Meet the man who inspired Ralph Fiennes’s Conclave character - and learn the true secrets of selecting a Pope

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

For a man who helped inspire Ralph Fiennes's masterful performance in the Oscar-winning movie Conclave, Cardinal Vincent Nichols is remarkably relaxed about watching himself on screen. "I haven't seen the film yet," says the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, to give the spiritual leader of the four million Catholics in England and Wales his full title, as he welcomes me into his study, an enclave of tranquillity tucked behind the neo- Byzantine grandeur of Westminster Cathedral.

"But we did have a long chat before he played the part. He came here and we talked for three hours. Then I said, 'Do you want to try on the kit?' I went to get it and he got dressed, looked in the mirror and said, 'OK, I feel all right now.' It's amazing being able to switch character like that. He's a remarkable man."

Nichols also hasn't asked to see a preview of the BBC Two documentary Secrets of the Conclave, in which he plays a leading role recounting what happened behind closed doors during the real conclave that took place in Rome to choose a successor to Pope Francis. For Nichols, it was the highlight of his life in the Church.

A tall, softly spoken 80-year-old, born and brought up in Crosby and still carrying enough of a Merseyside accent to make sense of the framed Liverpool FC shirt hanging above his study door, Nichols radiates the same quiet charisma in person that he does on television.

He may not have seen Hollywood's take on Robert Harris's 2016 novel about the power plays, political wrangling and court intrigue surrounding the election of a fictional pope, but why would he need to, having been part of the centuries-old process that elected Pope Leo XIV? For two days in May, with millions around the world watching the Vatican chimney on news networks and YouTube, it was one of the biggest live television events of the year.

Not that Nichols knew that at the time. Because, along with the other 132 cardinals who took part in the papal conclave, he was locked away in the Vatican – "clave" being Latin for "key" – living under a communications blackout imposed by the Church.

"When we moved into the Santa Marta [the Vatican guest house next to Saint Peter's Basilica], I was given a more thorough search than at any airport security I have been through," he says. "My phone was put into a sealed bag. I had a Kindle reader that I use to say prayers, but that had to go. I have hearing aids with a charger and they tested those, but they eventually allowed me to keep them. When I was shown to my room there was what looked like a convector radiator that I was told was there to pick up any electronic signals coming into – or going out of – the room. The wooden shutters on the windows were sealed shut."

This enforced seclusion, initially a shock, became transformative. "It changed the world in which we lived for a few days," he says. "It became an enrichment because there was this shared focus on a remarkable task in hand."

The cardinals – some familiar to Nichols, others complete strangers, like the 45-year-old from Mongolia whose church is a tent that travels with nomads across the plains – had no choice but to get to know one another.

He describes the atmosphere in the guest house as contemplative – "we didn't say a lot of prayers; that was all done in the Sistine Chapel" – and says they used their digital detox to concentrate fully on their deliberations.

"Unlike in the film, I believe, I never heard a word of anyone promoting themselves. Or the opposite. I never heard a word of somebody saying, 'Keep away from him, there's trouble there.' There was a quiet exchange of views, but more about qualities than personalities."

In the Catholic tradition, the pope is the successor to Saint Peter, a direct line that can be traced back to the original apostle charged by Jesus with spreading the gospel. As such, selecting a new pontiff – leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics – is not a task to be taken lightly. "Everybody in the conclave understood the weight of the office of being pope," says Nichols.

What about the American cardinal, formerly known as Robert Prevost, who now finds himself as Pope Leo XIV? "He showed an utter calm. I was about as far away from him as that chair over there when the conclave came to the decisive moment," he says, gesturing to the corner of his study. "We all had a sheet to keep the score on, so everyone knew when the decisive two-thirds majority had been reached. When Cardinal Parolin came across and stood in front of Robert Prevost and said, 'Do you accept this legitimate election to be Supreme Pontiff?', he just said, 'I do'. Then the second question: 'By what name shall you be known?' He said simply: 'I am Leo'. In his heart, he was already stepping into his new life. Even his new name."

The documentary shows the stove used to burn the ballots being wheeled into the Sistine Chapel, the chimney being erected to carry the news to the crowds outside, and a temporary floor being installed above the uneven mosaics so that aged clerics didn't trip on their way to post their ballot in the urn on the altar. There's also footage of the new pope, freshly clad in his white cassock (various shapes and sizes are run up beforehand), being acclaimed on the balcony of Saint Peter's, seemingly in tears. "He was visibly very emotional," recalls Nichols.

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Of course, he might have been mourning his previous life. "You lose all privacy," says Nichols. Even for him, returning from Rome, the attention was astonishing. "Coming back through Heathrow Airport," Nichols recalls, "I was stopped five or six times by people asking, 'Have you been to the conclave?'"

Why did a papal conclave captivate so many of us? "People are hungry for something that appeals to an innate truth in as much as, sometimes today, truth has been subjectivised. Everybody knows that there are some traits and human aspirations that are shared. And if they are denied, we get into trouble. Who is disinterested enough in politics and power to speak up for these things?

"There was a moment in the Santa Marta when one of the cleaning ladies stopped me as I was walking past to go to the Sistine Chapel, and she said, 'Just give us someone dressed in white.' She was expressing that sense of there being a gap, an empty space that needs to be filled to complete our picture.

"It's the same thing that underpins the experience of being a parent – giving birth to a child, having a succession, a sense that life has got a purpose other than just me. And it's going to go on: a promise of fulfilment."

Which brings us to Christmas. Perhaps His Eminence will finally find time to watch Conclave? "It's upstairs, I've just never got round to it," he says, pointing out that most of his television time is devoted to following Liverpool. "But I hope everyone will watch this documentary on the conclave," he adds, inviting us all to share the quiet deliberation and shared purpose of those spring days spent behind locked doors, sealed off from the digital whirl in which we live. A world without phones but full of meaning.

Read more: Conclave review: Ralph Fiennes is imperious in this finely-scripted papal thriller

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Secrets of the Conclave airs on Monday, 22nd December at 9pm on BBC Two.

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