Latest / Naughty But Nice with Rob Shuter / Special Episode: Princess Diana: In Her Own Words
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: Advice. Hello, welcome to the Naughty but Nice Show. We
- 0:16Speaker 1: have a really special episode today. We don't do many
- 0:19Speaker 1: of these special episodes because, to be honest, there's not
- 0:22Speaker 1: that many special people out there that I really want
- 0:25Speaker 1: to talk with. Today we have a treat. We have
- 0:27Speaker 1: an award winning filmmaker Tom Jennings who has the most
- 0:31Speaker 1: extraordinary new documentary about Princess Diana. It's called Diana in
- 0:36Speaker 1: her Own Words. And the reason it's called that is
- 0:39Speaker 1: this intimate story is basically told through the Princess's own recordings.
- 0:44Speaker 1: This is her voice, Tom, are you there? I am here, Rob,
- 0:49Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me, and I love
- 0:53Speaker 1: to talk about how this film came to be. It's
- 0:55Speaker 1: very special. It's a once in a lifetime project. Let's
- 0:58Speaker 1: jump in right there. That's my very first question. How
- 1:01Speaker 1: did this happen? Well, it happened actually several years ago.
- 1:07Speaker 1: The whole process started several years ago, and it was
- 1:10Speaker 1: in ten that National Geographic Channel for which we do
- 1:15Speaker 1: a lot of work, asked us to do something for
- 1:19Speaker 1: the twentie anniversary of Diana's death, which was in anniversary,
- 1:26Speaker 1: and we have kind of perfected this format for them
- 1:29Speaker 1: and some other networks to where we do programs that
- 1:33Speaker 1: use only archive as you see in the Diana film,
- 1:37Speaker 1: and we don't have a narrator and we don't do
- 1:39Speaker 1: interviews do other films like that the traditional style, but
- 1:44Speaker 1: we really have kind of cornered the market on this,
- 1:47Speaker 1: and so they said, please come up with something for
- 1:50Speaker 1: the anniversary. They agreed with me that there were going
- 1:53Speaker 1: to be thirty or thirty five films coming out, documentary
- 1:57Speaker 1: nonfiction projects about the Diana and they said, well, you
- 2:02Speaker 1: need to find something different. You're a clever guy, Tom,
- 2:05Speaker 1: you'll figure it out. And my background is actually in
- 2:11Speaker 1: print journalism before I started making this, and so I
- 2:14Speaker 1: had known about a book that came out in by
- 2:19Speaker 1: the British author Andrew Morton. And Andrew Morton was pilloried
- 2:23Speaker 1: at the time because everyone said this book was full
- 2:26Speaker 1: of lies and it was all about how miserable Diana
- 2:29Speaker 1: was and the marriage was falling apart. And it wasn't
- 2:32Speaker 1: until after her death that he admitted that Diana had
- 2:36Speaker 1: been the source for the book, and still people didn't
- 2:40Speaker 1: believe him. And he said, oh, by the way, I
- 2:42Speaker 1: have the audio tapes that she made for me that
- 2:46Speaker 1: the book is based on and he wound up releasing
- 2:49Speaker 1: transcripts of those tapes and a couple of snippets in
- 2:53Speaker 1: two thousand and four, but no one had ever heard
- 2:56Speaker 1: the tapes before. In their entire there are seven hours
- 3:00Speaker 1: of tapes and just as a bit of background, the
- 3:03Speaker 1: way they did it is Diana had a mutual friend
- 3:06Speaker 1: named Dr James Coulthurst, who also knew Morton, and she
- 3:09Speaker 1: decided in that she wanted to tell her story. Morton
- 3:13Speaker 1: would write questions, give them the Colthurst, who would literally
- 3:18Speaker 1: ride his bicycle through the gates of Kensington Palace, not
- 3:22Speaker 1: kidding that's how he would go because he was a
- 3:24Speaker 1: friend of Diana. He would be waved through. They would
- 3:28Speaker 1: find some quiet turret in the palace and uh and
- 3:33Speaker 1: call Thurst brought a tape recorder and for several hours
- 3:37Speaker 1: each time, over the period of about six or seven months,
- 3:41Speaker 1: he would read questions from Morton. Diana would answer them,
- 3:45Speaker 1: and they sound very colloquial as you in the film,
- 3:48Speaker 1: because she's not talking to a journalist even though she's
- 3:51Speaker 1: answering the questions, She's talking to a very good friend
- 3:55Speaker 1: of and call Furst would leave the palace, they would
- 3:59Speaker 1: meet at some It's what Morton would call a busman's cafe,
- 4:04Speaker 1: someplace you wouldn't expect to find Royal reporters hanging out.
- 4:08Speaker 1: And he would get the tapes and start listening to
- 4:11Speaker 1: them and it was mind blowing. So what I did
- 4:15Speaker 1: is I tricked, because I knew those tapes existed. I
- 4:18Speaker 1: tracked down Andrew Morton and I called him up in
- 4:22Speaker 1: London and I told him who I was and what
- 4:25Speaker 1: I was doing, and he said, get in line, mate.
- 4:30Speaker 1: I was here about the two thousand producers asked me
- 4:32Speaker 1: to have access to these tapes, and they said, Andrew, Andrew,
- 4:35Speaker 1: wait a minute, we're doing this completely differently. There's no narrator,
- 4:40Speaker 1: and we're not going to interview anyone. If no one's
- 4:43Speaker 1: going to tell you what Diana was like, it's just
- 4:47Speaker 1: gonna be her. There was this long, long pause, and
- 4:51Speaker 1: I was waiting for a please please, biggest cross biggest crossed.
- 4:55Speaker 1: And you know what he said, Rock, He's telling no
- 4:58Speaker 1: one has ever asked me to do it that way before.
- 5:02Speaker 1: And then he said, how soon can you come to
- 5:05Speaker 1: London today? Two days later, I was in Los Angeles,
- 5:10Speaker 1: that's where we're based. Two days later I got on
- 5:14Speaker 1: a plane for the overnight to heat throw. I took
- 5:17Speaker 1: a cab and and the tube to get to his
- 5:21Speaker 1: publisher's office, which this day, I have to tell you
- 5:25Speaker 1: it was like a fairy tale in my life. His
- 5:28Speaker 1: publisher's office was, you know, a thatched roof of ivy
- 5:32Speaker 1: covered the whole country. It was. It was like walking
- 5:39Speaker 1: in a dream. Perfect. And so we went in. I
- 5:44Speaker 1: met Andrew. He brought out the real tape in the cassette,
- 5:50Speaker 1: which are he keeps in a bank box. He went
- 5:53Speaker 1: and got the box for me, but he had had
- 5:56Speaker 1: them digitized, which he kept in a very safe place.
- 6:00Speaker 1: And for the next seven hours we sat in this
- 6:04Speaker 1: very small room, very small office, pouring rain. I remember
- 6:08Speaker 1: there was a skylight so you could hear the rain,
- 6:11Speaker 1: drinking tea of course, and listening to Diana tell her
- 6:16Speaker 1: story like she was sitting in the room with us. Oh, Tom,
- 6:21Speaker 1: I'm so glad you pulled this off, because now we
- 6:24Speaker 1: get to hear those tapes. I should point out to
- 6:26Speaker 1: everybody listening. I've covered Diana for a long time, you
- 6:29Speaker 1: said a minute ago. There was about thirty documentaries around
- 6:34Speaker 1: her death. I was on twenty nine of them. So
- 6:36Speaker 1: they normally interview feels like me to talk about Diana.
- 6:40Speaker 1: I'd never heard these tapes. A lot of them have
- 6:44Speaker 1: never been broadcast. Before I knew about them. I didn't
- 6:48Speaker 1: know Andrew Morton would ever ever release them. When he
- 6:52Speaker 1: finally said yes, Tom, what did you do? Well? Before
- 6:56Speaker 1: he said yes, he he looked at me, you know, like,
- 7:00Speaker 1: what do you think when it all finished? And it
- 7:03Speaker 1: was extraordinary as you've heard, and he said, you know,
- 7:06Speaker 1: I was going to go to my grave and not
- 7:09Speaker 1: give these to anyone, But if you promise this is
- 7:12Speaker 1: how you're going to do it, I'll give them to you.
- 7:16Speaker 1: Do you think he was holding onto these tapes because
- 7:19Speaker 1: he was worried about Diana? Was she his friend? What
- 7:22Speaker 1: was the reason? I don't know that she was his friend?
- 7:26Speaker 1: They if they met, they hardly met it all, actually,
- 7:29Speaker 1: which is surprising. However, I think he just felt they
- 7:34Speaker 1: were so precious and so important that it wasn't up
- 7:40Speaker 1: to him to make the decision to release them, even
- 7:44Speaker 1: though Diana had recorded them knowing that the information would
- 7:48Speaker 1: be made public. That's why she made the recordings. He
- 7:52Speaker 1: just he was very protective of those tapes and he
- 7:56Speaker 1: needed to trust someone at the highest possible level to
- 8:01Speaker 1: do right by the tapes. And after meeting me and
- 8:05Speaker 1: I showed him some of my work on previous projects
- 8:07Speaker 1: where we had used only archive to tell stories. I
- 8:12Speaker 1: promised him at that time that that's how we would
- 8:14Speaker 1: do it, and we shook hands. I went back to
- 8:18Speaker 1: Los Angeles. I talked to National Geographic by the way,
- 8:22Speaker 1: I flew back that night. I was in London for
- 8:24Speaker 1: about fifteen hours. I had other things to do right,
- 8:30Speaker 1: but this is too important. Get those tapes back to America.
- 8:33Speaker 1: Tub We'll see the talent on the next trip. I'll
- 8:35Speaker 1: take you to booking them Palice sight seeing. Next tip.
- 8:37Speaker 1: So you got back to l A. Did you know
- 8:39Speaker 1: that you had hit gold? Yes, yes, I knew. I
- 8:43Speaker 1: knew what we had. We had to be very protective
- 8:46Speaker 1: of the tapes, and it was I felt a great
- 8:51Speaker 1: sense of responsibility. We do a lot of history programming
- 8:55Speaker 1: and sometimes we find recordings or footage that are very
- 9:00Speaker 1: dramatic or there the types of things that can change
- 9:06Speaker 1: how people think about history. In this case, Diana states,
- 9:10Speaker 1: don't they do that? And however, because we now had
- 9:17Speaker 1: all of her recordings and these really intimate stories in
- 9:22Speaker 1: her voice instead of in print. I felt tremendous responsibility
- 9:28Speaker 1: to treat them with the greatest respect. When I add
- 9:31Speaker 1: also for her boys, U and I and I certainly
- 9:35Speaker 1: can't equate my life to theirs living in fame the
- 9:39Speaker 1: way they do. But I was eight years old when
- 9:44Speaker 1: my mother died, and um, so I know what that's like.
- 9:48Speaker 1: And you know a lot of people say, oh, it
- 9:49Speaker 1: was a long time ago, get over it. And for
- 9:52Speaker 1: a boy to lose his mother at a young age, um,
- 9:56Speaker 1: it never goes away. It crosses your mind at least
- 9:59Speaker 1: once a day, and it completely changes your worldview. So
- 10:04Speaker 1: not only did I feel a responsibility to Diana and
- 10:07Speaker 1: how we presented the material, but I felt a responsibility
- 10:11Speaker 1: to her son's because they may or may not have
- 10:15Speaker 1: watched this. I'm sure they've heard about it. If they
- 10:19Speaker 1: have watched it, i'd like to think that they thought
- 10:21Speaker 1: it was a right and proper job and how we
- 10:24Speaker 1: treated it, and I think we did. It's a beautiful,
- 10:27Speaker 1: beautiful documentary. Once again, I've seen every single one of
- 10:29Speaker 1: these documentaries type of documentaries. I've probably been on half
- 10:32Speaker 1: of them myself as a talking head. I sat down
- 10:35Speaker 1: to watch this yesterday. I was in tears by the
- 10:38Speaker 1: end and I think you just explained something that I
- 10:40Speaker 1: didn't understand. This is not Diana being interviewed by a
- 10:44Speaker 1: fool like me. This is not Diana on the morning
- 10:48Speaker 1: shows putting on a happy face. She I can imagine,
- 10:51Speaker 1: is sitting in her bedroom in the palace, maybe on
- 10:54Speaker 1: her bed, talking to a friend and they recorded. Do
- 10:59Speaker 1: you think that she would be upset that these are
- 11:03Speaker 1: now out in the public, I would hope not. I
- 11:06Speaker 1: think the way we treated them and the way we
- 11:10Speaker 1: presented them, and how we were very true to everything
- 11:15Speaker 1: she said we were. One thing we did is we
- 11:18Speaker 1: found stories that she talked about, as you saw in
- 11:22Speaker 1: the film, for example, early on the black Dress where
- 11:26Speaker 1: she went out and Charles had a problem with what
- 11:29Speaker 1: she was wearing, and she was only nineteen at the time.
- 11:33Speaker 1: We purposely chose stories, and there are many more that
- 11:37Speaker 1: are not in the film, but we purposely chose one
- 11:40Speaker 1: where we had images and footage to illustrate the exact story.
- 11:46Speaker 1: So it's as if she sat down in a narrator
- 11:51Speaker 1: booth and narrated the film for us, because we married
- 11:55Speaker 1: everything two images that really explained what she was talking
- 12:02Speaker 1: about and on purpose, if you recall, we chose news
- 12:06Speaker 1: reports that would help illuminate what was going on in
- 12:10Speaker 1: the time, and all the news reports were about how
- 12:14Speaker 1: happy they are and how loving, and especially that night
- 12:17Speaker 1: we were talking about with the black dress, um she
- 12:20Speaker 1: met Princess Grace and the news reporter is talking about, oh,
- 12:25Speaker 1: how lovely she looks with Princess Grace, and Diana on
- 12:28Speaker 1: the tapes of saying, I was absolutely horrified. I was sick.
- 12:32Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do. I'm meeting Princess Grace,
- 12:35Speaker 1: for God's sake, I didn't remember. She says, I didn't
- 12:38Speaker 1: know whether to hold my handbag in the left hand
- 12:41Speaker 1: or the right hand. There's another example, so there's many,
- 12:45Speaker 1: many examples, but she talks about the night that she
- 12:49Speaker 1: went to Camilla's forty birthday party in her own words,
- 12:54Speaker 1: what that felt like meeting the woman that you knew
- 12:58Speaker 1: was with your husband. And the example too that really
- 13:02Speaker 1: took my breath away is when we all got up
- 13:04Speaker 1: early to watch that royal wedding. She got up early too,
- 13:08Speaker 1: but her experience about it was very different, and she
- 13:11Speaker 1: talks about having a night before. Once again, this is
- 13:14Speaker 1: her talking. This is not a narrator. It's Diana the
- 13:17Speaker 1: night before, being up to the wee hours throwing up
- 13:20Speaker 1: her bulimia was out of control, and she said the
- 13:23Speaker 1: morning of the wedding, when everybody was going crazy, she
- 13:27Speaker 1: felt calm and her biggest priority was helping her dad
- 13:32Speaker 1: Dan the aisle, who seemed to be having more fun
- 13:35Speaker 1: there than she did. It is extraordinary. What is the
- 13:37Speaker 1: takeaway from this? What shocked you the most listening to
- 13:40Speaker 1: all seven hours of this, is there one thing that
- 13:43Speaker 1: stood at The fairy tale often is not true the
- 13:50Speaker 1: You know, we're all raised with the fairy tale, especially
- 13:54Speaker 1: British fairy tales. You know, it's the Arthurian legends, Shakespeare,
- 14:00Speaker 1: and we tend to believe the my day my Prince
- 14:04Speaker 1: will come storyline snow White Disney, and that's all well
- 14:10Speaker 1: and good as a fantasy. But she was and she
- 14:13Speaker 1: went into that one thing you noticed in the film
- 14:15Speaker 1: when she starts out when she's nineteen and let's all
- 14:19Speaker 1: remember what we were doing with nine Good Grief, and
- 14:24Speaker 1: then you see her evolve, for example, but even by
- 14:28Speaker 1: the time the wedding girls around, she has this doubt
- 14:32Speaker 1: behind her eyes, and she narrates that several years later
- 14:37Speaker 1: after the wedding about what she was actually feeling. I
- 14:40Speaker 1: think my biggest takeaway is that we we want to
- 14:44Speaker 1: believe in the fairy tale, and uh, people like Princess
- 14:48Speaker 1: Diana um were and others like her are not necessarily
- 14:56Speaker 1: living the most charmed of lives that we would like
- 14:59Speaker 1: to believe. We want them to be so that we
- 15:03Speaker 1: can continue to believe in fairy tales. But the reality
- 15:07Speaker 1: of it is very different. It certainly certainly is now
- 15:12Speaker 1: after all this research on this access that you've had
- 15:14Speaker 1: that really very few people in the world have had.
- 15:17Speaker 1: What do you think she would think about what's happening
- 15:19Speaker 1: today with her sons. Oh, that's a good question. I
- 15:24Speaker 1: think she'd be very proud of William. Uh. You know,
- 15:27Speaker 1: towards the end of the film, we use some statements
- 15:31Speaker 1: from her about how she's subtly behind the scenes trying
- 15:35Speaker 1: to change the monarchy to help William, knowing that William
- 15:38Speaker 1: would be next in line to the throne after Charles,
- 15:43Speaker 1: and she wanted the monarchy to modernize a bit. Um.
- 15:48Speaker 1: I would think regarding Harry and Megan, who are so
- 15:52Speaker 1: controversial right now, and this is only a personal guess
- 15:56Speaker 1: after having listened to the tapes and gone through so
- 16:00Speaker 1: much foot I mean hundreds of hours of footage and
- 16:03Speaker 1: thousands of skills to put this story together, I would
- 16:07Speaker 1: think she'd be happy for them, if they're happy, I
- 16:11Speaker 1: would think she would say, if this is what you
- 16:14Speaker 1: want to do, you know, it's not exactly how things
- 16:19Speaker 1: are done in the royal family, but if you're happy,
- 16:24Speaker 1: then go for it. That and that is my opinion,
- 16:26Speaker 1: I'm basically I mean, but it's somebody that has had
- 16:29Speaker 1: the access that you've had, You certainly now are entitled
- 16:32Speaker 1: to your opinion about this. So this is a cheeky question,
- 16:36Speaker 1: but after this extraordinary film, do you retire? Tom? Can
- 16:39Speaker 1: you top it? Who are you going to do next?
- 16:42Speaker 1: While we're doing other things for National Geographic I have
- 16:45Speaker 1: not been announced yet, however, I will say that we're
- 16:50Speaker 1: I've been talking with Andrew Morton and there's a fascinating
- 16:56Speaker 1: story that is yet to be told about this. And
- 16:59Speaker 1: it's not to go back to the same well twice,
- 17:02Speaker 1: but year that Diana Andrew Morton, Diana's friend and Morton's
- 17:09Speaker 1: publisher kind of conspired to make this book happen to
- 17:13Speaker 1: do the recordings to get the tapes to Andrew Morton.
- 17:18Speaker 1: Andrew Morton's office, for example, was broken into and ransacked.
- 17:22Speaker 1: James Coulthurst on his bicycle was moments after leaving Kensington
- 17:27Speaker 1: Palace after one of these recording sessions, was run off
- 17:31Speaker 1: the road by a mystery vehicle that sped away where
- 17:36Speaker 1: the book was secretly printed the first run to keep
- 17:39Speaker 1: it quiet in Sweden, and someone showed up at the
- 17:44Speaker 1: printer pretending to be Morton's publisher to basically stop the
- 17:49Speaker 1: presses because they needed to get a They needed to
- 17:52Speaker 1: get a look at the transcript or the galleys of
- 17:56Speaker 1: the book. So there's this year of intrigue that I
- 18:00Speaker 1: find fascinating. It's a smaller part of the story, but
- 18:03Speaker 1: it's certainly one that I'd love to tell. And I think, yeah,
- 18:07Speaker 1: don't forget. Next year is the anniversary of Diana's passing,
- 18:16Speaker 1: and it's also the thirtieth anniversary of Andrew Morton's book
- 18:19Speaker 1: coming out, so I think there's going to be renewed
- 18:23Speaker 1: interest in Princess Diana. Again. She never really goes away,
- 18:28Speaker 1: does she? In a wonderful way. I really appreciate this.
- 18:31Speaker 1: She's almost like an old friend. When I heard her voice,
- 18:35Speaker 1: it brought me back to feelings and nice, nice kind feelings.
- 18:39Speaker 1: What do you think ultimately her legacy is, well, I
- 18:44Speaker 1: think it's still evolving. You know, there for so long
- 18:48Speaker 1: she was viewed by some as the tragic victim and
- 18:54Speaker 1: by others how that she was manipulative. I'm sure you've
- 18:57Speaker 1: heard that before. Um, you took about it in the film.
- 19:00Speaker 1: You actually have. A reporter asked her that question in
- 19:04Speaker 1: the film and her response is extraordinary. Yes, yes, she
- 19:09Speaker 1: you know, she just she was trying to do some
- 19:11Speaker 1: good in the world after the marriage ended, and I
- 19:15Speaker 1: believe that to be true. I think she saw herself
- 19:19Speaker 1: as someone that could get things done because of her
- 19:22Speaker 1: prominence in the world, and she wanted to pick and
- 19:27Speaker 1: choose things that she believed in to try and make
- 19:30Speaker 1: a difference. I think years from now we'll look back
- 19:35Speaker 1: at her, as I know I will, as probably someone
- 19:40Speaker 1: who was greatly misunderstood, someone who was very very young
- 19:44Speaker 1: when she was brought into the fold of teen still
- 19:47Speaker 1: a teenager, still a teenager. I mean, it's remarkable to
- 19:51Speaker 1: look at those early pictures of her. You forget people
- 19:55Speaker 1: forget they think of Diana when she's dating Doughty Fai
- 20:00Speaker 1: and people forget what nineteen year old Diana was about.
- 20:05Speaker 1: And I think in the long run she will become
- 20:10Speaker 1: more cherished than she is now, and uh will people
- 20:15Speaker 1: will look back at her as a tragic figure that
- 20:20Speaker 1: died and left us much too early, and there will
- 20:23Speaker 1: always be a sense of wonder of what she would
- 20:27Speaker 1: have become and what she would have done in this
- 20:29Speaker 1: world if she had lived. I think you are right, Tom.
- 20:33Speaker 1: Where do people find this film? Now? Where can they?
- 20:36Speaker 1: Where can they watch it? Well? It's it went from
- 20:39Speaker 1: National Geographic to Netflix, as you know, and Netflix, god
- 20:44Speaker 1: bless them, paired it with season four of The Crown,
- 20:50Speaker 1: which is about Diana, and it exploded, as you know,
- 20:55Speaker 1: and it's now rotating off of Netflix and National gear
- 21:00Speaker 1: Graphic is it now a Disney company And it's already
- 21:03Speaker 1: on Disney Plus, so people who have Disney Plus can
- 21:07Speaker 1: watch it there. I'm going I think it's going to
- 21:11Speaker 1: live on there for a long time, and I'm sure
- 21:13Speaker 1: National Geographic will show it again at some point. It's
- 21:15Speaker 1: going to live for a very long time, Tom, because
- 21:18Speaker 1: it is extraordinary. It really is Diana in her own words.
- 21:23Speaker 1: It's an intimate story told entirely through the princess's voice
- 21:27Speaker 1: through very very rare recordings, most of which have never
- 21:31Speaker 1: been broadcast before. Tom Jennings, thank you for joining us
- 21:36Speaker 1: on a very special edition of The Naughty But Nice Show.
- 21:40Speaker 1: We're a production of I Heart Radio. Don't forget to subscribe.
- 21:43Speaker 1: Leave a comment if you can. Tom. We have a
- 21:46Speaker 1: little bit of audience participation at the end of every show,
- 21:49Speaker 1: so I'm gonna say, if you're going to be naughty,
- 21:52Speaker 1: you've got to be and we all say nice together. Tom,
- 21:55Speaker 1: got it, got it if you're guys. So it's so
- 21:59Speaker 1: the show, so silly. To have such a great, serious,
- 22:02Speaker 1: award winning filmmaker on this silly show still makes me smile.
- 22:06Speaker 1: But we'll play along. I have no problem at all.
- 22:10Speaker 1: I do not take myself to sion. I grew up
- 22:13Speaker 1: in Cleveland. I can't. If you're going to be naughty altogether, now,
- 22:18Speaker 1: you've got to be a nice, nice, take care of everybody.
- 22:22Speaker 1: Thanks time. It's not even nice with bro