PRESS UPDATE : THE TELEGRAPH .. MAY 22ND 2026 ..

 

Dame Joan Collins: I was taking supplements before they were all the rage

The actress is as sprightly as ever but insists there is no secret to her longevity..

Dame Joan Collins: ‘I don’t eat junk, I get eight hours of sleep, I exercise. It’s very simple’ Credit: Shutterstock

Dame Joan Collins is fighting fit, but you don’t have to take her word for it: she has the paperwork to prove it. “I just finished making a movie, My Duchess, a few months ago,” she says of her latest role, in which she portrays Wallis Simpson in her twilight years, alongside a glittering vintage cast including Isabella Rossellini, Charles Dance and Miranda Richardson. “Before we began filming I had to have a medical test for the insurance, to confirm I was OK to work. They told me I was more healthy than any of the other cast!”

Dame Joan has recently returned from the biopic’s premiere in Cannes, where her youthful appearance on the red carpet prompted a flurry of articles about how she has stayed so sprightly. “Somebody wrote that I take an avocado a day, which is completely untrue,” she exclaims, with mock outrage.

With a career spanning over eight decades (Dame Joan made her acting debut in a stage production of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in 1942, aged 9), she remains every inch the Hollywood icon. Arriving for our chat on the arm of her fifth husband, 61-year-old Percy Gibson, Dame Joan is dressed in an expensively tailored black jacket, complete with the sort of dramatic shoulder pads Dynasty’s Alexis Carrington Colby would be proud of, and a bow that nips her in perfectly at the waist. A hefty rope of pearls and a slick of crimson lipstick complete the look.

There are, however, she insists, no tricks to her longevity. “I have very good genes – I’m very lucky. My father lived to be 87, and for somebody born in 1903 that’s pretty amazing,” she says. “My mother took incredibly exceptional care of me and my sister. When we were growing up she gave us all supplements when nobody was taking supplements.”

When I interject, to ask what specifically she and her novelist sister, Jackie, took, Dame Joan wafts her hand around as if she wants to bat away the question like a fly, exclaiming, “I don’t know, I was too young – all kinds of things,” before adding: “Oh you know, cod liver oil, Virol” – a syrup made from bone marrow, malt extract, beef fat and eggs and marketed for infants – “horrible things like that”.

We meet at the ribbon cutting of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s new outpost on London’s Harley Street. For decades, the original hospital in Los Angeles has been the go-to medical centre for celebrities, treating A-listers from Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra to Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Kardashian. Now it is bringing its combination of “high-quality primary care, executive health and concierge medicine” to the UK’s private healthcare market.

Joan’s own patient journey there began in 2011, following a back injury. “I was in LA filming this television series called American Horror Story – and it was indeed a horror story,” she quips. “All of the cast were sitting around on this incredibly cold soundstage, which had been built on the Paramount lot. The whole crew were wearing scarves and sitting in chairs with no backs for weeks. I remember waking up in the middle of the night in screaming agony, so my husband, Percy, called Dr Lawrence Piro, the medical director of Cedars‑Sinai, who I had met before socially. He sent an ambulance and within five or 10 minutes I was in Cedars being taken care of, which was wonderful. From then on I would go and visit him whenever I was in LA, because I believe that taking care of yourself is one of the most important things.”

It seems that Dame Joan’s back has been an ongoing concern in recent years – in July 2022 she was airlifted to the Princess Grace Hospital in Monaco, having been rendered immobile by a trapped nerve. It stopped her exercising for some time, but she’s mobile again and impressively agile. “I work out with my trainer a couple of times a week – just basic Pilates-type exercise, rather than using one of those [reformer] pilates machines, though,” she clarifies.

Recalling her previously saying that she took morning walks with Percy, I ask whether that’s still part of her daily routine. She looks appalled. “I hate walking – it bores me,” she cries. “I’ll walk around my apartment tweaking the flowers, but that’s about it.” Turning to Dr Piro, she says: “That sounds so ridiculous, and it will look ridiculous when you see it in print, but it’s true.”

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Dame Joan Collins: I was taking supplements before they were all the rage

EVENT ALERT : TURN THE KEY SOFTLY .. BFI SOUTHBANK .. MAY 27TH 2026 ..

 Joan's classic 1953 drama 'Turn The Key Softly' will be screened at the BFI in London as part of a season of British postwar films. The screening will be on May 27th at 18:15.. You can book tickets ..

BUY TICKETS TURN THE KEY SOFTLY AT BFI SOUTHBANK HERE!

Read more about the season of films at The BFI below.....

It was the golden age of British cinema - but many can barely be recalled. A British Film Institute initiative aims to remedy that, shedding light on life in post-war Britain.

BY Sue Britt & Hannah Britt for The Mirror..

t was a golden age of British cinema, with classics such as The Dam Busters, A Matter of Life and Death and Reach for the Sky making stars of the likes of Richard Todd, David Niven and Kenneth Moore. Yet there were many more movies that thrilled audience but are barely recalled.

A British Film Institute season of films made between 1945 and 1960 aims to remedy that and shed light on life in post-war Britain. Ehsan Khoshbakht, the curator of Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema 1945-1960, says: “In some ways this is the least known era of British cinema, a kind of lost period, yet it saw some of the finest films being made. The films portray a country coming out of war, reconstructing itself, but facing a real question of identity. The British Empire had collapsed, the conflict was over and now it’s every man for himself – so how does the country deal with that? This work mirrors the daily life of the British; it’s a window into the past.

“But it’s more complex. The class system had been blown to pieces and there was political optimism about Britain becoming a more equal society – we saw the NHS established in 1948. At the same time, people still looked for conformity and familiarity; there was a retreat back to tradition. Women were forced back into roles in the home and church-going went through the roof.” While the British stiff upper lip was still in evidence – both in life and on screen – beneath the surface was the imminent arrival of the teenager.

Mark Glancy, Queen Mary’s professor of film history, says: “There was real anxiety about the effect the war and the Blitz had had on children. That fed into fears about juvenile delinquency, especially with the emergence of ‘teddy boys’.” But, adds Dr Geiringer, people also wanted more from life, for themselves and the next generation. With the arrival of television people gained access to new ideas and there was a sense of looking more for personal fulfillment rather than simply adhering to duty.”

That concern for childhood is echoed in one BFI film choice, A Diary for Timothy – a 1945 documentary narrated by Michael Redgrave, taking the form of a letter to a newborn baby, exploring what the future may hold. Popular with critics and audiences, they recognised its air of optimism, mixed with apprehension.

The theme of childhood is also present in Ehsan’s BFI selection, Mandy, starring Jack Hawkins and Phyllis Calvert as the parents of a deaf girl, showing their efforts to help her connect with the world. The 1952 film was shot at Ealing Studios and nominated for a clutch of Baftas.

Iranian-born Ehsan, says it’s a metaphor for a traumatised nation learning to communicate again in peace time. Hawkins himself served in the war, in India and Asia. Ehsan recalls: “I grew up watching these films on TV. When I saw Mandy, years later, I could remember every scene. It’s very moving.“ In Hunted, Dirk Bogarde stars as a fugitive murderer who takes a war- orphaned boy on the run with him - forming an unlikely bond - after the child witnesses his crime.

The 1952 film won critical acclaim for its gritty approach to the austerity still facing Britain - the end of rationing was still two years away. Bogarde had been among the first Allied officers to enter the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the end of the war. Praised for his performance in Hunted, he struggled with the aftermath of conflict, once saying: “First there was the war, and then the peace to cope with.”

Dr Geiringer says: “We talk today about ‘broken Britain,’ but post war that was a literal phrase; you could actually see how broken it was just by the bombsites on streets and on screen. The Suez Crisis happened in 1956 and Britain had an identity crisis; suddenly we didn’t have so much power on the world stage.”

Ehsan, who originally curated the programme for the prestigious Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, choose movies concentrating on the realities of everyday life. He says: “These are all movies that people would have seen at their local cinema. Movies of the era have a reputation of being mild and very conservative but many have their own edge.”

He highlights Turn The Key Softly, a 1953 drama which follows Joan Collins, as one of three women released from prison into a cold and dismal 50s London.

Critics called the actress’s performance “lush and brassy” but it was her co-star Kathleen Harrison who, according to one review, made ‘the loneliness of the poor and unwanted strikingly real’. Mark Glancy says it was a “challenging time” for many with those difficulties, which is reflected in the film. He says: “When I see people in movies from this period I always think how thin they look; they sit down to a meal of two boiled potatoes, a tiny slice of roast beef and some cabbage. But that’s how it was - there were few luxuries.

There were a lot of British films about ordinary people at this time because ordinary people were heroes.” The question of capital punishment was being explored in public life during the 50s – a theme reflected in the 1957 thriller Time Without Pity. Starring Michael Redgrave and Ann Todd, the story follows a father trying to save his son from execution.

Less than a decade later The Murder Act suspended the death penalty for murder in Great Britain. But while life’s meagre joys continued to be rationed, the search for escapism continued. One of the cheapest forms of entertainment remained going to the cinema - according to the UK Cinema Association, there were 1.64 billion cinema attendances in 1946.

Despite the movies featured in the festival being decades old, Dr Geiringer believes we can still draw relevance from them today. He says: “Post war Britain was trying to find its identity - there was a debate about what ‘Britishness’ really was. When resources are short that question of who we are - and who we are not - often arises. We’re seeing a similar thing here in 2026.”

*Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema 1945-1960 is on at the BFI Southbank until May 30

PRESS UPDATE : THE SPECTATOR ... MAY 23RD 2026 ..

Joan Collins

23 May 2026

No one recog­nised me on the red car­pet!

‘We are tak­ing the pic­ture to Cannes,’ said John Gore, the pro­du­cer and fin­an­cier of My Duch­ess, my new film about the Duch­ess of Wind­sor. ‘How excit­ing!’ I said. Then, a minute later, I thought, ‘Oh God! What am I going to wear on the red car­pet?’ The fol­low­ing day I told my artist friend David Down­ton about my dilemma while lunch­ing at Clar­idge’s. ‘Let’s call Stéphane Rolland,’ he said. ‘Won­der­ful idea!’ I said. ‘He’s great! He made the red dress I wore for the Heart Truth Red Dress gala in New York a few years ago, and it was spec­tac­u­lar.’

David called Stéphane as we had cof­fee, and the tal­en­ted cou­tur­ier sketched a ter­rific draw­ing of a beau­ti­ful white dress with ruffles while they chat­ted, and texted it to David. ‘Amaz­ing!’ I exclaimed. It was per­fect – exactly what I would have wanted. He must have read my mind, and it took all of five minutes. Three weeks later, Stéphane and his long-time col­lab­or­ator Phil­ippe Delessard arrived at my apart­ment with a massive suit­case con­tain­ing a gor­geous dress that fit­ted me per­fectly.

My dresser, Chrissy, and I went through my entire ward­robe try­ing to find suit­able out­fits for the three days we were to spend in Cannes. I had to pre­pare for two din­ners that were sup­posedly cas­ual (dif­fi­cult as I can only do cas­ual when I exer­cise) and a lunch with press fol­lowed by a photo shoot with Isa­bella Ros­sellini, and finally another out­fit to appear on stage to intro­duce the screen­ing. It took Chrissy and me all day to col­late the right out­fits, shoes, bags, jew­ellery, etc. I don’t have a styl­ist on speed dial, but luck­ily I have lots of clothes. I prac­tised dance steps and bal­ance with my friend the cho­reo­grapher Paul Robin­son. God for­bid I should slip on the red car­pet steps. I watched some reels of act­resses at pre­vi­ous Cannes red car­pets and all I could say is: I had bet­ter watch out.

Joan with MY DUCHESS director Mike Newell at Cannes Luncheon at Carlton Beach

We arrived in Cannes on the Monday. The streets were clogged with people; I wondered if they were all cinephiles or just there to gawk at the celebrit­ies. We stayed at the Majestic hotel, where many beau­ti­ful young girls con­greg­ated in the lobby, some with attend­ants car­ry­ing all man­ner of light­ing and video equip­ment while the girls pranced around pos­ing pret­tily. ‘They’re influ­en­cers,’ said Alyn, my makeup and hair guru.

Cannes was boil­ing hot but there was a very high wind, so in pre­par­ing for the red car­pet and walk­ing up the stairs at the Pal­ais des Fest­ivals I was wor­ried my hair would blow all over my face. Sev­eral star­lets had been papped on the Crois­ette with their long exten­sions envel­op­ing their faces, so we decided to scrape my hair back and put it up in a chignon. Then, primped and powdered and hair sprayed like carved mahogany, off I went. My white dress, although gor­geous, was quite uncom­fort­able and I wor­ried that my high heels would catch on the cobble­stones, even though they were covered in car­pet. But none of these fears – hair, dress, shoes – mater­i­al­ised. What actu­ally occurred was far more embar­rass­ing. I got in the car with Laurent Lafitte, my co-star and one of France’s biggest movie stars, and Alyn, armed with a massive can of Elnett hair spray. In another car were Percy and John Gore, who were sup­posed to arrive ahead of us so that they and Laurent could escort me. However, a super-dili­gent gen­darme sent their car the long way round and ours the short way, so we arrived before them. As soon as my car stopped, Laurent dis­ap­peared, engulfed by fans wav­ing auto­graph pho­tos and tak­ing selfies. I des­cen­ded from my voit­ure to find myself alone and ignored on the red car­pet… Bambi in the middle of a flam­ing fire. No sign of Percy or John, while Laurent swam in a sea of scream­ing fans. An offi­cious, head­set­ted young woman came up to me and yelled: ‘Vite, vite, get in line. You can’t just stand here!’An actor’s night­mare. To my great relief, within what was prob­ably a minute dur­ing which guests looked at me blankly, though it felt like an etern­ity, John, Percy and Laurent all appeared at once and, to screams of ‘Joan! Joan!’, we star­ted walk­ing up the red car­pet while the snap­pers barked orders: ‘Over your shoulder!’ ‘Look left!’ ‘With Laurent!’ ‘By your­self!’

Joan and Isabella Rossellini in My Duchess

Imust admit it was ‘adren­alinely’ exhil­ar­at­ing, if I might coin a term, to be sur­roun­ded by so many people, all intent on cap­tur­ing magic moments. Sev­eral other luminar­ies walked behind us, includ­ing Jane Fonda, whom I’ve known since our early days in Hol­ly­wood. Although I’ve atten­ded the Cannes Film Fest­ival many times dur­ing my career, this was the most excit­ing occa­sion. The next day the media gave Stéphane’s white ‘orchid’ dress and me the most won­der­ful plaudits, so it was all worth it in the end.

EVENT UPDATE : CEDARS SINAI INTERNATIONAL LONDON LAUNCH PARTY .. THE WALLACE COLLECTION ... LONDON .. MAY 20TH 2026 ..

 

Joan with Dr Lawrence Piro - President and CEO, The Angeles Clinic & Research Institute, and Medical Director of Cedars‑Sinai’s Global Care programme...

Joan and Biggins enjoying the party

One of America's top medical clinics and most famous is Cedars Sinai, with it's Los Angeles clinic popular with many in the entertainment industry. Cedars International have just opened their flagship London clinic in Harley Street. To launch the clinic a party was held at The Wallace Collection with Joan as guest of honour. Joan took to the podium and spoke to the many guests including friends Piers Morgan, Jeffrey Archer, Gabriela Peacock, Andrew Pierce and Christopher Biggins.

Joan with Gabriela Peacock & Piers Morgan

EVENT UPDATE : RHS CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW ... LONDON .. MAY 20TH 2026 ...

 

Joan with Tamara Beckwith in the garden!

One of Joan's favourite annual events to attend is The RHS Chelsea Flower Show and she made time our of her busy schedule to attend this years show which opened this week. One of her highlights was a visit to her good friend Tamara Beckwith's Lady Garden Foundation Garden which is the first year the charity
has submitted a garden. Joan spent some quiet time in the tranquil creation called 'Silent No More' created by Darren Hawkes. Other guests this week at the show were Elaine Paige, Judi Dench, Gloria Hunniford and Joanna Lumley. The foundation was thrilled when creator Darren Hawkes was awarded a Chelsea Gold Award for his inspiring garden.

Lady Garden Foundation founders Tamara Beckwith & Clare Van Dam with Penny Plane, Alex Kingston & Joanna Lumley

PRESS UPDATE : THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER .. MAY 16TH 2026 ..

 

The Grande Dames: Joan Collins, Isabella Rossellini Bring Old Hollywood Class to Cannes..........

The screen legends discuss fashion, fame and female survival while unveiling My Duchess, a decades-in-the-making drama about the tragic final years of Wallis Simpson.

By Scott Roxborough

Collins is fresh from the Cannes red carpet, where the night before she had outshone starlets a third — a quarter — her age. The actress brought a blast of old Hollywood glamour to a festival that, this year especially, has often felt strangely drained of it.

Her sculpted white orchid gown, a custom Stéphane Rolland Haute Couture number with a sweeping train, paired with dramatic black opera gloves, diamond jewelry and similarly encrusted needle-toe pumps, gave off unmistakable Alexis Carrington energy — a reminder of the 1980s, when Collins, as the scheming queen of Dynasty, practically dictated the decade’s fashion vocabulary.

“It was very exciting. I had my glam squad do me up, the hair, the makeup,” she says. “I looked — well, I won’t say how I looked, but you can read what they wrote.”

Sitting opposite me now on the Carlton Beach, Dame Joan is only slightly more casual, wearing a thigh-length patterned summer dress and oversized hexagonal sunglasses the size of tea saucers. Her famous mane is perfectly buffed into place.

Next to her, Isabella Rossellini is the bohemian counterpoint: Draped in a loose black-and-white patterned outfit with flashes of bright orange lining, her trademark pixie cut untouched by Cannes excess. Rossellini has flown in for this interview, joining Collins to discuss My Duchess, the first collaboration between the two screen icons.

But Rossellini skipped the red carpet entirely.

“I actually find it very intimidating,” she says. “It’s a whole production now. It’s not like when my mother [Ingrid Bergman] went to the Oscars. She wore her own jewelry, maybe something special that my father had bought for her.”

“Well, I wore my own jewelry last night,” Collins jumps in. “Because I didn’t want a security guard following me around. Which is what happens when they give you something to wear.”

Isabella Rossellini, Joan Collins in Cannes to promote ‘My Duchess’ Max Cisotti / Dave Benett

The two women bounce off each other like old friends rather than first-time co-stars, veering effortlessly between fashion, film and stories from another era of cinema.

“Your father and I almost worked together,” Collins says suddenly, turning to Rossellini.

She launches into a sprawling anecdote about Sea Wife, the 1957 drama in which she starred opposite Richard Burton. Roberto Rossellini had originally been hired to direct.

“Roberto fought with Darryl Zanuck over my character, who was a nun, and Roberto wanted her to have sex, a relationship with Richard Burton’s character. He said that would be real, natural. They fought about it for a week while we played Scrabble in the sand. The studio wouldn’t budge and Roberto said, ‘Well, it’s not true to life,’ and left.”

Rossellini laughs. “My father really liked you.”

Collins recently posted a photo of her with Roberto Rossellini on Instagram on May 8, which would have been his 120th birthday. 

“She’s very big on Instagram,” Rossellini says.

“Oh, you have more followers than me,” Collins retorts.

But Collins is not in Cannes simply to reminisce about the golden age of cinema. She’s here to launch My Duchess. Directed by Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) from a script by Louise Fennell, the film tells the story of Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, the previously divorced woman King Edward VIII, later known as the Duke of Windsor, abdicated his throne to marry. It focuses on the final years of her life, when she lived in France under the control of her exploitative lawyer, Suzanne Blum, played by Rossellini. The film picks up after the death of the Duke of Windsor in 1972 and traces the Duchess’ physical and mental collapse under Blum’s control.

Joan Collins as Wallis Simpson in ‘My Duchess’ Courtesy of Embankment Films

“People thought she had died, but she hadn’t. This lawyer [Rossellini] came in an destroyed her. She spent the last eight or nine years of her life blind, deaf and dying. And no one knows that.”
But getting the project made took decades. My Duchess is the first feature from John Gore Studios, the new outfit launched by the Broadway impresario behind Hamilton and The Book of Mormon, who agreed to finance the project after Collins pitched it to him at a King’s Trust dinner in late 2023. Embankment Films is handling sales in Cannes.

Collins has been trying to make her Wallis Simpson film for 30 years. In the early 1990s, Collins met Mohamed Al-Fayed — the father of Dodi Fayed, who died with Princess Diana in the Paris car crash, and, at the time, the owner of London luxury department story Harrods. 

“I told him how fascinated I was with Wallis Simpson,” Collins recalls. “He said, ‘I own her house in France.’ So I went there.” 

She was shown around the house by Bahamas-born Sydney Johnson, the Windsors’ former valet. “The place was immaculate, it looked just as it did, just as it does in the film. There were two mannequins, one of the Duchess and one of the Duke. He was wearing a kilt. She was wearing Chanel, of course.”
Collins admits to feeling a kinship with Simpson, who was the target of the tabloids of her day. 

“This film is a bit of me getting back [at the press], because I had a lot of problems in my time,” she says. “They always saw me as the bad girl because of the roles I played. When I was in Dynasty, the press would say: ‘She’s just like that,’ and I wasn’t!”

For Collins’ fans, My Duchess is something of a revelation. As Simpson declines, the actress appears frail, diminished, stripped of poise and makeup. Frighteningly exposed.

“Joan has this combination that I have never seen before,” says Rossellini. “She is beautiful, has great beauty, great glamor, but absolutely no vanity whatsoever.” “No, I am not vain. I have never been vain,” Collins agrees. “I’ll answer the door in shorts with no makeup. I don’t care.”

Joan Collins as Wallis Simpson in ‘My Duchess’ Courtesy of Embankment Films

That lack of vanity becomes the greatest weapon of My Duchess. The sight of Collins — one of the defining glamour figures of post-war cinema and television — as she physically withers onscreen is something we have never seen before. 

But there is, as Rossellini puts it, one “Joan Collins moment” in the film: when the Duchess finally snaps and lashes out at Blum. 

“I say the F-word one time in the film, in that scene,” says Collins with obvious delight. “As I was doing it, I thought: ‘I just told Ingrid Bergman’s daughter to F-off!’ ”

Despite the darkness of the material, there is an unmistakable lightness between the two actresses, perhaps because both have spent decades navigating the strange collision of celebrity image and artistic ambition. And both have also successfully adjusted to periods out of the spotlight. In an industry that often treats women as disposable, they are true survivors.

“I started working in this business when I was 17, and my father told me, ‘If you are lucky, you can work until you’re 27,’ ” says Collins. Seventy-five years later, she notes that she’s had probably “had the longest-ever career in show business. I’m certainly the oldest working.”

She says the secret to career longevity, both for her and Rossellini, was surprisingly simple.

“We had good families. We never had problems with alcohol or drugs. And we always wanted to work.”
The woman who spent decades playing glamorous monsters is now playing a victim slowly erased from the world. By the end of My Duchess, stripped of makeup, jewelry and image, there is almost nothing left of the Joan Collins audiences think they know. At 92, after more than seven decades onscreen, Dame Collins may finally have found the one role that destroys the myth she spent a lifetime creating.

PRESS UPDATE : TOWN & COUNTRY ... MAY 14TH 2026 ..

 

Lionel Hahn//Getty Images

Dame Joan Collins Brings Movie Star Glamour to the Cannes Opening Ceremony

She made her Cannes debut back in 1972.

By Emily Burack

Joan Collins is back in Cannes after a nearly decade-long hiatus. For the opening ceremony at Palais des Festivals last night, she made a statement in a sculptural gown paired with diamond chandelier earrings and necklace.

Her dress was a custom-made Stephane Rolland Haute Couture long white orchid dress, and she completed the look with black opera gloves. On the red carpet, she was joined by French actor Laurent Lafitte.

Stephane Cardinale - Corbis//Getty Images

Collins first attended the French film festival in 1972, wearing a one-shoulder white dress. She has since been to Cannes numerous times over the decades, but her last appearance came in 2018.

Joan attended Cannes Festival in 1978.

She has a good reason to return: Collins’s film My Duchess—previously titled The Bitter End—will premiere this week. The movie will enter the Cannes market today, according to Deadline. “Obviously at the back of my mind, I’m always thinking about the other Duchesses,” producer John Gore said of the name change, referring to Sarah Ferguson, formerly the Duchess of York, and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. “I thought, ‘We have to have Duchess in the title so people can make all those kind of connections,’ even though you can’t really say them in the movie, but people need to think of it in that way.”

Luigi Iorio//Getty Images 

In the movie, Collins plays Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor. “I’m always fascinated by women who everybody says are nasty people. And when you strip it all off, you find out that they’re not really,” Collins said of the late Duchess. In a clip shared on her Instagram upon her arrival in Cannes, the actress said the film is “absolutely wonderful.”