Tony Award winner Stephen Dillane, who appears in “The Hours” as Virginia’s husband Leonard Woolf, found the key to his role in David Hare’s screenplay. “I thought the screen adaptation was excellent, very moving. Leonard Woolf was a remarkable man in his own right, deeply committed to his ideals both in his personal life and politically. His autobiography is a good read. Woolf has the unusual ability to capture contemporary details that give us insight into the times in which he lived. He was unusually engaged in the political and aesthetic debates of his period. He was also a man who tried to live according to his beliefs, and he records with disarming sincerity and honesty his successes and failures in this endeavor. “Some people think Leonard Woolf was insensitive and overprotective, and that he obsessively controlled Virginia Woolf’s life. Some say Virginia Woolf both needed and wanted Leonard Woolf’s protection from her own self-destructive instincts. Who knows? The screenplay follows the book by inclining towards the former interpretation. “

Tony Award winner Stephen Dillane, who appears in “The Hours” as Virginia’s husband Leonard Woolf, found the key to his role in David Hare’s screenplay.
“I thought the screen adaptation was excellent, very moving. Leonard Woolf was a remarkable man in his own right, deeply committed to his ideals both in his personal life and politically. His autobiography is a good read. Woolf has the unusual ability to capture contemporary details that give us insight into the times in which he lived. He was unusually engaged in the political and aesthetic debates of his period. He was also a man who tried to live according to his beliefs, and he records with disarming sincerity and honesty his successes and failures in this endeavor.

“Some people think Leonard Woolf was insensitive and overprotective, and that he obsessively controlled Virginia Woolf’s life. Some say Virginia Woolf both needed and wanted Leonard Woolf’s protection from her own self-destructive instincts. Who knows? The screenplay follows the book by inclining towards the former interpretation. “

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