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The leading lady |
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Dame Judi Dench’s star has never shone brighter. Ali Kefford talks to the inspirational actress about James Bond, acting with horses and her love for her family When Dame Judi Dench helped Pierce Brosnan’s 007 save the world in a Bond film her family were doubled up with laughter. Not because they didn’t think her character – the steely “M” – wasn’t more than capable of tackling any psychotic killers that might stray into her path, but because of the way the actress wielded the very latest gadgetry in the fight against evil. You see, in real life Dame Judi confesses she’s no techno-wizz – and finds even handling household appliances fairly daunting. Over the four most recent 007 movies Dame Judi has transformed MI6 boss “M” from a barking bloke into a blazingly capable dominatrix, who last laddered a stocking circa 1976. She rebukes Bond with withering one-liners, including once famously dubbing the brave and succulent agent a “misogynist dinosaur”. Thankfully, however, in her latest outing in Die Another Day, you get the impression that the characters are, at least, learning to tolerate each other. “The films are wonderful fun to do,” she says in that soft, velvety voice. I get to be very, very bossy with Pierce Brosnan. He’s a beauty – and now married so out of all our reaches. I saved the planet as “M”. When my family saw it they howled with laughter because I’m a person who can’t put the ironing board up.” No one warned me about the Dench wit, a needle-sharp, self-deprecating humour that seems to unfurl effortlessly given just the tiniest nudge of encouragement. Once on a roll, she will continue effortlessly with a scorching dryness more normally found in the Sahara until her audience can barely breathe. “M” is probably the highest profile role for one of this country’s greatest living acting talents, whose cinematic star has never gleamed brighter. Her list of credits over the past ten years neatly coincides with some of the most acclaimed films the decade has produced. It’s the combination of Dame Judi’s consistency and versatility which seems to hit the mark. And she seems to particularly excel while operating within the suffocating confines of the corset. Such as in A Room with a View.While Helena Bonham Carter’s Lucy Honeychurch is wandering around waiting for the snog of her life, Dame Judi’s character is taking measures to protect her backside from the elements. “I never go anywhere without my MacIntosh Squares,” her character Miss Eleanor Lavish explains, laying out the objects in question on the hillside. “One never knows when one might have to sit on wet grass or cold marble.” Put the line in almost any other actor’s mouth and it would be soon lost in the gaping abyss of cinematic burble. But Dame Judi makes it memorable. Another notable corsetry high point was her “blink-’n’-you’ll-miss-it” portrayal of Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love. Dame Judi earned an Oscar for this performance – a mere eight minutes in duration – in which she gave the compulsively cross-dressing Gwyneth Paltrow a good ticking off. And, of course, there was Major Corset Triumph III, alias Mrs Brown, the film which propelled Dame Judi into the Hollywood stratosphere of red carpets and resulted in a close friendship with her co-star, the Glaswegian comedian and serial nudist Billy Connolly. For one scene it took 17 takes for Billy to hoist Dame Judi from the saddle of her horse without some sort of mishap such as the Scottish comedian getting tangled up in Her Majesty’s corsetry (please note, Dame Judi herself raised the underwear issue here). “My feet were a foot and a half off the ground, we had a farting horse we had everything.” Lucky then that professionalism carried the cast through? “We didn’t manage that for quite a long time,” comes the arid reply. “We did that film in 30 days in the rain. I’ll never forget it. We were constantly driving through huge estates and asking people if we could hang 35 kilts in their airing cupboard to dry. Then we had a long way to drive back to the hotel and it was down to the bar – and then Billy would be on a roll… We had to be up again at 4.45am and you were thinking ‘how short a time can I do this night on?’ We have remained friends ever since. It’s extremely nice when that happens.” Then, remembering that Billy became an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, she adds: “He got a badge – I must write him a cheeky card.” Born in 1934, Dame Judi trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Since then she’s won an British Academy Award six times, become an OBE in 1970 and a Dame of the British Empire in 1988. She received Oscar nominations for her performances in Mrs Brown and Chocolat, as well as shining in films such as Tea with Mussolini and The Importance of Being Earnest. Right by her side sharing her succes until his death on January 11, 2001 was fellow thespian Michael Williams. After marrying in 1971 the pair enjoyed a rock solid union which saw them occasionally act side by side. The couple’s daughter, Finty Williams, is also an actress and obviously central to Dame Judi’s life as she admits: “Family and friends are vital.” Now she’s a Hollywood star Dame Judi gets invited to all those flash parties attended by the cream of international cinema. But, instead of being remotely la-di-dah herself, this deeply down-to-earth actress confesses she more often than not simply stands there with her eyes out on stalks, people-spotting. The first time she went to a glittering award ceremony she wore shoes which were “hell on earth” and was lent possibly the most pinchy pair of diamond earrings in California. “You get very, very excited when you see someone in the flesh like Antonio Banderas. My daughter nearly fell on the floor. It was thrilling.” Like many creative people, you sense Dame Judi is something of a perfectionist. She doesn’t watch her films because she’s often not entirely content with the way she’s played a scene. This is one of the reasons why the actress has such a soft spot for the theatre, where she can subtly refine her role with each performance. “Theatre is my first love simply because it’s where I’m most comfortable. I can go on night after night trying to make it better. Filming is a very kind of unfinished business for me.” She hasn’t seen her latest outing as M in Die Another Day. “I will one day. When I’ve forgotten the problems. You build up a rapport [when doing film work]. It’s entirely to do with the people – that’s the thing that matters. I loved doing Shakespeare in Love because I was working with John Madden. I loved doing Shipping News because I was working with Kevin Spacey.” Filming Iris – the highly-acclaimed biography of English intellectual Iris Murdoch – took just five weeks, sandwiched between two stints of Shipping News. “Iris was my hero. I’d read her books and I knew people who knew her very well, but never met her. We watched tapes of her being interviewed. It was hard with Iris – I couldn’t take liberties in a way you might do with “M” or Lady Bracknell. It was in the same vein as it was when I played Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown. You have to be very much true to that person. Queen Victoria was easier because she was alive a longer time ago. With Iris Murdoch there are many, many people who knew her and loved her.” Great actors are vulnerable. In fact, it’s that sensitivity, almost like lacking a last layer of skin, which makes them so darned good, allowing them to tune into the characters they play. Dame Judi must have a centre of steel to flourish and endure the way she has in the gruelling and ruthless acting business. But there’s also a sensitivity and, surprisingly, a touch of professional insecurity. “On a first night I’m in floods of tears. I do get that kind of fear all the time, especially now that I’m so much older. I get terribly frightened that I’m not going to be employed. I love work.” Of course the thought of Dame Judi sitting around twiddling her thumbs while she waits for the phone to ring is unthinkable. For heaven’s sake, she’s part of the backbone of British acting with a career which appears to be peaking as she approaches her 70th birthday. All this didn’t stop her taking several months off this spring to mourn her soul mate Michael properly. The gaping hole in her life caused by his departure is a raw wound that will probably never heal. But now she’s off to America to film The Chronicles of Riddick in which she will star as the ethereal Aereon alongside none other than current Hollywood hot-shot Vin Diesel. Mr Diesel is fresh from success in XXX, pronounced Triple X (though Dame Judi confesses she thought it stood for Kiss, Kiss, Kiss). After that there’s another film in Cornwall with Charles Dance before she returns to the comforting arms of her alma mater, the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, for a ten-week stint at The Swan. She describes this as “a bit like coming home”. And it’s then that you really hear her vulnerability and it’s clear just how much she’s missing her husband of 29 years. “I’m not good at being on my own – but I have to learn to be. I just have to learn to have another kind of pattern,” she says. If someone’s not coming home then I find it quite difficult to settle at one thing. I flit about a bit. I exhaust myself at the end of the day.”
Thanks to Chris N. from Australia for sharing this
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