Film director Stephen Frears has one key worry in making his follow up to his political drama The Deal, which will centre on the week of Princess Diana's death and the relationship between Tony Blair and the Queen.
"I was listening to the queen on the radio and I thought, 'My God, we've got to make a film in which a woman talks like that all the way through."
Helen Mirren, who is to take the part, will "find her way through it" he told the Hay festival audience. Blair is to be played once again by Michael Sheen, who took the part in the first Blair/Brown story. "He's wonderful," said Frears, "but he is too small. I am always told that Blair is a tall man."
When asked if he thought his representation of the Blair/Brown partnership was 'true', he said: "You won't get me claiming that's what happened. It's just an educated guess. I choose to believe it. You are told every day about this central relationship. There was nothing in the script that made me not believe it.
"I did it as a good story. It's hard to find fiction that's as interesting or extraordinary."
Of its sequel, also to be screened on Channel Four, he said: "It's a very good piece of writing. It's very precise and intelligent."
Frears does a good line in gruff and he was expertly handled by interviewer Francine Stock.
What was it like, he was asked, working with Hollywood royalty, like Julia Roberts and Dustin Hoffman. "You cannot deny they are like something out of the court of Louis XIV. They are very powerful. I discovered I wasn't very good at making films with very famous people in them. I had no concept of what the audience wanted from them."
"I used to find the money overwhelming," he said of directing Hollywood big budget movies. In Accidental Hero, with Hoffman, one scene involved diverting a river. "This was outside my realm of experience. I simply didn't know how much these things cost."
Frears, who has also directed High Fidelity and Dangerous Liaisons, was visibly more enlivened when the debate turned to the smaller budget British films for which he has won such acclaim - My Beautiful Launderette and Dirty Pretty Things.
He appeared puzzled when asked why he had decided to make a film about a gay Pakistani launderette owner. "I thought it was about economics and Thatcherism," he replied.
My Beautiful Laundrette and Dirty Pretty Things both help make "sense of the things you see out of the corner of your eye" he added, whether they are the Pakistani family who run your local corner shop or Russians you now see everywhere in London.
"I don't want to make a film for people who are used to seeing Lord of the Rings. It's as simple as that."
Susie Steiner and Tom Happold
