Emily Blunt, young Victoria in the film “The Young Victoria,” which the Cinema Society screened to VIPs last night, told me the rigors of play ing Her Majesty the Queen.
“Between the gown and the crown, it was so restricting. Especially when I remember how difficult it was for me the first time I wore a bra. And now these costumes! I wish the public had been able to see behind the scenes in the dressing room getting into those tightly corseted Victorian outfits. I learned how to survive when they lace you tight. It takes getting used to. You must inhale so your rib cage expands. This way, after you’re all done up you can have room to breathe. Any other way, and there’s no wiggle room.
“We wore flats under those huge, voluminous gowns, which, in fact, they actually did in the early period. They wore ballet boots.
“And the tiara. It was my real hair, not a wig. The thing was so heavy, so huge and pinned onto me so tight that I think they must’ve used duct tape.
“After a day’s shooting, I’d instantly put on sweat pants. I needed something comfy. I needed to feel my inner organs working again.
“There was also the posture. I’m slouching right now, my feet on the couch as you and I are speaking on the phone. Playing Queen Victoria, I always had to sit straight up, stand straight up. The balance, the posture had to be absolutely correct.
“At the end of a day in her life she’d often collapse. She had no life. It was all restriction. The duress, the pressure, ridiculed publicly in cartoons, much as our politicians are today. She’d see herself in the paper being made fun of, see the whole country turn against her, people standing on pedestals speaking out against her in public. It was too much for her to bear.”
And then said Emily Blunt: “Everyone thinks royalty is so grand. It’s really hard. I wouldn’t want to live with that protocol, being on all the time, constantly under watch. She was acquainted with grief. I’ve read her actual diaries, seen what she writes about the manipulation. I read about her dreams and how she hated this person or that. It was quite emotional. She was a young girl and in way over her head.”
HIS Excellency the Chief Executive of the Godblessus State of New York the Right Honorable David Pater son Himself had a small do this week. Through a meatball hors d’oeuvre at Cru downtown, he said: “I’m a sore loser, and I’m not yet done with marriage equality.”
The two of us share an ongoing slightly unclassy joke dealing with his first night ever sleeping in Albany’s Executive Mansion bedroom where, in the middle of the night, the day-old Gov. couldn’t find the john. So at this party I whispered for fun: “Have you peed yet tonight?” and he whispered back: “No, because I’m waiting to do it when the Legislature is under me.”
First Lady Michelle, the state’s newest must-get speaker at every event, arrived in a Rachel Roy outfit and split early because “I have to check on my son.”
‘LOVE Never Dies,” Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s sequel to “Phantom” with musical strains that tie to “Phantom,” opens in London in March and here next October. Following surgery, His Lordship, who usually makes a drama out of a cold, is now home and actually chirping . . . More on the arts and healing: Emmy-winning filmmaker Rick Traum turning wife Nadine‘s “Native Land: Lost in the Mystery of Time” novel into a feature. It’s about an accident in a Florida forest, and the couple then heal thanks to Native Americans . . . Massachusetts may have moved on from the Kennedys, but the Kennedys haven’t moved on. Former Rep. Joe (that’s RFK’s son) isn’t in the mix anymore, but his son Joe the third, now in the DA’s office, which is where Kennedys often begin, is. Looking to run for office.
SO, on Operation Tiger Woods: NBC- TV analyst Dan Abrams: “Winning two tournaments and the Masters, the bad p.r.’s over.” . . . Dan Rather: “The coverage was totally proportionate. The number of women makes it a legitimate big story.” . . . Jean, Mrs. Rather: “My cab driver said, ‘I’m doing a poll. Women say his wife should leave him. Men say, Aaah, what the hell.’ So I asked, ‘Anyone mention how this may affect the kids?’ and he said, ‘No.’ ” . . . Al Sharpton: “Hey, leave me outta this one. This may be the only time I’m looking to keep my mouth shut.” . . . Realtor Sondra Hassman: “Elin must enjoy golf. She swings clubs even off the fairway.” . . . And from a Park Avenue-type blonde: “He’s an even greater golfer than I ever imagined. I mean, when you suddenly realize he never had time to practice!”
NORTHEAST corner of 57th and Fifth, outside right at the curb, smack in front of Louis Vuitton, 7:30 p.m. Food vendor hustling pretzels, franks, falafel, gyros, younameit in a pushcart with no top, no sides, no front, no back. Anchored to it, a huge lit-up multibulb sign that said: “Open.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.