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Robert Altman has a confession to make. He had been shooting his immensely successful Gosford Park, which opened in 2001, for a full six weeks before he even thought of the single element that eventually gave the film something approaching a storyline. He noticed that two of the actresses playing important "below stairs" parts, as servants in the stately home that gave the film its name, looked awfully alike.
What actually happened was that he was sitting in the cast tent on location when Helen Mirren walked by, in costume, on her first day on set. Except that Altman was sure it was one of the other actresses in the star-laden cast, Eileen Atkins. He called out Eileen's name, but, of course, Helen walked straight by without responding. Then he realised his mistake - and, after a brief panic, had a revelation.
"I thought, 'Shit, I'm in trouble, they look like sisters. They look like the same person'. And they did, there was a great similarity. But then I thought, let's make them sisters." And he did. And the sibling relationship thus created enabled Altman to give the film, a period mystery, some kind of narrative denouement. "I think the film would have fallen flat if we hadn't had that final catharsis."
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