If you’re not already familiar with Alexander McCall Smith’s series of books about a female private detective in Botswana, then you’d be forgiven for thinking that HBO’s “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” was some sort of premium-cable equivalent of ABC’s defunct “Women’s Murder Club.” It’s actually a rich look into modern day African culture that has as much to do with spotlighting the gorgeous landscape and establishing the personalities and quirks of its characters as it does with solving a mystery.
Fans of McCall Smith’s novels were chomping at the bit to see who would be cast to play the novel’s central figure, Mma Precious Ramotswe. The slightly surprising victor: Jill Scott, a woman known far more for her work as a singer than as an actress. It must be said, however, that Scott does a great job in the role, offering the appropriate notes of both humor and drama throughout the production. For his part, however, McCall Smith couldn’t say whether or not she truly fit his idea of what Precious would look like, if only because it’s something to which he ever gave any thought.
“As a writer, curiously enough — and people sometimes don’t believe me when I say this — but I don’t actually see my characters,” said McCall Smith. “I hear them, but I didn’t have a picture of what Mma Ramotswe would look like. So when Jill came along, I said, ‘That’s fine. That’s perfectly all right by me.’ And indeed, I think you have certainly given me a picture of my characters which I didn’t have before. But when I actually write, I don’t see people. I just hear things. And I see a countryside, but I don’t actually see the characters, which is a strange thing. So that was fine. I thought they were just right.”
Co-screenwriter Richard Curtis revealed how Scott’s casting in the part came to pass. “I remember an evening in Los Angeles with Anthony (Minghella, the film’s director) before we made the film, and he was so gleeful about the casting of Anika (Noni Rose),” said Curtis. “He just showed me this tape in his bedroom, and he said, ‘We’ve absolutely got this girl.’ And then, he was in utter despair about finding anyone to find Mma Ramotswe. He’d looked in three continents. He couldn’t find anyone. And he showed me the tapes hoping I’d say that someone he’d found actually was the right person, but they weren’t. And then, at last, when he found Jill, he said it was the happiest day of his life. He could not believe his luck and her magnificence in the role. It was his great joy and, he felt, his great triumph to find her, and her to play the part so brilliantly.”
Scott, meanwhile, hadn’t read so much as a single book in McCall Smith’s series, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t get excited at the prospect of working with the man who was helming the project.
“When my agent called and said, ‘Anthony Minghella is looking for an actress,’ I jumped at the bit to audition,” she said. “I had just the sides, I didn’t have an accent at all, but I watched ‘Sarafina,’ and I pulled what I could get out of that. And I auditioned with the Sarafina accent…and it didn’t go over so well. But he wanted to see me again and again and again, and then he flew from London to Philadelphia, which was definitely a highlight in my life, to meet this wonderful man who had done so many incredible movies. ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ was…it blew me away. So here I am with Anthony Minghella, again auditioning, and he auditioned me about five hours every time. He definitely put the thing on me. And then, once all the auditioning was done, then I read the books, and then I started to really understand what it was about. But I didn’t completely get it until I got to Botswana.
“I looked around and I saw people that looked like me, and I saw my cousins and saw all my girlfriends and I saw all these faces, and there was such a gentle nature to the people that I understood why Mma Ramotswe was so kind and so gentle and so loving and why she wants the best for her country,” Scott explained. “Botswana was never tainted or touched by apartheid. That makes the country and the people very strong and very warm towards each other. They don’t have ugliness. They just don’t have it. So the role itself…well, the character itself started to come to me based on where I was, just being around the people, having dinner, having conversations…you know, just being there. And then reading the books as well, of course, helped me a lot. She’s a powerful woman, that lady.”
“The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” premieres on HBO in March 2009.
