This isn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon — skimming across the blue Venice lagoon in a motor launch, the bright sun reflecting on the waves, the majestic buildings shimmering in the heat . . .
Oh, and having Madonna — in a stunning Dolce & Gabbana little black dress — waving a black silk fan to keep me cool.
I soon discover she’s in a reflective mood — and willing to be unusually candid in what, these days, is a rare interview.
She tells me that everything she has now — a family, a career and a young lover — has come at a price.
I ask her if it really is possible to have all three.
‘You can — but what you can’t then expect is a good night’s sleep,’ she says with a wry smile.
‘I have all three; love, children and work. Lucky me.’
This is the real Madonna. The Madonna that few people see. The Madonna who keeps her thoughts fiercely private — until we find ourselves sharing an airless cabin on the Grand Canal at the Venice Film Festival.
Madonna, it seems, was so afraid of being lonely in middle age that it took two divorces and a string of break-ups before she learnt the art of compromising with the men in her life.
‘The older I get, the more I understand about the nature of relationships and how to have a successful one,’ she says.
‘The more I realise that it has to do with compromise and sacrifice and that’s just the way it goes. And unless you want to be alone for the rest of your life you have to realise that.’
Madonna, who is very much a ‘couple’ with dancer boyfriend Brahim Zaibat, acknowledges that having it all can’t be taken for granted.
‘Either the kids aren’t going to be getting all your attention, or the man isn’t or the job isn’t and I can’t contemplate living without all three.
'I can’t imagine not having children. I can’t imagine not being in love and I can’t imagine not being creative and doing the work I do.
'You can’t always get what you want, but compromise pays off in the end, right? Give up a little bit here to see if you can get something there. It’s about trade-offs and give and take.’
This, from a woman who has been at the top of her game for 30 years — having sold 275 million records — and has a reputation for taking no prisoners.
But isn’t she used to getting her own way? All the time?
She shifts and moves close to me. ‘Madonna has to beg sometimes,’ she says. ‘Madonna doesn’t get everything she wants.’
Yeah, right, I think.
To prove her point, she tells me what happened when she was shooting a scene for her big new feature film W.E., about Wallis Simpson, the twice-married American socialite for whom King Edward VIII gave up the throne.
Madonna’s movie has two leading ladies, Andrea Riseborough, portraying Mrs Simpson, who was to become the Duchess of Windsor, and Abbie Cornish who plays Wally Winthrop, a modern-day, unhappily married New Yorker whose storyline runs as a counterpoint reaction to what happens in the Duchess’s life.
Madonna explains how she was shooting in New York’s Central Park and was just about to shout ‘Action’ when a band started up
The film had paid to use the park, so Madonna asked if the band’s soundcheck could be delayed. ‘I really had to beg,’ she tells me.
Madonna had to beg! I exclaimed incredulously.
There is an emphatic wave of the black fan. ‘Yes, absolutely.’
W.E. received a ten-minute standing ovation following its world premiere in Venice, but by then the film had sharply divided film writers.
Some critics gleefully tore it apart; others, like me, found much to praise, although I had some reservations.
In fact, it’s beautifully acted, shot and costumed. Riseborough gives one of the performances of the year as the Duchess, while James D’Arcy portrays the Duke as a blond-haired, frivolous playboy who tries to have a social conscience — but those house parties on the Riviera just got in the way.
Madonna found a surprising fan in director Darren Aronofsky, who directed Black Swan, which won a best actress Oscar for Natalie Portman.
He called the film Madonna-esque, explaining it flowed with a rock ’n’ roll sensibility, and made the point that most period pictures are often static and dull. W.E. goes back and forth across the decades and there’s a dance to the music of time
After the film’s North American gala at the Toronto International Film Festival next Monday night, Madonna might decide to sex up W.E. a tad.
There’s a steamy scene or two between Cornish’s Wally Winthrop and a Russian security guard, played by Oscar Isaac, not ‘R-rated’ Madonna, but ‘sexy’.
The scene was cut, as were others, for movie length reasons. ‘I would like to think that the film is finished, but I did watch it the other night and thought: “Um, maybe it needs a bit of this and a bit of that. Maybe it is still a work in progress,” ’ she tells me.
Then she exclaims, laughing: ‘For God’s sake, I hope it’s over with soon.’
She could screen it for ex-husbands Sean Penn and Guy Ritchie to see if they have any thoughts.
But she won’t be seeking their advice because, in a sense, she has already had it, she says.
‘They didn’t knowingly help me, but certainly I learned by being around them. I mean, they’re both talented film-makers and intelligent human beings, so I think, without knowing it, they gave me advice.
'I was paying attention to what they were doing and watched. I’m a watcher and a learner.’
She explains what she picked up from them. ‘I think Guy’s a very stylish director and he does things with cameras that are unconventional and certainly pushes the envelope in that area — and in terms of visualising things, he’s a ground-breaker.’
Meanwhile, Penn knew about getting to the rawness, the truth of a character.
‘When I was married to Sean, I was amazed at how seriously he took his parts and how far he was willing to go,’ she says.
‘When I was with him I didn’t know I was going to be directing films, obviously. That wisdom I observed and witnessed stayed with me.’
She says she learnt from them, too, the importance of research when directing a movie.
She read any letter she could lay her hands on that was sent to or received by the Duchess and her Duke.
She found ones the Duchess sent to her Aunt Bessie, where she wrote of how she would always have to be with the former King and how she felt incarcerated.
‘Those letters are key to her character,’ says Madonna of the Duchess. ‘To be loved the way she was by the King. What a great act of romance, self-sacrifice.
‘Every girl loves the idea a man would sweep her off her feet, give up everything for her, only to find out that she is self-imprisoned by that love because if a man is willing to give up a kingdom, then you’re going to have to spend the rest of your time together making that man feel like a king, aren’t you?’
Madonna has plans to write and direct another movie, but isn’t ready to divulge what it’ll be about just yet. But a new album will come first.
She’s writing songs and seems determined to have it released next spring — she may tour off the back of it. ‘A girl does have to make a living,’ she declares.
And for that her looks, of course, are an important asset, so she works out and, like many of us, carefully watches what she eats.
She steers clear of certain foods, but has her weaknesses and tries to battle them.
‘I don’t eat as much pizza as everybody else, that’s number one. I exercise even when I’m too bloody tired to.
‘I try to stay away from fried foods, although I had French fries at one o’clock in the morning because that’s all there was to eat, but I would never eat any the next day because I have to pay for those calories somehow. So I also try to stay away from cheese, creamy sauces and I try to eat a lot of fish and vegetables.’
I wonder whether after all her years living in England she has developed a penchant for lovely, stodgy puddings such as Spotted Dick.
‘Sticky toffee pudding with the sauce, obviously, is my weakness. No custard,’ she tells me and, clearly enjoying the food theme, she gaily fans me harder and adds: ‘I like bangers and mash. And mushy peas.’
When she sees the look on my face, she screams: ‘I do! I’m sorry!’ She goes on: ‘I like Bubble and Squeak, not often because it’s fried, but I love it.’
She doesn’t prepare the dishes herself because, she confesses, she doesn’t cook.
‘It’s not in my DNA. My kids all cook really good. I could cook if you put a gun to my head, but after a long day at the office I want to come home and find my dinner on the table,’ she says.
‘Oh, my gosh, everyone prepares it but me. Sometimes my daughter Lourdes likes to cook my food. They all help.’
She back-pedals a bit and boasts she could boil an egg, scramble eggs, cook pasta, make coffee, whip up a round of sandwiches and — get this— concoct Rice Krispie treats.
‘I’m not that hopeless — it’s just that cooking requires time,’ she says, before adding that there was never time to prepare a Sunday lunch for Guy Ritchie, who loves a good Sunday roast. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t, but I could have if I’d put my mind to it.’
And that just about sums up Madonna’s attitude to life: anything she ever wanted to do, she has done — in spades.
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