Shakespeare lets us see real people undergoing real processes, with real feelings.

Gabriel Resources placed an "open letter" in The Guardian on 23 June 2006 attacking Redgrave arguing the case for the mine and exhibiting support for it among the inhabitants: the open letter is signed by 77 villagers. Redgrave later withdrew from the film for personal reasons. It was reported that Vanessa Redgrave declined a damehood in 1999.

Redgrave was proclaimed by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams as "the greatest living actress of our times" and Vanessa Redgrave remains the only British actress ever to win the Oscar Emmy Tony Cannes Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild awards. On screen Vanessa Redgrave has starred in more than 80 films; including Blowup (1966) Isadora (1968) Mary Queen of Scots (1971) The Devils (1971) Julia (1977) The Bostonians (1984) Howards End (1992) Mission: Impossible (1996) and Atonement (2007).