Pinewood Studios, home of the British film industry, has had to hire extra security to keep Olivia Colman out while making a film she wasn’t cast in. “Obviously I knew it wouldn’t be easy,” said embattled producer Mike Chaffinch. “But I thought if we swore everyone to secrecy, maybe we could get away with it.
”Unfortunately - I don’t know if someone blabbed, or she saw a casting call for extras, or what - but three weeks into the shoot, security radioed that Colman was at the front gate, demanding to know if we were making a film without her.
”I headed straight out to reassure her we’d never do that, and I was only here for a meeting. I almost had her convinced, when at the worst possible moment the director shouted ‘Cut!’ I hoped she hadn’t heard, but I saw such a terrible look of betrayal in her eyes… it’s amazing how much she can convey without saying a word. Almost made me wish we’d cast her.”
Meanwhile, a spokesman for BAFTA said he hadn’t heard anything about a film without Olivia Colman being made, and thought it must be a misunderstanding - “Maybe they were just shooting a scene she wasn’t in?” He added that he couldn’t imagine any director not casting her as it would would render the film ineligible for most awards, and was probably a condition of funding anyway.