Interview of Dame Judi Dench

To all my friends and readers as a special treat to all, I am started a new section of interviews of people related to Entertainment industry. And who better than lifelong British actress Judi Dench

MADAME M AT WORK

She has won an Academy for mere 15 minute role, has been awarded Dame Title by Queen, and has been nominated for Best Actress maximum number of times. At 79, she places herself with great ease in the five final list nominated for prestigious Academy Award. The British actor has worked in theatres to Broadway to golden screen. She is recently roped in to work for a Broadway in London. Acknowledged commonly as Madam M in James Bond movies, the star has showed that her powered talent doesn’t regress with age.
This year she has been nominated for Best Actress category for her tour de force performance with Notes on a Scandal along with other British star Kate Winslet. Here is excerpt from her recent interview published in a renowned Daily.
Q: Why haven’t you directed a movie?
A: I have directed in theatre, about six or seven. With theatre directing, they gang up against you actually. The say ‘We are going to a pub’ and don’t tell you where the pub is! Its a really curious thing. As a director you have to get a lot of wayward people over a line at the same point. And that’s very difficult because everybody works at different speeds. I think it’s a really difficult job.

Q: What was your first ever paid acting job?
Playing Ophelia at Old Vic in 1957. I got paid 3 pounds 10 shillings per week.

Q. Do you ever still have to audition for roles?
A. I think sometimes we might be without knowing it. If you are having a kind of friendly meal with somebody and you suddenly see those very beady, gimlet eyes looking at you, you might be auditioning then.

Q. You are regarded as an icon of theatre than cinema. Can you talk about your relationship with cinema?
A, There are few plays of Shakespeare that I haven’t done. When I was young, I was interested in working in cinema, but a director told me ‘You have everything wrong in your face.’ I settled with that, since I preferred theatre anyway. I have no control over a film. I don’t know what will be left on the cutting floor. In contrast, the control you have in a theatre is very attractive to me. What finally got me into cinema was Mrs. Brown. That was done for TV originally, but Harvey Weinstein saw it and decided it should be a movie. Today, when I am in US, I get asked, ‘Have you done anything else apart from playing M in the Bond movies?’- that’s 30 years of theatre out of the window.

Q. How did James Bond happen?
A. I was just asked to be in them. It actually was a complete departure having a woman playing M. I didn’t realise at the time it would be so noticed. I’ll do another next spring.


Q. What sustains your zest for work and life?
A. I think I never ceased to be grateful of the fact that I am able to a job I really love. We are maybe 1-2% in the world, people doing what they are doing really committed to. I love being part of a company and telling a story. There’s an author who writes something, a director organising it and you giving it to the audience.

Q. Are there directors or actors that you particularly like to work with?
A. I’d like to work with Jack Nicholson…there are lot of people I want to work with. It was exciting and working with Vin Diesel. I have an audience of 13 year old boys from 007- maybe with thw Vin Diesel movie, the age is going up to 17-20 now and maybe I’ll arrive at an audience aged60-70 someday