Anthony Andrews and Charles Sturridge on Brideshead Revisited 'We'd often be filming in one room of Castle Howard while the public passed by in another' Interviews by Anna Tims (GUARDIAN)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bbwTPq630s&feature=player_embedded

Anthony Andrews, actor

Filming began on Gozo, one of the Maltese islands, which was standing in for Africa. I never forgave them for this, because it meant we started with my character Sebastian's final scenes. So Jeremy Irons [Charles Ryder] and I had to film the bedside scenes in hospital before we'd figured out our characters or built a relationship.

I was tearing my hair out, too, because there were such holes in the script: we were required to make mammoth jumps. The plan had been for a six-hour series but it was impossible to fit this all-encompassing book into such a time frame without skipping some golden parts. So when a pay strike stopped production in 1979, it gave everyone time to take stock. We feared the project would be scrapped; but Granada had such faith in what we were doing that, in the midst of severe cutbacks, they doubled our budget to £10m, gave us permission to shoot the entire book, and let us get on with it.

Because of the delay, however, we lost our director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who had a Hollywood commitment. And many locations, including Castle Howard in Yorkshire, became a problem. The owner, George Howard, did not want us to film when the estate was open to the public, but, after negotiations, relented; we'd often be behind the cameras in one room while members of the public passed by in another. We became firm friends with the family and often crashed out at the castle after a wild evening with the sons.


READ MORE:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/jun/18/how-we-made-brideshead-revisited?newsfeed=true