Judi Dench: All The World's Her Stage - Documentary

for most of us Dame Judi Dench is M just get out of the way don't you recognize the car she transformed the role and helped bring James Bond into the 21st century a lifetime of experience allowed her to create a very modern and very human M Judy has balls M has balls and she knows how to use him you connect with her immediately when you see her on screen because there's a sort of joy and there's this twinkle in her eye which is just so magical didi challenges you in an extraordinary frightening and exhilarating way to be the very very very best that you can you've got to progress can't understand still can't go back besides bond Judy has shown the world how it's done in independent film a smile serious Hollywood film Shakespeare modern theatre TV sitcom musicals and even as a mouse and then of course there is her national treasure status she would say she doesn't enjoy being a national treasure which would be an absolute bloody lie she loves it but beyond the dame judi we all think we know there is another duty private instinctive enigmatic I feel more comfortable when I'm dressed up as somebody else being somebody else in talking I find it difficult to go along as myself I do think she's one of those people who expresses something in her art that she cannot express in life she'll enjoy making you laugh but equal issues capable of making you cry and doing that turn on six pills and you do feel that at that moment you've seen into the so the real juju I think the real Judy dresses and lay there were male spikes on the screams punk rock all night in the nosy neighbors kills cats in order to understand the real danger Dee Dench we will explore some of the most powerful performances of her career through them we will uncover her secrets and show why she is regarded as one of the most versatile actors in history [Music] over fifty years ago a young judy was on her way to one of the most memorable auditions of her life already a success of the world Shakespeare Company she had yet to make her mark in film I went up about a film once before I'd ever made it from and I went into a room and there were five big men there they offered me a seat and nobody said anything this man looked at me for a long time and then he took a cigar out of his mouth he said miss Dench you have every single thing wrong with your face [Music] all over you who is that idiot you know I'm sure he's at the home you know for retired director somewhere going what the hell did I say that for she has a face the lights up anything she light up the moon 50 years after that audition Dame Judi Dench has become one of the most successful and recognized actors in the world this was in no small part due to her role in international espionage who the hell do they think they are I report to the Prime Minister and even he's smart enough not to ask me what we do have you ever seen such a bunch of self-righteous ass covering prints I didn't protect and I'm and I was a huge fan of the Bond films 17 years and did seven films I'm just the most glorious time but bond is only one part of the story Judy's real break in cinema came on a low-budget film made for the BBC Judy was in her 60s she openly confessed that she was terrified about doing it and I said why it seemed it seemed improbable given the breadth and depth of experience that she'd had in her career and she said because I don't trust that I'll know what to do my job was initially to try and engender confidence in her that that she could pull it off the project definitely daunted her it's your first real starring role in a movie isn't it it is it is because you don't like films much do you I don't know the business of it I'm I really rely very very very much on the director I'm very very unsure of myself a Louis Berry but if Judy was nervous her co-star was terrified mr. brown she frightened delight at me at first because you know she was such a giant of the business and and I said to John Madden I'll do the part but I want to meet her first we talked and we found who we didn't like which I always find and deers me to people if we're if we're linked by people we had laws you know Billy Connolly played the part of John Brown who was to consult Queen after the death of her husband Prince Albert honesty god I never thought to see in such a state you must miss him dreadfully you do not he [Applause] [Music] first scene we did Queen Victoria had burst into tears in the middle of it and we did it 12 times and she did it she burst into tears 12 times and then blew me sideways you know it's just that that was the reality of her my husband used to say you have a huge well of sadness in you an incredible kind of deep pit of something and I suppose out of that pit came any grief that I showed his Queen Victoria the film told the story of the friendship and then deepening affection for developed between cream Victoria and mr. brown [Music] we were doing to eat some real and a scene in the castle and she was directly opposite me and in the middle of the dance I thought oh my god she fancies me Judi Dench fancies me what am I gonna do you know I'm not that good at sporting that no woman but I spotted it and lumps here I thought okay so do this and of course she was acting and she did fancy John Brown and that's suddenly the penny dropped in my head and I began to act properly it was one of the lessons of my life Susie gave it to me for free the film impressed movie mogul Harvey Weinstein who had been given a private screening he decided to distribute it worldwide just saw this amazing performer you know who England knew and the world didn't and I just go who is this girl and I thought if this performance doesn't get nominated for an Academy Award then I have to retire from what I do [Music] Harvey didn't need to retire Judy was nominated for an Oscar and although she didn't win that time mrs. Brown was the beginning of a new era Judy the film star [Music] [Applause] [Music] there was an extraordinary story that she once told me she'd gone to America to do the pre publicity for mrs. Brown in fact it was and she was being interviewed by the American journalists and they said to her in all seriousness they said well you know we all know you from the Bond films so what did you do before and that's sort of 40 years of a career but you have to go well I'd love to Shakespeare completely oblivious to the magnificence that we've all been watching for as long as I can remember [Music] for nearly 60 years Judi Dench has been first and foremost a Shakespearean actor Shakespeare has always been my passion therefore the wind piping was in vain as in revenge have sucked up from the contagious pond there's that wonderful part I am a spirit of no common rate I'm gonna do that end up on my fade the man who pays the rent that's what Shakespeare is known as in our house she does make it look absurdly easy you do think it's just like breathing for her speaking Shakespearean text it just seems like she rolls out of bedding just does it you know what she is masterful at is hiding how difficult it is what comfortable Alec can say our name that ever graced me with our company she has immense knowledge immense technical craft but you are simply unable to see it [Music] but hard as it is to believe today Judy's first role in Shakespeare aged just 18 was a disaster I got cast as a few dear straight out of drama school very very lucky but quite hard baptism of fire I tried every way to make her mad when she came to the mad scene now I know now that I need have only chosen one thing to convey to the audience her madness and it would have been enough you know less is more it's a very very difficult thing to learn whether you're a young actor there's no shortcuts and it is something you have to learn by experience and I got terrible notices as a few year I had to do an enormous swallow I could have been fired and that would have been it I don't know what would have happened anyway didn't matter because I played lots and lots and lots of Shakespeare and so I did learn when I was a little little girl I'd seen my brother playing Lady Macbeth at school and my other brother was playing Duncan and I was remember he came in and said what bloody man is that I said I thought I was about eight I thought this is thrilling this isn't just Shakespeare swearing - so the play must have been one of the first Shakespeare plays I'd ever seen in 1976 Judy and fellow actor Ian McKellen asked the director Trevor Nunn whether they could play the leading roles in Shakespeare's bloody tale of obsession and murder I was immediately aware that if to detention in McKellen worked on it then there was an extraordinary possibility to reexamine Macbeth and we went ahead very much on a tide of their joint energy worthy Cawdor greater than both by the all-hail Hereafter ian mckellen had worked with judy once before issue famously arrives at the first rehearsal unprepared but she's a quick study and suddenly if somewhere in the middle of the first week Judy became the character and she'd lent the world's and she knew how she wanted to inhabit them and that can be alarming if you're still struggling up your own mountain and you look up in those Judy on the top of hers waving come on up nothing happens by chance with Judy she has worked it out but when she works it out is a bafflement to me knowledge when I burned in desire to question them further they made themselves air into which they vanished in rehearsal she will do endless practical jokes I mean can you imagine rehearsing the most blood-stained and upsetting tragedy that's ever been written and the company being convulsed with laughter every day her sense of fun and her sense of seriousness are inseparable she's a conundrum she is a total adult and she's a very naughty schoolgirl so extraordinary about math is that the tension is so great that I mean I haven't heard so many jokes cracked in a short amount of time for a long time and if that stopped I would hate you Judy discovered that Lady Macbeth was not simply the embodiment of all evil wasn't simple as someone who was off the rails on the contrary of everything that goes wrong with her character and her husband is rooted in their love for each other you'll face my fear is as a book where men may read strange matters to beguile the time like the time they're welcome in your hand your high your tongue look like the innocent flower but be the serpent I've just always believed that she was incredibly ambitious not for herself but for her husband so she pushes through the one deed which he thinks is going to be glory for them both for the rest of their lives [Music] you were entirely taken into this woman's world you identified with her needs and her passions and ambition and almost the only time I thought this play is a tragedy because this woman essentially destroys herself and destroys her husband that's the extent that she transformed the play and transformed the path gradually the rift gets wider and wider between them and that is in a way what she dies argh I think there's nothing for her to live for and that's the tragedy of it do the roles take you over I mean you they talk I mean you don't walk around Sainsbury's take you shopping where to come from a Lady Macbeth balance a twist that keeps the old feet on the ground certainly does when you have the shopping list to do [Applause] [Music] Judy continues to claim Shakespeare in early 2016 she received a record eight Olivier Award for her supporting role in second if brannis The Winter's Tale but the reason she has become one of the most versatile actors of her generation is the fact that Shakespeare alone is not enough for Judy there's a Bourdon threshold with Judas she says herself she can get I've done that now let's get on to something else [Music] in 1963 Judy was given a part in an early episode of the BBC's ed cars one of her first steps into the world of television and a very different medium Yury Garland Judy had already made her MA in the theatre she was beginning to be talked about as potentially a great young actor when I first did television I thought I'd never come to grips with it at all but John Hopkins wrote this quartet of plays called talking to a stranger about a family in suburbia and Christopher Morrison was directing it talking to the stranger he's very bleak indeed and I think there are some actors who would find it too too frightening and wouldn't been able to do that and that's why they went cast but I mean Judy was most marvelously rich tough-minded actor I used the fear I think because that creates adrenaline so you can use the legs you need that anyway I don't know I don't know about I don't know about anything else except that you know that I'm so sure that every actor has that kind of fear and it's not part of the deal to share it would you hear my life story no of course you wouldn't everyone else is a perfectly good life story of their own oh I have such a happy childhood but first time I saw Judy she was playing this very very troubled teenager now the conventional view would be the brilliant performance of troubled teenager equals very disturbed childhood and teenage years this is a family isn't it the outward and visible maybe if you don't look too closely No with Judy the reverse is true Judy had a very happy settled childhood your childhood of course was in Yorkshire yes I loved it still early ambitions as a child my first ambition was to be the owner of a fish shop I mean it's the feel and the look of it and very early on I took some kippers from the fish shop I used to steal them and my mother found out when we were him you go straight and take them back Judy's father Reginald Arthur Dench was the local GP but outside of the surgery he had a variety of other roles here he can be seen in a production of Dick Turpin starring alongside his wife and Judy's brother we had big AMPA and we had all sorts of bits of things and we were always dressed up in costume as a child Judy was surrounded by theatre here she is seen playing an angel in the famous York Mystery Plays was no pressure to become an actress there was simply this extraordinary talent that she was nursing her portrayal of life in a very different family to her own would earn her a BAFTA in her first major TV role you're sorry Paul I think anyone who needs something anything I don't know God your friends think that's very funny rule the friends I've got I hadn't got any you put butter on that piece of bread eat you still wouldn't choke be quiet sweetie I better just stop I don't think we as an audience in Britain had seen a suburban family dissected and only asked to be witnesses in such a way before the rawness was palpable tonight no well I can't deny that no I'm not busy I just don't want to go out with you not tonight not tomorrow night not well you know what I mean no no Chris I had a dollar too I mean were very sweet and all that you make somebody a very nice whatever the word is husband I know that's not the idea but it's what you're cut out for ask your wife it would be very difficult to do a scene like that the speech on the phone because it is basically a monologue well it's the only way I know how to talk what do you think I put it on is that what you think to sustain that level of emotional connection and to vary it all the time she'll laugh when it's unexpected she'll be cynical when it's unexpected and so on I can name a dozen come the dog you won't even notice she has an instinctive empathy for more or less everyone she meets and certainly at the heart of her craft is a capacity to empathize and fully comprehend the lives of people who are quite distinct from her [Music] everybody tells me so you made for me [Music] Judy's working TV and theater had brought critical acclaim but it was only after she met and then married the actor Michael Williams that she found broad popular appeal it was no surprise to anybody that they just absolutely hit it off instantly they were absolutely the right size the right optimism the right sense of humor for each other and in 1981 Michael and Judy embarked together on a sitcom it was to become a classic what are you translating at the moment German textbook on urinary infection it was really good fun for her to be able to work on something with my she adored him and at the same time it was financially rewarding I don't know if you have any idea what you get paid as an actor at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the National Theatre but it's barely enough to support a family but she also loved the fact that she had an audience exponentially larger than anything she'd ever done before many in the audience believe they were getting a glimpse of the real Judy the audience see her first of all as someone not unlike their sisters or people they narrow but suddenly they see this some strange depth there and they want to know where did that come from look if you can get by without the sheer black 19 I can get by without the words do people expect you to be like the character you play and finally they do expect us to be like that and they think that as our lives at home were exactly like it it's not to like us but I think that they appeal of it is because it is more like real life in that in that it's more life is more like having a dinner with somebody and thinking our lovely you are and you find the spinach on your tooth all the hail all down your friend why are you winking do you know something about the food that I don't lost a contact lens here well it must be here it was in a minute ago oh where is it why do people always ask that when you've lost something [Laughter] what's going on sometimes drop down your front I think what was remarkable is that neither Judy or Michael did what I described a sitcom acting if you were if you wiggle about a bit I'll have a look on the floor occasionally there'd be pauses where one or the other was just thinking and reacting and in the the syntax of sitcom that's very very bold start dude II would defer to Michael Michael was a very clever comedy actor Michael would say you should have left a longer pause there before the punchline and Judy would say yes you're right so there was tremendous respect going between them [Laughter] you are a distinguished Shakespearean actress yes best known for it somewhat trivial television job you've had so it's very nice to reach an audience who don't want to come and see Shakespeare but we do want to sit and see you in there but you don't feel is this what all my training has been about no I don't I like it a lot because I like to do something that he's that he's the most unexpected thing TV sitcom remained a draw and in 1992 she starred alongside Geoffrey Palmer in the hugely popular as time goes by at last we've got a bit of weekend to ourselves it ran for a decade their success in popular shows is part of what makes her accepted as a national treasures there are many very successful sitcom axis of both genders but they haven't also be very good as Lady Macbeth or South Bowles in cabaret I do like the challenge of something new I've always wanted to do a musical and everyone kind of get you in this thing is it good but I want to have a go and I want to have a little history and everything and bit of dancing it would have seen you live acting of course I don't collect because that's a really different thing in 1968 judi dench starred as Sally Bowles in cabaret a musical based in a seedy nightclub in 30s Berlin when she tries our syllables to hit the high note the character doesn't quite achieve it but the actor does she it's a totally successful rendering of cabaret no one will ever sing it as well couldn't it [Music] [Music] would be almost 20 years before Judy would return to the musical stage in Stephen Sondheim's powerful love story a little night music what is it that you're trying to prove and I'm trying to prove that I'm worthy of another part coming up after the next one you know because people say all the time what are you gonna do next I have no idea what I'm gonna do next night music centers around an actress Desiree and I think she's your absolute creature of the theater and Judy Dench had a very strong connection to that character the play tells of how Desiree's old lover Frederick now married re-enters her life and how after many years apart they fall for each other's charms again apologize for the squalor on the contrary I've always associated you very happily with chaos when you said that time I apologize for this squall it was like it's hard to specify her techniques she rehearses in a way that you don't talk about it you just do it and you do it differently all the time and each time we got on our feet we did a different version of things and then slowly the performance begins to coalesce of its own volition still hungry as ever after a performance I see I'm a wolf still hungry as ever after a performance I see yes I'm a wolf hungry as ever after a performance I seen yes I'm a wolf rehearsals is a time that you are allowed to make mistakes and try and make choices to move your wings and to fly a little bit in certain directions possible is it is it can it me is a very curious thing sometimes you know that there is a laugh in a line your instinct is entirely what tells you there's a laugh and sometimes you can't get it and in the play and the theatre you can't get in Carnegie and quite suddenly one night you will get it sandwich hungry as ever after a performance I see yes I'm a wolf so much being in the theater is being part of a company I wouldn't even know who to rely on if it was on my own you have none of those wonderful larks that go on sometimes in the dressing room or in a company of people judy likes to work and actually I would put it more strongly in that she can't bear not to work a particular demon is to be left alone with nothing to do and no ability to practice her skills and I think she's scared witless by that idea well I didn't have much quietness inside me if I didn't find it easy to sit still and do nothing in fact I can't do that I'm not good at being passively quiet the emotional climax of the play is when Frederic tells Desiree that he will not leave his wife [Music] quick sending laugh don't bother they're here I'm an actress who can put over a song i wouldn't say things but i would say could put over a song because i had to learn that in cabaret so it's just a matter of acting it do try to forgive me the opening night I was sitting next to Stephen some time the composer and Stephen was leaning forward as she was singing and then turned to me and said well that's why I like to write songs and for him it was sublime it was perfect it was acted [Music] losing my timing this late in my career [Music] but where are the clowns [Music] there ought to be clowns well maybe next [Music] a great gift as an actress is making everybody feel that she's accessible to them but she's much more private and there's a core of her that is hard to know and when you do know it you feel that there is something there that is a soul that is far from untroubled [Music] I love the theater best and then I like television and last I like the movies and I said well that's the thing that takes the most energy out of you it's the thing that gets the greatest rewards know you could hear the audience reactions you know you can hear if you need to kind of push the accelerator bit or pull back the brake Dominic you've never seen my mother acting no it must seem ridiculous I do know how famous you are but by and large my generation we don't go to the theater to us it doesn't seem relevant no well why should it I quite understand people say everyone should go to the theater why should they Ami's view was the story of as me an actress and her daughter Amy it followed their relationship over a quarter of a century let's play to people who actually liked it and if there aren't very many well so be it but don't come please because you've been told to that won't do at all when I wrote Amy's view then Richard Eyre who was to direct it immediately said well this is Judi Dench isn't it now I never write for actors so I said I hadn't thought that but yes that would be fantastic but when she was given Amy's V said I don't see myself in this at all why why are you giving this to me this is not me and she resisted the part very strongly did David Hare write that play about you really I don't think he did but there are lots of things in it that the parallels I suppose with my life all that I can understand easily she is me it's really a very vulnerable character isn't she yes I think she is very do you think you are yes I expect I've got a lot of that in me too mummy's brilliant to playing comedy well I'm usually best to playing genteel with something interesting happening underneath no layers I play a lot of layers thank you the reason people responded so strongly to the play was that it's a mother-daughter play I observed how complex that bond is and the play plugs into something pretty primal and if you know there is an element of rebuke and competition in that relationship and also in the mother there's also a regret for the life they never got to live and that they feel their daughter is living there are two kinds of writers those who reveal themselves when they act and those who act with the series of masks you know so in a sense one is about stripping away the masks that they have in public and the other is about adding a mask and she reveals herself when mother and daughter finally come to loggerheads it was immensely challenging and immensely painful to play Jude would play with such searing honesty the one simply responded this is the last scene of the play before Esme discovers that her daughter Amy has died as the play transferred to New York Judy received the news that her husband Michael had been diagnosed with cancer we were in New York together when Michael first got ill and she was absolutely terrified and drawn an agony is it that you just don't dare to deal with real experience were the things that happen in real life that grief and betrayal and love and unhappiness and loss the loss of people we thought she has the necessary stoicism that an actor has to perform even though their heart is breaking Michael died on the 11th of January 2001 after an 18-month illness did you take time away from acting after your husband died no I was not in a frightfully wonderful place and then I kind of immersed myself in a lot of work and I think it was the best thing I could do and it was also being with incredible people Richard and Jim Broadbent and you know spread amongst friends it was good my mother had had Alzheimer's so I knew a lot about it and it was uncanny that Judy who hadn't actually been through that in any way was incredibly just accurate even when she was suffering from terrible grief over Michael's death she was performing this exquisitely dignified person who was dealing with the worst grief of her life if you are grieving for anything grieving creates an incredible energy in you you can use that you can it it just is like it's petrol and it can be used that energy in order to tell another story [Music] there's a scene where she's in advanced stages of dementia and her husband played by Jim Broadbent reads an excerpt from Pride and Prejudice to that and in her close-up you feel that you're watching somebody whose mind is half fair extraordinarily difficult to do mr. Darcy and at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty high yes my darling clever cat you wrote books books I grabbed you wrote novels wonderful novels I think what she covers up very skillfully it's the sheer degree of hard work and technical skill that has been required to get it to where she is she has immense knowledge immense technical craft but you are simply unable to see it it is there so deep for so long and with such a sensitivity and such knowledge and such perception that it is just invisible I don't want it to be thought of as one kind of actress you know if having played Iris Murdoch another similar kind of part comes up there like that I can't do that everything in me says no dangerous range of work was now immense everything from a disturbed schoolteacher to a cartoon mouse to Queen Elizabeth the first a role for which she received an Oscar for a performance lasting under 10 minutes those 10 12 minutes on screen are outrageously brilliant what you love so much your majesty speak up though I know who I am she's amazing in that that's it's like it's like written for her or she made it written for her it's one of the thrilling things about Judy's career is to have watched someone who's been so glorious always and then suddenly she has this extraordinary film career that kind of started when she was about 65 or 70 fills us all with hope Dame Judy said look Harvey you know you've been an important figure in my life I used to do theater and television in England and you've you know given me a career in films and and I didn't know what to get a man like you has so much so I got you the thing I thought you'd most appreciate and she opened up her trousers pulled down her underwear and it said Judy loves Harvey tattoo needless to say for a man who has spent my time pitching sharing seducing using words twit horrified by good using words of special effects I was silent [Music] Harvey also distributed the film Philomena made by veteran director Stephen Frears it told the story of an Irish mother who is looking for her long-lost son with the help of an ex BBC journalist Martin Sixsmith left played by Steve Cougar must apologize for the other night caught in a bad moment Philomena about the Irish girl who's had a baby out of wedlock he went into a convent and then at the age of four the child was sold to the Americans so Philomena how are you I'm all wreck and so the mother never saw the child again I met her before she made me a cup of tea and I told her the story Filomena first off she said um who do you see as playing Martin Sixsmith and I said well we were thinking maybe me and she said okay um and is that negotiable and I said no and she went okay one of the reasons we wanted Judy was because we wanted to have the audience privy to Filomena's private anguish when know the people within the film are present because it makes the moment really intimate there are very few actors who can pull it off in the wrong hands it can just be someone can just look vacant you know and the cameras on them and of course the oil is really connects with her just being able to look at her face very closely you know that her face is very very expressive therefore you don't need six lines to say what her face is saying so you can do less because she's doing it for you so she's the perfect director perfect actress for a lazy man there wasn't really much direction there wasn't much conversation with Stephen I mean was his direction was for me I mean she didn't really need any as Filomena's relationship with Martin Sixsmith develops she opens up about the father of her lost son what made it so much worse was that I enjoyed it what the sex she's just wonderful Martin I thought I was floating on air you were so handsome the way he held me in his arms thing is I didn't even know I had a clitoris Martin right do you demand like the dirty [ __ ] machine she did free we upset I've just come across this line about the clitoris you are gonna keep it in aren't you I told you check the rugby underneath it all she was grumpy and it seems to me all the better for it I knew your son for about ten years the way Judy played for the mean it was very careful tightrope to walk because if you overplay the comedy then because she couldn't become a caricature I don't know if you knew but he was gay or it could be seen as cruel so it needed to be really well judged and she managed to get that slight naivete coupled with a kind of a sort of a folk wisdom tell me did you father any children but I mean Massey has just told us that Anthony was gay well I always knew that but I just wondered if he might be bicurious a lot of the nurses I worked with were gay but one of them called Brendon told me he was bicurious I don't think he could make up his mind master she has enormous empathy but sooter lots of people sorry this is my auntie national treasure life so do lots of people but then she's a trained actress she's good at her job you work with the Hollywood actors and they're not trained in that way and then you come across Judy and her guy and they they know how to do it they do it basically in rep every two weeks that's what they do they act apart I think acting is I think it's always talked about it shouldn't be talked about it should be done and you should dagger be a success or not a success just get off tell the story well hell of you be enjoying death double-oh-seven reporting for duty to D been cast as that was just a piece of inspired casting it allowed a female voice a something that was probably needed in a bond in the Bond franchise she came in and she took it and she made it her own her first outing was back in 1995 with Pierce Brosnan who was also new to the bond family would you care for a drink thank you your predecessor kept some cognac in the tub I prefer bourbon ice yes I remember Pierce Brosnan his first day with Judy and it transpired that he was absolutely terrified and as and we were chatting in the lift and he was going where you've worked with her and what she liked and I was going well she's lovely she's divine he was going yeah but she's you know she's it's Judy Dench it's our first time together as James Bond and both of us I think are quite anxious and nervous they'd wanted her to have a cup of tea in her hand and she said no that's gonna rattle too much said just give me a scotch so she sat there with a scotch in her hand I said so if you like doing film since she said oh no no no I don't like films at all you don't like me bond you don't like my methods you think I'm an accountant a bean-counter more interested in my numbers and your instincts we thought had occurred to me good because I think you're a sexist misogynist dinosaur a relic of the Cold War that particular scene and that line really set the benchmark for the rest of her career playing and point taken she gave it a context for the first time rather than us feeling like we're in this permanent time war of 1969 sort of you know or 72 the sort of Connery Roger Moore axis and basically they were stuck there forever you know that she somehow went actually no we can this is now but however much Judi brought a bond her screen time was still limited until director Sam Mendes took over when I direct his bond I thought hang on a minute we haven't exploited the fact we've got a great actor playing em take the shot I can't take the bloody shot so let's try and unlock the potential of the character and an her genuine interaction with bond that's something that I felt dude you could bring there nobody else could his name is Tiago Rodriguez he was a brilliant agent but he started operating beyond his brief hacking the Chinese the handover was coming up and they were on to him so I gave him up yeah she stole every scene she's in but I mean how what a joy is that for me as an actor when people like Judy walk on set I relax and with Judy you're always guaranteed of a little magic then Judy might feel differently if she knew the role the Craig had played in her demise in her last Bond outing Skyfall I think I actually was the one who came up with the idea you try and think of what's the biggest best story you can believe Intel and that was that seemed to me to me and everybody in the room to be the biggest and the most emotionally you know kind of charged story that we could tell and then we had to cause break the news to Judy which was so easy I had 17 years of being M so my kind of full go at it and I loved it just loved it I think you were drawing up the fact that she had had this long seven movie relationship with the franchise and it felt to her like Emma's relationship with mi6 was the equivalent she was grieving it and it's nice when art and life intersect to that degree when someone who has had a 20-year relationship with the role is actually saying goodbye to it in Skyfall M had become the film's driving force Judi Dench the ultimate Bongo I read your obituary of me and Paula yeah I knew you'd hate it did call you an exemplar was British fortitude nobody was alright Judy's days in bond may be over but the idea of retirement remains off-limits but you ever considered retiring no nope it's a really dirty word old and retiring there's a really dirty word I think she wants to go on working until she can't do it any longer and would love to expire probably preferably on stage rather than in front of the camera I don't think it's unusual for somebody to want to work when their means of expression artistically is their talent their god-given gift and that's what she has but perhaps there is a hint that she has taken her foot slightly off the accelerator lately she's come you know saying things like I'm going to spend the month in the country with the family I find that really rude and especially when I've got a project going on concurrently you know just I think it's a lame excuse to tell you the truth at her age she's just be working full-time and Judy will return to the big screen to reprise her role as Queen Victoria in a new film from Stephen Frears you know if you make it look like we were Tory I don't quite see how you do it without Judy and I said I'll only make the security does it I stay here because I am happy is that such a terrible crime the lucky ones are people like Judy who find what they're good at and are allowed to lead an interesting life I think she is a figurehead a woman of great integrity Duty charm intellect and above all humanity he's not like other people if other people were the same as duty we wouldn't be talking about it you've got to progress can't understand stone can't go back or at least you hope you won't stand still over there and also you're aware of the mistakes that won't do it's like building a house of cards your hand starts to shake when you get up to the top [Music] Miriam weighing Bobby and rosemary are known for being quiet the Japanese are known for being loud at least not in the Kyoto suburbs the real marigold on tour next on bbc2 [Music] Donald's wrong yeah it scares me a bit yeah he wants to build a wall doesn't say yeah Roundy's Sofia must go won't want to pay for that one mosque on Mexico Mexico tell me what heart breaks chasing you it's gonna be hard to leave odds on with art I don't know someone breads it got a little hard Briggs and Britain exit yeah add add something odd no I think we'll be alright we'll have to be odd means we don't whatever but then we just be letting off career common sense starts Wednesday the 11th of January on BBC two the roads we walk have demons it is not yours have been waiting for a very long time you know why I'm here what is this we can't do this thought this is some kind of trick it's not a trick as of time what's the very worst thing you can do do your very best friends I love you Sherlock New Year's Day on BBC one dude our very own heart

Channel: The James Bond Visual Archive

Views: 111,186

Rating: 4.8523173 out of 5

Keywords: James Bond, Bond, OO7, Ian Fleming, Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Samantha Bond, Sam Mendes, Billy Connolly, Ian McKellen

Id: JCzstKUgK3c

Length: 60min 37sec (3637 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 15 2020