'Young Victoria' director on Chicago: 'It's lovely'

Normally, an explanation of why people kill people and the secret to writing good historical dramas don't pop up in the same conversation.

But a chat with British actor, writer and director Julian Fellowes knows no rules.

The 60-year-old titled lord -- and winner of the 2001 screenwriting Academy Award for Robert Altman's "Gosford Park" -- had just flown into Chicago, entered his hotel room and looked out the window straight over Lake Michigan.

"I've never been to Chicago before," he told me. "I knew it was on the edge of a lake, but I didn't realize it was on the edge of a sea! It's extraordinary! You can't see across it. It's a city along the edge of a smooth and silent sea. Very impressive. Lovely!"

Those adjectives could also describe Fellowes' new movie, the well-crafted historical drama "Young Victoria," which continues its run in suburban theaters this weekend.

It tells the true story of the romance between young Victoria (played by a beguiling Emily Blunt) and the dashing Prince Albert (Rupert Friend).

Together, they ruled England for two decades. After Albert's death, Queen Victoria lived to become the longest reigning monarch in English history.

The secret to their success as a royal couple?

"He never misjudged his position," Fellowes said of Prince Albert. "He could be her equal in private, but he was one step behind her in public."

Fellowes has loved history ever since he was a boy. That might partially explain his capacity for writing effective period pieces, such as "Young Victoria." He divulged his secret to the art.

"You have to understand the limitations your characters are working under. That's the double challenge of something like Victoria and Albert," he said. "On one level, you want to make it clear that this is about a young girl who had almost been abused, and her self-worth had been hammered. She had to rebuild herself and take the wheel of her own life.

"She was also facing restrictions and disciplines that a modern woman in her situation wouldn't be. That's the kind of twin challenge of the screenplay, really."

An example?

"If you make a version of 'Pride and Prejudice' where Lizzy Bennett is running around in jeans and a T-shirt, there is part of you wondering why doesn't she just go to London and get a job?" Fellowes said.

"I feel there are two challenges (to writing historical dramas). One is to make it clear that these men and women are going through exactly the same impulses we do: self-doubt, ambition, desire to find our correct partner, drive to find fulfillment in our activities, and whatever.

"The other thing is not to succumb to that temptation, when you hear people saying, 'We want to make it more relevant.' Now, what they really mean by that is that they want to make it more artificially contemporary.

"So you see period films on television where the heroine is running around trying to get a job. The predicament they're in becomes harder and harder to understand for the audience."

In addition to movie work, Fellowes hosted a fact-based BBC-TV series titled "Julian Fellowes Investigates: A Most Mysterious Murder."

"There's something about domestic murder that does fascinate me," Fellowes admitted. "I'm not interested in serial killers who go around murdering strangers. I mean, they're just the unluckiest people in the world, and the serial killer is horrible, you know.

"What fascinates me is a situation where perfectly ordinary men and women who once played with their dolls and their railway sets, reach a point of despair and misery in their lives where the next logical step is murder."

Fellowes said that there is one recurring theme in his novels and screenplays.

"I have a feeling that the one virtue, the trump virtue, is self-knowledge," he said. "And the people who lack self-knowledge are the ones who get into trouble. The most useful journey in our lives is to know ourselves."

"One of the things that murderers lack is self-knowledge. They do not have a correct assessment of their situation or of their potential. Then they precipitate, in most cases, disaster and ruin because they're acting on false information.

"And that false information is their own estimation of themselves."