Britain’s King Edward VIII was “very punk rock,” Madonna said at the North American opening of her film ‘W.E.’, about his infamous romance with American divorcee Wallis Simpson – and his subsequent abdication. “I thought King Edward VIII was very punk rock,” she said, explaining how a salty anarchist anthem by the English punk band The Sex Pistols ended up on the soundtrack for her second directorial work, starring British actors James D’Arcy and Andrea Riseborough.
The band’s 1977 single ‘God Save the Queen’ attacked Britons’ social conformity and deference to the Crown. “I thought he (King Edward VIII) was quite rebellious and cutting edge in his point of view about life and about how to run the empire and using the Sex Pistols was a perfect marriage,” Madonna said. In Venice, where the film premiere earlier this month, the Queen of Pop said there were “elements of myself” in the film, and said she could sympathise with Wallis as an outsider, an American living in London.
“I empathise with Wallis. Public figures or icons are often just reduced to a sound-bite, just a handful of attributes. I think people tried to diminish her… I tried to make her human,” she said in Venice. But Madonna has already conquered the music industry, and is more focused on filmmaking now.
