The Royal Speculator

With 'The Queen,' Screenwriting Nominee Peter Morgan Put Words in Some Tight-Lipped Mouths

Of the imagined private conversations in his Oscar-nominated script for "The Queen," Peter Morgan says, "It may not be accurate -- you don't know -- but is it truthful . . . are you giving the character a fair hearing?" (By Bebeto Matthews -- Associated Press)

PASADENA, Calif.

Whether dramatizing the life of Queen Elizabeth II or "The Last King of Scotland's" Idi Amin, British screenwriter Peter Morgan exhaustively studies the powerful, leaving few facts unturned.

Then, to create drama out of truth, he enters the realm of speculation, making himself quite right at home.

"I think it's fair game to conjecture what was going on in the queen's bedroom, what was going on behind closed doors, that sort of stuff," says Morgan, an Oscar nominee this year for Best Original Screenplay for "The Queen."

"The Queen," also nominated for Best Picture, chronicles the stoic monarch's reluctance to mourn publicly for ex-daughter-in-law Princess Diana -- and the pressure from touchy-feely Prime Minister Tony Blair for Her Royal Highness to join in their nation's grief. Much is known fact, but there is also a great deal about Her Majesty, particularly her feelings and thoughts, which can be known only to herself.

"You have to ask yourself as a dramatist, 'Do you believe there is a relationship between truth and accuracy?' It may not be accurate -- you don't know -- but is it truthful, is it truthful and fair, are you giving the character a fair hearing?" says Morgan, 43.

How, though, does he make truth dramatic without falsifying it?

"By having compassion, I suppose," says Morgan, who, clad in jeans and a casual sweater, looks utterly normal for an industry that invites image-seekers.

Helen Mirren, the Best Actress favorite for "The Queen's" title role, praises the "elegance, wit and restraint" in Morgan's writing. She singles out the moment when the queen, alone on the Scottish moors, comes face to face with a magnificent, endangered stag.

That "was the scene that made me agree to do the movie," e-mails Mirren, who has received numerous honors for the role, including a Golden Globe. "This scene took it out of a literal and drama/docu type film and into a work of imagination and power."

Kevin Macdonald, who directed "The Last King of Scotland," says by e-mail: "There are no heroes and no villains in Peter's work. Sometimes we argued because I wanted him to make characters darker -- but he resisted this because his [rare] view of human nature is a fundamentally optimistic one.

"On the surface, Peter -- as a person -- can seem like a cynic, but it doesn't take long to realize that he is -- not exactly a Romantic -- but someone with a genuinely big heart."