From the makers of Calendar Girls comes an uplifting British comedy about two outcast dreamers who finally figure out how to stand up for themselves. The story of Kinky Boots, in which down and out shoe factory owner Charlie Price (Joel Edgerton) unexpectedly finds his life, dreams and entire workforce uplifted by the sexy, sassy, seven-inch stiletto heels of a cabaret drag queen named Lola (Chiwetel Ejiofor), might seem like an outrageous comic concept. But, in fact, it began with a true story.
The inspiration for the film started with the wild tale of real-life modern Englishman Steve Pateman, a young man who inherited his family’s 100 year-old Northamptonshire shoe company, only to watch in despair as the traditional business in sensible shoes slid into hard financial times. In an attempt to take one last shot at saving the family factory, Pateman decided to halt the company’s line of conservative English loafers and turned to flashy, funky, thigh-high PVC leather boots for other lovers of outrageous male footwear, transforming his little working-class factory into a huge over night sensation.
The characters of Charlie and Simon, aka Lola, quickly developed into two diametrically opposed people from such different worlds, who, after an accidental meeting, are drawn to each other out of a mutual respect and understanding. From the beginning, the filmmakers knew the unusual role of Lola was going to be a major challenge to cast, and absolutely vital to the success of telling the story. Both complex and compelling, tough and tender, vulnerable and vivacious, and real and comical, the actor perfect for Lola would have to encompass all of those things, and be able to sing and dance in high-heeled stiletto boots. When British star Chiwetel Ejiofor walked into his audition in a wig and began to perform, the filmmakers knew he could inhabit Lola with a fearless passion and realism.
“I just wanted to make sure that Lola was somebody that people could care about,” says the 31-year-old star of Inside Man and Serenity. “I wanted Lola to have a distinction from the people in the shoe factory, but also was a very real person that everybody could relate to and understand, and realize that the differences between them were only very surface ones. In the end, everybody has the opportunity to realize that what brought them together was greater than what separated them.”
With Lola cast, the filmmakers’ next task was to find an actor who could simultaneously stand up to her larger-than-life personality while providing a comic contrast to it, as the down-on-his-luck factory owner Charlie Price. They found it in 31-year-old Australian actor Joel Edgerton.
“I just really loved the script,” says the actor, who played Owen Lars in George Lucas’ Star Wars Episodes II and III. “It’s very hard for a script about a shoe factory and a drag queen not to stand out from the pile, especially when the first page has got Kinky Boots written on it. And then, I read the script and met the director, and was very sure that I certainly wasn’t going to get the part because I am Australian and it’s a British film. But, it worked out, and I’m really, really glad that it did.”
Edgerton admits to not having been familiar with the back story prior to being cast in the film, but he made sure to read up on it. “I made a phone call to my agent and said, ‘I really like this thing,’ and she said, ‘You realize it’s a true story, right?’ I was like, ‘No, this can’t be a true story.’ But, subsequently, I’ve met Steve Pateman, who the story is about, and gotten to know his family. It is quite a remarkable true story, especially once you go to the place and you meet this guy, and you look at the town and put all the elements together and work out how this guy ended up making these boots, and getting away with it, in a town like that. I know what it’s like because I grew up in a small town. Everybody knows everybody’s business. When you go out on a limb with something and throw a splash of color out there, it’s quite easy for you to shut yourself down and say, ‘I don’t want to stand out in a place like this.’”
As a cabaret artiste, Lola has several musical performances in Kinky Boots. In order to get comfortable in the wardrobe, Ejiofor says it took him quite a long time prior to filming. “We had quite a long period of rehearsals, and getting used to all the different aspects of the film. I had a number of meetings with Sammy Sheldon, who did all the costume design, and Trefor Proud, who did the hair and make-up. And, we also had to put together the music and choreography with the rest of the guys who were doing the performance numbers. It took all the time that we had to really feel completely comfortable and have it almost become second nature. When I first had my eyebrows waxed, I was pretty disturbed, but all of that was geared towards creating this character.”
Ejiofor explains that Lola is more of an amalgamation of different drag queens and ############# that came into contact with Steve Pateman, rather than one specific individual. But, he feels that the realism of the character was something that helped him to identify with the role.
“When I first read the script, I would have assumed Lola, or Simon, was only a tiny bit of me. But then, by the end of the rehearsal period, I was completely aware that it was something that was very much a part of me, even if it wasn’t something that I had ever considered, or known about. It was a fun, eye-opening experience, just getting in touch with a completely different side of my nature, and then, at the end of it all, just putting it away in a box.”
Although their characters are seemingly polar opposites, Edgerton says that he and Ejiofor had a great time working together and getting to know each other. “It was a bit hard to keep Chiwetel and I away from each other, once we hit Northampton and went out to the pubs. We immediately clicked, as people, so we had a great time working together on set, and socializing off set. I think those relationships find their way onto the screen. I think the essence of our friendship found its way into the finished product.”
As Ejiofor and Edgerton become more visible to American audiences, the opportunities for both actors will increase. Over the next year, Edgerton and Ejiofor each have two films apiece being released in the States, opposite some big name talent.
"Hellion is a story of four people that kidnap a child, and find out that he is far more than they bargained for,” says Edgerton, who will also be appearing in Smokin’ Aces with Ben Affleck. “It’s a psychological thriller/horror film with Josh Holloway (Lost), Sarah Wayne Callies (Prison Break) and Dule Hill (The West Wing), and I play one of the kidnappers. I am the crazy, slightly unpredictable one with a mustache and a shaved head. I play the worst guy in the movie, except that we underestimate the child. Blake Woodruff, who was in Cheaper by the Dozen, and the sequel, plays the child.”
Ejiofor will be seen later this year in Tonight at Noon, with Ethan Hawke, and Alfonso Cuaron’s futuristic thriller Children of Men, alongside Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine. “It’s set a short time in the future and deals with political societal collapses, as well as these issues of fertility that have created a very enraged and complex society, and it’s based on the Peter James novel. Alfonso has adapted and written a terrific script, and a really good cast of people came together to shoot the film. He’s an amazing director, and I think the work that we did on the film is just exceptional. It’s one of those things that I don’t think anybody’s ever really seen before, visually, and I think it’s really going to be quite interesting.”
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