Christopher Hampton: my week

In The Observer, Guild member Christopher Hampton offers a peek into his diary.

Friday was very much Coco Chanel day for me: the day of the release of the new film Coco Avant Chanel. The director, Anne Fontaine , has been a friend for quite a long time and she got me involved as an "adviser".

She was working with a young writer just out of film school called Camille Fontaine (no relation). Once they'd produced a first draft, I went over for a week and talked it through with them both. Then I did the same after the second draft and again before Anne started shooting. It was the ideal job: relaxed conversation in a Paris hotel and no actual writing.