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jisforjudi · 7 years ago

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Judi Dench on Shakespeare, 'Victoria & Abdul' and what she's learned

By Stephen Whitty

ArtiSyndicate

Here's a lesson in humility: Dame Judi Dench still worries about whether or not she'll get work.

"I've always had that fear," she confesses. "So many people are unemployed and I always tell young actors, it's not the good ones who are always working. It's the lucky ones."

Well, for 60 years, we've been the truly lucky ones as Dench has amazed audiences with her range, playing in everything from "Macbeth" to "Cabaret" on stage, and "Shakespeare in Love" to "The Second Best Marigold Hotel" on film.

But the ever-busy 82-year-old - who also has "Murder on the Orient Express" opening this year - still took some time out to talk about Shakespeare, learning from directors and her new film, "Victoria & Abdul," in which the great British queen makes an unexpected friend.

Q: You have the sort of anticipation-building entrance in "Victoria and Abdul" an actor dreams of. Your exit isn't bad, either. And I was thinking afterwards - but then that's what real acting is, isn't it? Filling in all those interesting things in the middle. That's the job you have to take on.

A: Yes, well a lot of it is already there in the writing, and the rest of it is, you do your homework. But I also think it's your relationship with the other actors that gets you through. Once, I remember, Ian Holm was going to play Henry V and, well, he's not very tall, and he was rather worried about that, playing the king. And (actress) Caroline Guthrie told him, "It's not a question of you playing the king - it's how the other actors play your subjects." In the end, actually, I believe they figured out, in staging, that people wouldn't come within so many feet of him, to give him that space. We didn't do that here, but yes, I think it's far easier for me to persuade the audience that I'm the queen if the actors around me treat me like the queen. You depend on so many other people to make it work.

Q: Queen Victoria is a person you've played before, and marvelously, in "Mrs. Brown." But of course she's older now, changed, and she has a new relationship in her life, with this former servant. What was it like to revisit her?

A: It was terribly interesting because it was all so new to me. Abdul Karim's diary was only recently found, and published; this relationship really hadn't been known about, or if it were, it was kept very quiet. I had always thought that after the death of John Brown she had been on her own, and kind of coping with the rest of her life. But it is a great comfort to know that she met someone, a man who she could feel an affection for she didn't have for the children, and a friend she could easily understand, and learn from, and talk to - she wrote him sometimes five letters a day. It was a great comfort to her, obviously. I don't think she would have lived as long as she did without him.

Q: One of the lovely things about this film is, I think it keeps you wondering about these people, and their motivations. Sometimes I think even they're not sure of their motivations.

A: People ask me, "Was she in love?" But it's not a question of that; it's much bigger than that. It was this all-enveloping thing, really finding comfort in someone's company. And going to Scotland and getting away from London, and the court, and everyone standing around at keyholes. Although, of course, they still did.

Q: What I think is very telling is that she's the most powerful woman in the world - and yet people are still talking down to her because she's a woman. People are still patronizing her because she's old.

A: And she does have that lovely scene where she gets livid with all of them, doesn't she! But that's quite right, that's the way they all treat her. And (her son) Bertie - "I thought she was going to die!" But she's still there. And full of this innocent curiosity - learning Urdu, learning about the Koran.

Q: We'd be remiss, I think, if we didn't remember the recent passing of the director Sir Peter Hall, for whom you played a number of great roles onstage. What did he bring to an actor's work?

A: Oh, my word. Well, after Michael Benthall, who was the person who cast me out of drama school at the Old Vic, it was Peter who saw me at the Vic and asked me to join the company for "The Cherry Orchard," with Sir John Gielgud. And then there were the seasons at Stratford - oh, he taught me everything I know about speaking Shakespeare, obeying the punctuation, the end of the lines and the half-lines... I find it very, very difficult to express what I owe to him.

You speak of his dedication to the text, but he also had a great visual sense, and an original gift for staging.

A: Oh yes, he did it all. His idea of heaven, I believe he said, would be to do Shakespeare all day and then do Mozart at night. He was such a gifted director. When we were doing "Antony and Cleopatra" he came back once when we were about 50 performances in and said "It's got to be more baroque." I thought, What on earth does that mean? But then when I came to direct years later, directing Kenneth Branagh in "Much Ado About Nothing," I thought - now I know exactly what Peter meant by "baroque." It's let the actors go. Let them put in all the little curls and curlicues and flourishes that aren't really necessary but add so much. He taught me everything I know about Shakespeare, and a great deal of everything else.

Were their other lessons you had to learn when you began doing more film work?

A: Well, you know, filming wasn't something I ever expected to do. But when I found myself doing it, I thought, the only way you learn is to watch other people who are very good at it. And you soon understand that first important lesson - and, of course everyone is told it, but you never quite want to believe it - that less is more. When we're young, we're all very keen to go all out and try everything. You think, this is all terribly complicated and I've got to find a way to work that all out and get every bit of it onscreen. But eventually you realize it's far more powerful if you can convey an emotion with one look.

don't know if you're aware of the anniversary, but this month, 60 years ago, you first stepped on stage at the Old Vic to play Ophelia...

A: September 9!

Q: Yes! So there's a little rosemary for you, for remembrance. But I wonder, what would you tell that young actress today?

A: Well, again - less is more. Believe that. When I was playing Ophelia then, oh, I tried every way I could, everything I could think of to make the audience understand that she was mad. Now, I know that I only need to choose one thing to do that. But you don't want economy when you're in your 20s. You don't trust it. Now, in my 80s, I know that, and could play it that way. But I'm afraid I would be a very, very old Ophelia now.

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