They say friendship can be found in the most unlikely of places, and in A Friend of Dorothy, written and directed by actor Lee Knight, two opposites certainly attract. The film follows Dorothy (Miriam Margolyes), an elderly single woman whose health is on the decline, as she begins a friendship with a high schooler, JJ (Alistair Nwachukwu), after his football lands in her garden. As the pair strike up conversation, their connection deepens to the point of adding each other to their daily routines; JJ helps Dorothy with difficult house chores such as opening stubborn jars and Dorothy liberates JJ from the burden of imposed gender and sexuality norms in addition to encouraging him to follow his dreams to be a theatre actor through their shared love of reciting and reading stage plays.
The Oscar and BAFTA qualifying short, also produced by Stephen Daldry and Sonia Friedman, has taken home multiple awards across various festivals that include Best Actor for Nwachukwu and Best Director at the Indie Shorts Awards Cannes, Best Drama Short at HollyShorts London, Best Director at HollyShorts Film Festival in Los Angeles and the Jury Prize and Audience Award at OUTshine Film Festival.
Below, Knight opens up about exploring queer identity, age-gap friendships and the importance of being one’s truest, purest self.
DEADLINE: What was the impetus for this short film?
LEE KNIGHT: I was doing Hamlet in the latter part of the lockdown in 2021. I was staying in a cottage in Windsor, and people were slowly starting to venture out, and theatres were reopening. I missed a very dear friend, an elderly neighbor of mine and my husband’s. She lived alongside us in Covent Garden for nine years. Her husband had passed away, her kids lived abroad, and she was very lonely. But when she met us and realized we were actors, it gave her a new lease on life and reinvigorated the passion she’d had for the arts throughout her life. She was able to revisit that slice of her life with us, and we would take her to our press nights, and she would take us to the theatre that she was a patron of.
So, the story is fictional, but it was inspired by a very special friendship with someone who meant the world to me when we were at opposite ends of our lives. She’s now passed away, so she never got to see the success of this short, but that was the inspiration.
Stephen Fry in A Friend of Dorothy
Filthy Gorgeous Productions
DEADLINE: How much of this film would you say is you?
KNIGHT: What I’ve realized is that it’s subconsciously so much about who I am and my values. Similarly to JJ, my husband is a Black actor, and I remembered, during filming, that I didn’t even consciously think about it, is the scene where Dorothy makes JJ read something; it mirrors what happened to me. I was an in-the-closet young gay guy who wanted to be an actor with no experience and no belief in myself. I met my husband when I was 19, and he gave me a box of books and said, “Read something to me, let’s see [if you have talent].” He was the person who encouraged me.
There’s so much in it that mirrors my life. The Inheritance is a play [by Matthew López] that JJ reads from. My husband was in that play on the West End, and the producers, Sonia Friedman and the director, Stephen Daldry, are now producers on A Friend of Dorothy. It is a full circle. I feel like I manifested.
DEADLINE: What specific themes did you want to pull out of the short?
KNIGHT: I never really wanted to hit specific themes. What’s so wonderful about this is that there are so many themes because I feel it’s such an organic, truthful story. I think people have responded to that. People respond to that in art when something comes from an organic place. I’m passionate about women and passionate about there not being enough roles for women of a certain age, and they’re quite often left alone. So, I think that’s one of the themes I was interested in. Even in my own life, my wonderful mom went through a terrible divorce. The life she has now taps into her own personal interests after dedicating her life to children and a husband. I’m fascinated by women stepping into their power.
DEADLINE: This is your writing and directorial debut. What was the process of getting comfortable behind the camera like?
KNIGHT: I’ve been wanting to tell my own stories for quite a while. As an actor, you are at the mercy of getting projects from other people. There’s a lot of rejection. And I’ve wanted to tell my own stories and step into that. So, even though it’s my debut as a writer, I have been writing for writing competitions and finding my voice. But this felt like the most organic thing to happen. When I stepped on set to direct, I honestly felt like I’d been working my whole life to get to that point. It’s been quite euphoric for me. The difficulty comes when you’re starting something and in believing that your voice is worthy of being heard. This industry is riddled with constant rejection, and imposter syndrome is real. However, on this project, once we had liftoff and Miriam [Margolyes] said she would do it, everything else was in my element. You really have to work through all that and believe that your voice is worthy.
DEADLINE: I know there’s a Harry Potter connection, but I’m assuming you still had to reach out to Miriam about this part. Talk about that.
KNIGHT: I actually wrote this for Miriam before I met Miriam. I was writing it and thinking who could play this part? The script was an amalgamation of my friend Shirley, whom I mentioned earlier, and Miriam Margolyes. So, I very much wrote it in Miriam’s voice. And when I got the script to her, which was purely coincidental, we have a mutual friend who said she was going around Miriam’s to get her to sign some charity merchandise, I said, “Can you tell her about my script?” As that friend describes it, Miriam was blown away that someone had written a script for her. This is the thing, as actors, we want material that serves us. We want material that speaks to us. And Miriam said to me, “I’ve never had this in my career. I’ve never had someone write a script for me.” So, she said yes from the start, but it was about her availability. She didn’t know when she could do it, but she never said no. Miriam’s heart was in this script from the moment she read it. She never let me down, and for that I’ll always be eternally grateful to her.
Miriam Margolyes and Alistair Nwachuku in A Friend of Dorothy
DEADLINE: How did you go about finding Alistair Nwachukwu as your lead, JJ?
KNIGHT: We did an audition and had a casting director do a call-out for actors for the role. We knew it was going to be a challenging role to find. We called four wonderful actors, but as a director, the [auditions process] is a moment where you really know if someone is responding to you. You really understand if you’re in tune and if you can have this beautiful connection. Alistair blew us all away because he was willing to just dig that little bit deeper, and he said to me before we started, “I promise I’ll give my heart and soul.” It actually makes me quite emotional because every time I watch it, I’m just blown away by the pureness and honesty of both of those characters. It will always blow my mind that that’s out in the world.
DEADLINE: Where did you film this? I’m obsessed with the house where Dorothy lives. It looks so cozy.
KNIGHT: It was a house in Holland Park, a very exclusive area in Kensington. What was amazing about it was that at someone’s birthday party one night, I asked a friend about the house, because I needed it. So, my friend said that they knew someone whose grandma owned the house. The reason why it looks as you describe it is that she hadn’t ever updated it because she didn’t want to raise the value for her grandkids’ inheritance tax. All of this to say that it was basically the first place we looked. But the craziest part is that my producer, who also agreed this looked like a house that would belong to our Dorothy, ended up finding out it belonged to a famous actress named Ann Todd. And when we did a bit of digging, we found that her real name was actually Dorothy Ann Todd. It’s all connected.
DEADLINE: What would you like audiences to consider while they watch the short?
KNIGHT: I really want them to think about the fact that you never know when you might meet someone and that you could change their life in a moment of just seeing them. Despite any differences that you think you have, whether it be race, color of skin, age, religion, or sexuality, you can really make a difference to someone’s entire life. And it could just be a fleeting moment, and it could happen at any point. I feel like the world really needs more of that right now. That’s what I would hope people would think about. I think if we all looked up from our phones a little more and saw people for who they are, the world would be a much better place.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]
