In Lee Knight’s A Friend of Dorothy, the entitled Scott (Oscar Lloyd) expects that when Dickie (Stephen Fry) reads him the will left by his late grandmother Dorothy (Miriam Margolyes), he’ll get everything, but is unpleasantly surprised to find out about the friendship she struck up with the far less self-serving JJ (Alistair Nwachukwu).
Awards Buzz spoke with Knight about what compelled him to make the switch from acting to directing with this film:
“As a creative, things come up that you want to explore, and this was just a story about a real friendship that me and my husband have with a neighbor. I just was trying to find an avenue that I wanted to explore the story, whether it was a short play or a full-length film or a short story, and then it just came to me as a short film. That was what I decided. But, yeah, being an actor for years, I suppose, I feel this is another way of being a storyteller, if that makes sense. Acting, writing, directing, it’s all just different outlets of storytelling.”
On how this story could work equally well as a play, which isn’t all that common:
“I would be the first to say, ‘This is the story, done, there’s no more life. But I really believe that it could be – I’m working on the feature, that’s my goal, to work on the feature length next. I also think it could be a wonderful play. I really do.”
Watch the video above to hear how he wrote the film for Margolyes but never expected to get her and how he was able to elicit a yes from Fry too and find the two younger actors.
A Friend of Dorothy is on the Oscar shortlist for Best Live Action Short.
