
was so thrilled because some of them I love, like one would love pop songs.

I just - there's - my favorite is the last one that monks sing in the evening,
which is a hymn to Mary, which is the only one that is exactly like in the
Gregorian tradition. It's sung in Latin. All the other ones are sung in French,
but this one is sung in Latin, and it is so beautiful. So I was extremely happy
because I had the impression that I had become a bit one of them, in a way.

GROSS: Would you mind singing a little bit of that just so we could hear it?

Mr. WILSON: Oh, my God.

Mr. WILSON: (Singing in foreign language). Et cetera, et cetera.

GROSS: That's really beautiful. My guest is actor Lambert Wilson. He stars in
the new film "Of Gods and Men." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH
AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is the French actor Lambert Wilson,
who stars in the new film "Of Gods and Men," which is about a group of French
monks in an Algerian monastery in 1996. And they have to decide whether to stay
and most likely be killed, probably by Islamic radicals, or to try to go.

There's a scene, and I hope you don't mind my talking about the scene because
it's fairly deep in the film, but there's a scene after the monks have decided
to stay, and Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" is playing on their record player.

And the camera just goes from one monk's face to another, very long close-ups.
By long, I mean a long period of time on each face. And you see this mix of
emotion on each of the monk's faces, this mix of, I think, like acceptance, a
feeling of being - that they soon will be kind of closer to God, but there's
also fear.

There are two - there's happiness in being united together, to be one with the
other monks but uncertainty about how this will play out. So every face - all
of the faces of the monks are such interesting faces, and that's one of the
things that makes the scene so interesting because just watching these faces,
let along the expressions on the faces, is interesting.

Can you tell me what it was like for you to film that scene, knowing that you
had to register very profound thoughts on your face but without kind of, you
know, playing it, making it broad?

Mr. WILSON: Well, at the time, we were not performing anymore, and that's the
very odd thing that happened with the actors, and our director, Xavier Beauvois
- this was one of the last scenes we shot in the schedule, in the shooting
schedule.

So I think we'd reached a level of acting which was not acting anymore. We all
felt what we had to do. And I'm not saying that to be - sound interesting, but
I think that's really what happened.

At the same time, the director left the camera in front of each actor in a
close-up for a very, very long time, and I remember when the camera was on me,
I had to emote and do all the emotions in the world for about six minutes,
going from fear to compassion, to anger, to love, and at the end, I didn't know
what to do anymore.

And he was relentless. He would just keep that camera in front of your face.

GROSS: So I don't know if you were ever a religious person, if you spent time
in church at all during your life, but has making the film changed you at all
in terms of your religious or spiritual orientation?

Mr. WILSON: I think it has. I think it's made it more crucial, more present,
something of every day. I've always been fascinated, in a way - since I was a
little kid, I've always been fascinated by churches. My parents were completely
non-clerical. They hated priests. And I did not have a religious upbringing at
all.

But I remember when I was a little kid, I asked my neighbors in the little
village in the French countryside to take me to mass one Sunday because I
wanted to see what it was like.

And then I was very frustrated also because I didn't study catechism when I was
little kid. And also, I was not baptized. My brother was baptized, but I was
not baptized. And so this has become an obsession with me throughout my
childhood, adolescence and early years as a man.

And so I became - I baptized much later in my life.

GROSS: How old were you?

Mr. WILSON: I must have been about almost 40, between - in late 30s. And I was
baptized by a wonderful, wonderful man, a priest whom I had portrayed in a
French film. His name was L'abbe Pierre, Brother Pierre, and he's a man who
took care of the homeless, very famous in France, who is dead now. So he
baptized me, and it was extraordinary.

And so I've always been attracted by those questions. I've always had a huge
difficulty with dogma and religion. But I've always been strongly drawn toward
spirituality and all of those questions.

GROSS: So I'm thinking it would be interesting to hear you sing something
secular now, since we've heard you sing a beautiful hymn. You have an album
called "Loin," from 2007, and the songs on this are all French songs. And did
you write the songs on this?

Mr. WILSON: I wrote one lyric, well, for one song. Yeah, the lyrics for one
song, to my great shame.

GROSS: I'm not sure if it's the one I chose, but...

Mr. WILSON: Let's hope not.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: This is a favorite of mine. I don't know what the lyrics mean anyways.
My French is just not good enough. So this is "Trois C'est Trop." So you tell
us what the song's about, and then we'll hear it.

Mr. WILSON: Well, it's all about three is too much for tango, meaning it's all
about a couple that is not a couple anymore but a trio, and so this man is
saying three is really too much.

GROSS: Okay. So let's hear it. So this is my guest, Lambert Wilson, singing
from his album "Loin."

(Soundbite of song, "Trois C'est Trop")

Mr. WILSON: (Singing in foreign language).

GROSS: That's my guest, the French actor, Lambert Wilson, who is now starring
in "Of Gods and Men." And I should mention not long ago that you starred in
France in the first French production of Stephen Sondheim's musical "A Little
Night Music." So I should say I like your singing a lot, and...

Mr. WILSON: Thank you. I'm an absolute fan of Stephen Sondheim's.

GROSS: Me, too.

Mr. WILSON: I've done "A Little Night Music." It's the second time I did "A
Little Night Music." I've changed characters. I did the first one at the
National Theater in London and then this year, well, last year, at the Le
Theatre du Chatelet in Paris. We're going to do that again this summer in
Italy, in the Spoleto Festival.

"A Little Night Music" is such a beautiful, beautiful, perfect piece. I was
happy that finally Stephen Sondheim was performed in Paris because it was long
due, and it was a huge success.

GROSS: Why did it take so long?

Mr. WILSON: I think it's because - the trouble is that people try to translate
him, and you cannot translate Sondheim. So - because the words are so cleverly
placed on the music.

And so finally, this wonderful theater in Paris decided to put on a Sondheim
show without translating it, just with quick subtitles and that was that. So
that solved the problem.

And also because we don't have a tradition of musical comedy, we don't have the
theaters that can put them up, and we don't have the same musical culture. We
are a country of operetta, and we are a country of rock. And we don't so much
have the tradition of musical theater.

GROSS: My guest, Lambert Wilson, will be back in the second half of the show.
He stars in the new film "Of Gods and Men." Here's more from his album, "Loin."

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of song, "D'Avril A Mai")

Mr. WILSON: (Singing foreign language)

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with French actor Lambert
Wilson. He stars in the new film "Of Gods and Men," which is based on the story
of seven French monks who were living in Algeria in 1996 during the civil war,
when they were kidnapped by Islamic insurgents. The monks were later found
beheaded. Wilson has starred in many French films, and is best known in America
for his roles in the "Matrix" films as The Merovingian.

Now, your father Georges Wilson was a famous French actor and director. He was
the director of the – I'm sorry for my pronunciation here – Theatre Nationale
Populaire.

Mr. WILSON: Very good.

GROSS: Which was the National Popular Theatre, is how it translates?

Mr. WILSON: Yes.

GROSS: And he directed that from '63 to '72.

Mr. WILSON: Uh-huh.

GROSS: What was the importance of that theater?

Mr. WILSON: Oh, huge. It was like the national theater, with another one which
was much more classical called the Comedie-Francaise. But the National Popular
Theatre was – first of all, it had a huge auditorium, and it had a wonderful
repertoire of avant-garde plays of Bertolt Brecht that my father directed a
lot. And it had a company. It had a company of excellent actors. And then it
finished in Paris when my father left. But when I was a kid going to the
theater when my dad was a director was extraordinary. I mean, it was – and I
meet a lot of people now who tell me – oh, people in their 50s and 60s who tell
me that they were always going to the – we used call it the TNP, the TNP - that
they would always go and see plays. And because it was a repertoire company for
also a lot of classical writers. And it left a very, very strong imprint, I
think, in the current mentality.

GROSS: And I should say some Americans may have seen your father recently in
the French movie "Nazarene," based on the real life of a French gangster. But
your father played a millionaire who's held hostage.

Mr. WILSON: Yes. He's done a lot of cameos throughout his life. I mean, he did
a lot of films, but his life was really in the theater. He - before he became
the director of that theater, he was the assistant to the man who was the
director. So my father could only do cinema in the summer when he wasn't at the
theater. And so he did – he must have been in about a hundred films. But I
think his frustration was that because of the space that theater took in his
life, that he couldn't really have a great career in films. That was a big
tragedy in his life.

GROSS: When you were growing up and going to the theater with your father when
he directed in the theater, did he tell you that the theater is a very special
place and that you had to behave in a certain way there?

Mr. WILSON: He was very ambiguous. At the same time he took me to the theater,
he took me to the summer festival in the wonderful town of Avignon, in the
south of France. He did everything he could to give me a taste of this
profession, of this world. And at the same time, when I was 16-and-a-half and I
had auditioned in a drama school in London, he refused. He would not subsidize
me. He was extremely violent. He was extremely adamant that I didn't have it in
me. And...

GROSS: That you weren't good enough?

Mr. WILSON: Yeah. Yeah. That - what he said was interesting. He said that I
hadn't suffered enough as a young man, that I didn't have strong enough
motivation to – he had, as being an adolescent during the war, he had to take
revenge on the world, in a way. That was his motivation for becoming an actor.
He wanted to take revenge. It was a very strong drive, and he was worried that
my drive was not strong enough.

GROSS: I should say, the International Herald Tribune described your father as
a difficult man. Maybe that's the kind of thing...

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: ...that they meant.

Mr. WILSON: Yes. I mean, he was a very – how can I say – was authoritative
and...

GROSS: Authoritarian?

Mr. WILSON: Authoritarian, yes, and dictatorial man, which I think most
directors are, and when they're not, you have to worry a little bit. And he was
known for his angers, and at the same time, he was a very subtle and sweet man.
It's very – he was very complex.

GROSS: So, when your father told you that you didn't have it in you to act, you
hadn't suffered enough, why did you think he was wrong?

Mr. WILSON: Because I knew what my suffering was. My suffering was...

GROSS: What was your suffering?

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: What was your suffering? You tell us all.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: I think I was feeling very ill-at-ease within myself. I was
extremely shy. I felt very embarrassed all the time. I was blushing the entire
time one looked at me, and I was blushing. And so I think my suffering came
from my lack of comfort within myself. It was very strong.

GROSS: Is that a kind of suffering your father understood, or that even counted
for him?

Mr. WILSON: No, not at all. Not at all. He didn't see it at all, because he
wasn't there, anyway, to witness those moments of lack of confidence. But at
the same time, as I said, he had done everything he could to give me the virus
of theater. Because if you don't want your son to become an actor, you do not
invite him to go to a summer festival and to carry spears in a play, which I
did for him.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: Because, of course, it goes straight to your head, as it did to me.

GROSS: So you studied in England, which I suppose is why you have such a
command of the English language and...

Mr. WILSON: Not this morning.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: No, no. No, you do. So - but when you arrived in England, could you
speak convincingly?

Mr. WILSON: When I arrived in London, I thought I understood everything, and I
did not. So for about six months, I didn't understand what anybody said,
basically. I was trying to imitate others. The first day of the first term,
when the principal at the school addressed us, I mean, I simply didn't
understand a word he said. And I had auditioned in French, because they quickly
realized that my English wasn't good enough and so they shifted to French, and
it was a catastrophe. I mean, it was – I wasted a lot of time, and I was too
young, anyway. I mean, imagine being in a drama school at 17. It's so young.
You don't know anything about life. And it was a Method school, of all
techniques, so, therefore, a school in which you are supposed to bring your own
experience to the character that you're performing. And I had none. That was a
very...

GROSS: Well, that would probably have reinforced what your father had said. You
know, you haven't suffered enough. You haven't enough experience.

Mr. WILSON: True. Well, I certainly suffered in England.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: Because it was a very tough school. It's an interesting school, the
Drama Centre. It's a school in which people like Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth
had been trained. It's a combination of the Method school, a la The Actors
Studio, and at the same time of more traditional English education - and a lot
of emphasis on the body, dance. And - but it was known to destroy people. It
was known to - for young actors to need five to 10 years to rebuild up a sort
of an ego.

GROSS: My guest is actor Lambert Wilson. He stars in the new film "Of Gods and
Men."

We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is the French actor Lambert Wilson.
And he's now starring in the movie "Of Gods and Men."

So you went back to France. You ended up doing a lot of French films. But I
read 0 and tell me if this is true - that you auditioned in 1987 to play James
Bond in "The Living Daylights?"

Mr. WILSON: I can't remember for which Bond it was, but yes, I did the whole
thing. The scene...

GROSS: What is the whole thing?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: Well, the whole scene, it's a scene with a woman in bed. That was
"From Russia With Love," and a scene - and then another scene with stunt guys
doing a big stunt scene. I remember the girl was Maryam D'Abo, who did the part
in the film. And that's something that I would pay a lot of money to see. Oh,
my God. I want to see that.

GROSS: What, the audition of scene?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Because I had...

GROSS: Go ahead. Go ahead.

Mr. WILSON: No, I had to say the famous line: My name is Bond, James Bond.
Perhaps it was impossible, and you cannot have a French Bond. My name is Bond.
James Bond.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: I think probably they were dreading that. So now I can only play a
bad guy in a Bond film.

GROSS: In bed, in the bed scene in Bond, did you have to have this like ultra
confidence?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: Yes. Yes. But you know what? I think my tests were not so bad,
because I remember they were - they wanted to know all my whereabouts for a
couple of months. And I started thinking: am I going to be James Bond? And does
it mean that wherever I go in the world, I'm going to be James Bond? And it
really scared me. And I was almost relieved that I didn't get it, because the
possibility of being known in such a famous character throughout the world was
actually pretty terrifying.

GROSS: Right. So, you know, I have to ask you, earlier we were talking about
when you were shooting "Of Gods and Men," and the kind of stillness you had to
express as a monk and the long close-ups that were on your face. I don't
remember this ad, but I know you did one or more of the Calvin Klein Eternity
ads.

Mr. WILSON: Oh, my God.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: And now and I have to say, I think of those ads - the ones I remember
and I'm not sure if you were in any of these - of, you know, a face on film or
a photograph where it's like, I am so handsome. I am so handsome. I love
myself, and you will love me, too.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: Well, but did you see them? Because I haven't seen them.

GROSS: I don't know that I've seen yours, but I've seen - this was from the
'80s, right, or the '90s?

Mr. WILSON: Yes.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. WILSON: But the ones...

GROSS: I just remember some of those ads, they're just like, you know, there
seems so much like vanity expressed in them.

Mr. WILSON: Well, I think the commercials that we did for the first series of
Eternity were actually much more bizarre than that. It was directed by Richard
Avedon, and I was with Christy Turlington, and it was much more about Ingmar
Bergman than about being a vain actor saying look at me, how gorgeous I am. We
were in a room, and we could never touch one another. And the room would
change, you know, film after film, the room would take the colors of different
seasons, and the lines were extraordinary. Because I remember I had to say to
her, would you still love me if I were a woman?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: Which was - that was really difficult to say.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: And, but they didn't work. Calvin Klein, I think, hated them, and
they disappeared really quickly.

GROSS: That's so funny.

Mr. WILSON: Unfortunately.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: So, your father, who discouraged you from going into acting, directed
you in a film in 1988?

Mr. WILSON: Yes.

GROSS: But what year or is it, '89?

Mr. WILSON: Yes. Yes. And it was...

GROSS: So what was it like to be directed by him after him telling you not to
even bother to act?

Mr. WILSON: Well, it was wonderful, because he knew me very well, and so he
knew what to get from me. And I must say that every time he directed me, I was
good. He was very proud to obtain a good result from me and - because every
time he would see me in a play or a film, he would say that it was nonsense,
that it was terrible, that I was terrible, that it was very badly directed. But
finally directing me, he could say well, I've got the best out of Lambert.

But it was an extraordinary experience to work with one's father, being
directed by him. I think we said everything that we could between a father and
a son all the - while we were working. We were very shy and modest during the
rest of the day. But when we working, we could say everything. And I think it's
a treasure to have had that experience with one's father. And...

GROSS: What could you say when you were working that you wouldn't have said
otherwise?

Mr. WILSON: Everything I could say. I could speak about our lives together. I
could speak about my mother. I could speak about - because it was all material
for a performance, in the way. But the wonderful thing is that I directed him
and that was really my tour de force, really. A couple of years ago I directed
“Berenice” by Racine and I asked him to be one of the characters and he
accepted and I directed my dad. Now that really, really completed the loop. It
was extraordinary (unintelligible) for me.

GROSS: Did he accept direction from you?

Mr. WILSON: Well, it was hard. It was extremely hard. And I had to be very
strong, especially I had to be very strong in front of the other actors because
he wanted to take power. He was so used to directing actors that he would just
tell them what to do. And I had to keep on telling him Dad, Dad, no, no. I'm
the director now.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: And it was tough. It was really tough but it was beautiful. That’s
one of my few subjects of pride, that production.

GROSS: I know your father died recently at the age of 88 and that he worked
until the end, which seems like so wonderful. But, I always feel that no matter
how old a parent is, no matter what your relationship was, it affects you in
ways that you are completely not prepared for if, you know, when they die.

Mr. WILSON: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: And I have read that you had a very difficult time afterwards.

Mr. WILSON: Well, I lost my mother and my dad within a year, and I worked
solidly. I did “Of Gods and Men” and another film “The Princess of
Montpensier,” which is going to come out in America. I did “A Little Night
Music.” I directed a play. And then I just - and then I lost it. I think it was
a combination of not having fully allowed myself to live the mournings of both
my parents and the sheer exhaustion of having been overworked. I completely
collapsed. I - and it's taken me six months to recover. I'm fine now but I was
really, really not so well a few months ago.

I think it's because I didn't have time so I treated those issues as a
formality, as almost like a one does a job, you know, okay, I bury my dad, I
bury my dad then I move on the following day to rehearse. Well, something
within you, something very deep within you takes her revenge and it certainly
did with me.

GROSS: When you came out the other end, did you feel like you had to make
changes in your life?

Mr. WILSON: Inevitably. And those changes took place without me...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILSON: ...without me wanting them to happen. They simply happened. I think
I couldn’t accept the same difficulty of work that I was used to before - I
mean doing two leads in two films, a musical comedy, directing a play, all that
in eight months is simply something that I can't do anymore, that I would not
do anymore. I think it's given me the priority of life, of quality of life, of
being with the people that I need, that are good for me much more. Yes, it’s
changed my life.

GROSS: Well, Lambert Wilson, it’s really been a pleasure to talk with you.
Thank you so much.

Mr. WILSON: Thank you, Terry.

GROSS: Lambert Wilson stars in the new film “Of Gods and Men.”

Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews the new album by songwriter, singer and guitarist
Teddy Thompson.

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Teddy Thompson's 'Bella' Lives Up To Its Name

(Soundbite of music)

TERRY GROSS, host:

British singer-songwriter Teddy Thompson moved to New York City to write and
record the songs for his new fifth album called “Bella.”

Rock critic Ken Tucker says that the result is a romantic album that spans an
impressively wide range of styles and moods.

(Soundbite of song, “Delilah”)

Mr. TEDDY THOMPSON (Musician): (Singing) Well, you and I were meant to be. And
in the end I know you’ll see that we can never be just friends. Our only love
will never end, Delilah. Oh, Delilah.

KEN TUCKER: Teddy Thompson sings in a keening tenor voice that registers as
confident and strong. Then he writes songs about what a weak, flawed, even
weaselly man he can be. This contrast is the key to most of the songs on
“Bella.”

On the song that opened this review, "Delilah," he speaks of having to get out
of his own way to open himself up to a happiness that he complicates
unnecessarily. A bit later on "Over and Over," his first-person narrator says
he criticizes and ridicules himself so that no one else can, that isolation is
a comfortable place and that repeating myself cuts the fear.

To strip these sentiments from the songs, you'd think you were in for a lot of
mopiness. Instead, “Bella” is bursting with wonderful pop songs such as its
lead-off track, "Looking for a Girl."

(Soundbite of song, "Looking for a Girl”)

Mr. THOMPSON: (Singing) I've been looking for a girl who drinks and smokes. Who
takes a lot of work but can take a joke. Where does this girl of mine hide
herself away? Whoever she is I hope she's on her way.

I've been looking for a girl. I've been looking for a girl. I've been looking
for a girl who knows how to love me.

I've been looking for a girl who is good in bed...

TUCKER: "Looking for a Girl," with its surging chorus and clever couplets about
looking for a girl who turns my bread into buttered toast could pass as a hit
on the American country-music charts and reminds you of this British singer-
songwriter's affinity for early rock styles. His third album, “Up Front and
Down Low,” was a collection of country-music covers, and on the new album, "I
Feel" has a Buddy Holly Everly Brothers approach to melodic harmony.

(Soundbite of song, "I Feel")

Mr. THOMPSON: (Singing) It's gone or it's going, this feeling I know it. And
there's nothing I can do to bring it back. It was love if I wanted but I chose
to ignore it. It was nothing that you did or should’ve done.

I feel so unclear - the rise, the fall, the pain. I feel so much fear - it’s
coming back again. I feel, I feel, I feel.

There’s a road that I travel...

TUCKER: Well, I've made it through three songs without mentioning that Teddy
Thompson is the son of Richard and Linda Thompson. Certainly, one way Teddy has
distinguished himself from his parents is by stressing his singing over his
guitar playing or songwriting. I suspect that's what's behind his continued
emphasis on American song craft, as well.

Still, he doesn't shy away from his status as the son of folk-rock royalty.
He's played in his father's band, in Rosanne Cash's band, helped write much of
his mother's 2002 comeback album and has performed with other music-family
siblings such as Rufus Wainwright.

On one of the best songs on “Bella,” he performs a duet with Jenni Muldaur, the
daughter of Maria and Geoff Muldaur. That song, "Tell Me What You Want," is
cast as a lovely back-and-forth between two lovers dancing around their mutual
desires and needs.

(Soundbite of song, “Tell Me What You Want”)

Mr. THOMPSON: (Singing) Baby, tell me what you want. I’ll do anything you want.

Ms. JENNI MULDAUR (Musician): (Singing) I want a love that can be true. Someone
who’ll love me through and through.

Mr. THOMPSON: (Singing) Baby, I can give you that. No problem, oh, I can give
you that.

Ms. MULDAUR: (Singing) Well, yeah, you said that once before. And then you
walked right out my door.

Mr. THOMPSON and Ms. MULDAUR: (Singing) Baby, tell me what you want.

TUCKER: Moving across the attractive surfaces of “Bella” is a fog of regret and
free-floating melancholy. The word or name "Bella" never appears on the album,
although Thompson has said in interviews that it's the name of someone he was
once close to. The album feels like the chronicle of a man coming to terms with
missed opportunities for an intimacy that only drives him deeper within
himself. This would be a self-indulgent downer had Teddy Thompson not
transmuted these sentiments into something lively and beautiful.

GROSS: Ken Tucker is editor-at-large for Entertainment Weekly. He reviewed
Teddy Thompson's album “Bella.” You can download podcasts of our show on our
website, freshair.npr.org.

I'm Terry Gross.

(Soundbite of song, ‘Take Care of Yourself”)

Mr. THOMPSON: (Singing) It’s time for us to part. Yeah, it’s best for us to
part. Oh, but I love you. Ooh, I love you. Take care of yourself. I’ll miss
you.

The nights are long alone. I sit alone and moan. Oh, ‘cause I love you. Ooh,
ooh, I love you. Take care of yourself. I’ll miss you.
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