Maurice was ground-breaking at the time, particularly for being a gay movie with a happy ending. It launched the careers of Hugh Grant, who played closeted Clive, and James Wilby as Maurice, who was tormented by the life he longed to lead. Attitude exclusively caught up with actor James Wilby, who returns to revisit the Edwardian landscape of forbidden love once more. Can you remember how such a iconic role first came into your life? I went up for an interview, not for one of the three main characters — not Clive or Scudder, just somebody at Cambridge. So I was sort of written out.
Exclusive Interview: James Wilby on his role In Maurice
Exclusive Interview: James Wilby on his role In Maurice - HeyUGuys
FORSTER'S vision of the hero for his novel of homosexual love was a man quite unlike himself: ''someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid and rather a snob. Wilby was in the United States recently to promote the latest Merchant-Ivory movie, a Venice Film Festival award-winner now running at the Paris cinema. The actor is a tall, well-built, golden-haired, educated Englishman, glowing with physical energy and emotional exuberance. He is 29 years old, could pass for 20 and looks not only younger but also slimmer and even better looking than his screen image. He is on view almost every moment of the critically acclaimed movie in what the director, James Ivory, called ''the biggest role we've ever given a young actor. Forster, a homosexual and rather mouselike in look and manner, finished his autobiographical ''Maurice'' in England still lay under the shadow of the Oscar Wilde trials; what Wilde called the ''love that dare not speak its name'' was a criminal offense, savagely punished.
The film Maurice is 30 years old, but its frankness is ahead of its time
For some, seeing two men kiss on-screen may still be startling. Merchant died in The film opens June 2 in a new 4K scan with a new 5. Despite the nature of the material, Merchant and Ivory encountered no real resistance to making or showing the film.
Maurice is a British romantic drama film directed by James Ivory , based on the novel Maurice by E. It is a tale of gay love in early 20th-century England. The story follows its main character Maurice Hall through university, a tumultuous relationship, struggling to fit into society, and ultimately being united with his life partner. During a trip to a windswept beach, Maurice Hall, an year-old schoolboy, receives instructions about the "sacred mysteries" of sex from his teacher, who wants to explain to the fatherless boy the changes he would experience in puberty.