CHARLIE ROSE: All right, let me just start with this -- I said, when did you become a dame? To you first (pointing to Maggie Smith). You said, a year after you did (pointing to Judi Dench), and you (pointing again to Maggie Smith, said I don't know why they gave it to me, because...
MAGGIE SMITH: I know why they gave it to me, because I ... for swimming.
CHARLIE ROSE: ...because you hadn't made anything or done anything that year.
MAGGIE SMITH: I'd done nothing.
CHARLIE ROSE: Except swim to repair your arm.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, I broke my arm very badly, and I was doing that.
CHARLIE ROSE: And your agent said...
JUDI DENCH: Well, my agent came down and had dinner, and said to me afterwards, I'll tell you one thing you didn't get it for, is cooking.
CHARLIE ROSE: It would be a very good question to ask. When did you two meet each other?
JUDI DENCH: Funny you should ask.
CHARLIE ROSE: Ah, but I'm not going to ask. You know why? Because you've been asked it 25 times.
MAGGIE SMITH: But we've never replied in the way we were going to...
CHARLIE ROSE: OK, then let's hear it.
MAGGIE SMITH: ... which was...
CHARLIE ROSE: Let's hear it, Maggie.
MAGGIE SMITH: Half -- half a century ago.
CHARLIE ROSE: That would be 50 years ago.
JUDI DENCH: Yes. Yes. 1958.
CHARLIE ROSE: And became good friends?
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes.
JUDI DENCH: Well...
MAGGIE SMITH: What do you mean you're questioning it?
JUDI DENCH: We were kind of colleagues then. We were in the same -- we used to share a dressing room.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yeah.
JUDI DENCH: And we were in three plays together, and we were both doing different places where -- we were kind of jobbing actors. It wasn't actually until quite a lot later when we did the film.
MAGGIE SMITH: When we did "Room With a View" and all that.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, in Florence.
JUDI DENCH: We're still jobbing actors.
MAGGIE SMITH: We're still jobbing actors.
JUDI DENCH: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, were you competitive -- did you compete for the same parts? Did you...
MAGGIE SMITH: No. No.
CHARLIE ROSE: Why not? Why would they...
MAGGIE SMITH: Because I was...
JUDI DENCH: Because she was getting much better parts than I was.
MAGGIE SMITH: Well, I don't think it gets better than -- I'd rather play the one I played than Phoebe, I have to admit.
JUDI DENCH: There was no Phoebe in "As You Like It," should you ever be asked... because, I mean, you're going on for the very first time when some characters have left the stage for the last time. I think it would get very, very boring.
CHARLIE ROSE: Now, here comes a film. Tell me about this film.
JUDI DENCH: This one?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, this one.
JUDI DENCH: Well, it...
CHARLIE ROSE: Directed by Charles Dance.
JUDI DENCH: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: The actor.
JUDI DENCH: Yes. Who Maggie's worked with, but I had not worked with.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, we worked in "Gosford Park."
CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, sure, right.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yeah.
JUDI DENCH: And we were in "Breath of Life," David Hare's play. Sounds like we do nothing but act with each other.
CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly, it does sound like that.
JUDI DENCH: That's not true, actually.
MAGGIE SMITH: No, no.
JUDI DENCH: And he wrote -- he wrote and said he had found this short story when he was filming something and would we do it? Would we play the sisters in it? A lot of people have asked us whether we got to choose. No, you don't do that.
MAGGIE SMITH: No. You do what you're told.
CHARLIE ROSE: That's another good question. Do you get to choose?
JUDI DENCH: Do you get to choose the part? No. You snatch it and run away.
MAGGIE SMITH: No.
JUDI DENCH: You don't get to choose to do it, not either...
CHARLIE ROSE: When you heard, look, this is -- he -- when Dance calls you up and says, I found this little thing and it's a great story of two women, 1936, and this guy, young guy comes into their lives and turns out he has a talent, and it has a wonderful ending. Did you say yes or did you say...
JUDI DENCH: I said yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: You said yes. And you said yes too? (Pointing to Maggie Smith)
MAGGIE SMITH: I did indeed. And then it was a question of raising the money and getting it all together, which was pretty hard, actually.
JUDI DENCH: Yes, it was hard...
MAGGIE SMITH: Really hard.
JUDI DENCH: ... and always hung over him all the time.
MAGGIE SMITH: And it went on being hard all through the film, really.
CHARLIE ROSE: What s the story? Or did I just tell it, or did we see it here?
MAGGIE SMITH: I think...
CHARLIE ROSE: As you, cynical person, said -- we don t need to go see the movie, you've seen the trailer. Wait until your producer hears that.
MAGGIE SMITH: It looks lovely. Moves at the speed of light.
CHARLIE ROSE: So what's the story here?
MAGGIE SMITH: The story?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, what's the script? The plot?
MAGGIE SMITH: Well, the plot is that what you saw, that...
CHARLIE ROSE: A young man comes in, washes ashore.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes. And they take him in and look after him.
CHARLIE ROSE: And they're both a little smitten with him.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, but my young-er (said in two distinct syllables with a bit of eye rolling and amusement) sister more smitten than I. And very, very smitten.
JUDI DENCH: She's had a go already.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, I've been -- I've had a fiance. I was a bit more advanced than you.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. And then what?
MAGGIE SMITH: Then it's kind of -- well, it's very sad, I think.
CHARLIE ROSE: Why... It's very sad?
MAGGIE SMITH: Yeah. It is sad that she's so without love and thinks -- doesn't know really what her feelings are.
JUDI DENCH: No, I think she understands -- I think she suddenly at the end realizes that that whole kind of extraordinary thing of any kind of real emotion like that has passed her by. And she's just had this kind of summer where she's fallen in love with this -- or not fallen in love. We don't know what she feels.
CHARLIE ROSE: At least she loved him.
JUDI DENCH: A mother to a child...
MAGGIE SMITH: She doesn't understand, I think.
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, the one thing I know about both of you from previous conversations, you both had wonderful love affairs,
JUDI DENCH: Yes.
MAGGIE SMITH: Oh, yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: More than one?
MAGGIE SMITH: Not many, no. Pretty short.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MAGGIE SMITH: But lovely.
CHARLIE ROSE: And you said in 2001, you said the most wonderful thing about your late husband -- you said just to be in the room with him.
JUDI DENCH: Yes, I think it's lucky to be able to say that would have been your best friend if you hadn't married him. Which we haven't actually talked about, but what was very extraordinary was that when we came to doing "Tea with Mussolini," Maggie's husband, Beverley, had not long died. And we -- so we were together in that a great deal, not shooting but walking about the city and spending a lot of time together. And Maggie had a bit of space during that time. I mean, I'm not saying with me; I'm just saying there to have a kind of a grieve. Then when we came to doing "The Breath of Life" together, Michael had died. And it was...
CHARLIE ROSE: 2001 or something.
JUDI DENCH: Yes, and it was a very extraordinary thing, that both of us went through a very, very similar pattern, within very close time -- timing.
CHARLIE ROSE: And that gave you the ability to not only commiserate, but also to support.
JUDI DENCH: I think so.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes.
JUDI DENCH: I mean, certainly I had it from Mags.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is that what you call her, Mags?
MAGGIE SMITH: Mags, Maug.
JUDI DENCH: You.
MAGGIE SMITH: You.
CHARLIE ROSE: You, hey, you.
MAGGIE SMITH: Oy.
CHARLIE ROSE: Oy?
MAGGIE SMITH: You know, I mean, it's -- but I do answer to anything. It was my husband who used to call me poor old Maug.
CHARLIE ROSE: Poor old Maug?
MAGGIE SMITH: Poor old Maug. And Jude sent me a wonderful heart-shaped cushion. Do you remember the thing? Poor old Maug? Poor old Maug.
CHARLIE ROSE: So, tell me, why do they call it "Lavender B..?"
JUDI DENCH: Bags. Quite. Quite.
CHARLIE ROSE: Quiet.
JUDI DENCH: Yes, quite.
MAGGIE SMITH: Ladies in Lavender.
JUDI DENCH: We did indeed.
MAGGIE SMITH: Ladies in Lavender means rather faded.
JUDI DENCH: Two different things...
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes.
JUDI DENCH: As we find out...
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes.
JUDI DENCH: ... in England and here.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, it does.
JUDI DENCH: Two entirely different things. In England, it s rather kind of a faded old thing. Maggie used to call it lavender bags, which means another thing entirely.
MAGGIE SMITH: I think that's appropriate. I think Charlie was a bit irked by that. I think he thought "Lavender Bags" was going too far.
JUDI DENCH: I think he thinks we're a bit frivolous.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you think you get more frivolous as you get older?
JUDI DENCH: Definitely.
MAGGIE SMITH: You have to. Otherwise, you'd go mad. The whole thing is a laugh, isn't it?
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, that's true, but someone said, you know, the first half of my life, I cared about what people thought about me. And the second half of my life, I only cared about what I thought about them. Meaning I didn't care. You know?
JUDI DENCH: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: And therefore, you take a much more liberated...
MAGGIE SMITH: Phlegmatic.
CHARLIE ROSE: ... enigmatic attitude about living.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yeah, I think you have to. Because it really is a funny kind of old thing, isn't it?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. So tell me, so can we give the plot of this in terms of discovering that he has musical talent, Andrea?
JUDI DENCH: He has.
CHARLIE ROSE: He plays the violin.
JUDI DENCH: He plays the violin.
CHARLIE ROSE: How do we discover he plays the violin?
JUDI DENCH: Because he hears Janet playing the piano, which he gets a bit ...
MAGGIE SMITH: ...which torments him.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MAGGIE SMITH: Doesn't like that.
JUDI DENCH: So you say, why do we get the divine ...
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, yes.
JUDI DENCH: ... play the fiddle. And then he takes the fiddle from him and plays.
MAGGIE SMITH: Plays. Knocks us sideways.
CHARLIE ROSE: This is not that scene, but here is a scene from "Lavender Ladies." Roll tape.
CHARLIE ROSE: I said to her during the break, you don't watch your movies, do you? She said no, not much, but I had to see this one because we showed it to the Queen.
JUDI DENCH: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes. And?
JUDI DENCH: Well, she has, you know, her son is the Duke of Cornwall, so he -- you know... And that was a very, very good advert for Cornwall. Because it looks like that. People were really...
CHARLIE ROSE: This is a great advertisement for the place.
JUDI DENCH: Yes. It was an absolutely beautiful summer, which, you know, it s not reliably so at all.
MAGGIE SMITH: Never.
JUDI DENCH: It was a beautiful summer, so it probably did quite a lot for Cornwall.
CHARLIE ROSE: Have you ever seen "Room With a View?"
JUDI DENCH: I have never seen it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Why not?
JUDI DENCH: Because.
CHARLIE ROSE: You can work with me anytime.
MAGGIE SMITH: You're going to, though, aren't you?
JUDI DENCH: I will see it.
CHARLIE ROSE: What are you doing prompting her?
JUDI DENCH: I will see it. It's too difficult to see something when you're so close to it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, come -- your...
CHARLIE ROSE: That's not the reason. I know the reason you don't want to see it. You didn't like the director. You didn't like the way it was cut. And you're unhappy, so you didn't want to see it.
CHARLIE ROSE: That's absolutely right...
JUDI DENCH: I know that that long scene is out of it.
MAGGIE SMITH: What long -- oh, the one with the postcards?
JUDI DENCH: Yes.
MAGGIE SMITH: You've been going on about that for years. It's only a very short scene. You got an Oscar...
CHARLIE ROSE: I was going to tell you, she got an Oscar for a short scene.
JUDI DENCH: It's not in it, is it? I'll see it one day. I'll see it soon.
MAGGIE SMITH: In some outtakes.
JUDI DENCH: Perhaps it is, curled up on a, you know...
CHARLIE ROSE: So we could heal everything if we just went to the director and said, we'd like to see the outtakes and we'd like to see the scene where you go crazy with the postcards.
MAGGIE SMITH: With the postcards.
CHARLIE ROSE: Would you be happy?
JUDI DENCH: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: I'm going to get this scene and bring it to London and show it to you. We'll have to...
MAGGIE SMITH: It's heartbreaking that you've been upset about that for years.
CHARLIE ROSE: She's been complaining to you for how many years?
MAGGIE SMITH: That's -- you know, that's heart breaking, don t you think?
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you have any scenes like that in your life?
MAGGIE SMITH: I think there are hundreds of scenes that I've been in that are lurking on the cutting room floor.
CHARLIE ROSE: But do you care is the point?
MAGGIE SMITH: Not as much as that. I wouldn't be so sensitive.
JUDI DENCH: We cared one day when we were in that horse -- not the horse...
MAGGIE SMITH: Troy!
JUDI DENCH: Women of Troy. No. We were in the -- we were in that -- you remember it? We were in a little horse-drawn thing in...
JUDI DENCH: No, you were upset, too.
MAGGIE SMITH: About the horse?
JUDI DENCH: Yes, because the horse fell over. Nobody was upset. Certainly not any of the Italians were upset. The horse fell over.
MAGGIE SMITH: Well, it was a steep hill.
JUDI DENCH: It was a steep hill.
MAGGIE SMITH: We did that silly thing, you know, do you remember when we were going and they said look at the countryside. It was so stupid. We were passing a wall. Only we were pretending it was fields. What possessed us? It was a film.
JUDI DENCH: I don't know. And we remember today that there was a shot taken in a cornfield with the two of us sitting in a cornfield, at the last minute. The props department -- what are those people called? The props.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, props.
JUDI DENCH: ... threw poppies at us. we were leaded so they would go down into the thing. We were bombarded...
MAGGIE SMITH: We did it under an umbrella...
JUDI DENCH: Yes.
MAGGIE SMITH: ... which you shall see when you see the film.
CHARLIE ROSE: Tell me how you are different, you two, as...
JUDI DENCH: I'm older.
MAGGIE SMITH: I'm taller.
CHARLIE ROSE: Come on. Give me more than that.
JUDI DENCH: When Maggie did "Three Tall Women," I wrote a note her saying couldn't it be called "Two Tall Women and One..."
CHARLIE ROSE: And one what?
JUDI DENCH: "... Rather Shorter One." Yes. Well, we play lots of the same parts.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, we do.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you like the same parts?
MAGGIE SMITH: Well, they're probably quite good parts.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, you wouldn't play them otherwise. Because I mean, right? What's different in terms of the way you approach acting? Anything different?
JUDI DENCH: I don't think much, probably. Don't know about the process, do you?
CHARLIE ROSE: You don't ever talk about the process with friends.
MAGGIE SMITH: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: When you're having dinner in Florence, you don't talk about acting, you're talking about children or you're talking about husbands or clothes or politics.
JUDI DENCH: Yes, I don't think we -- I don't think we...
MAGGIE SMITH: I don't -- we don't talk about it. It's sort of understood during the day, isn't it? What it's about.
JUDI DENCH: Before we did "Breath of Life" for David Hare, we went off to Scotland in order to learn it, because it was such a massive undertaking.
MAGGIE SMITH: Cast ourselves into the sea.
JUDI DENCH: We did. One day we got frightfully depressed and went for a walk, didn't we? And never spoke a word. All I could think of is if I threw myself down here and break my leg, perhaps we wouldn't have to do it.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yeah, I know.
JUDI DENCH: Then we'll have to just do it later.
CHARLIE ROSE: Have you wanted desperately a part you didn't -- I mean, is there something you very much want to play? Chekhov, "Hamlet," I mean, Chekhov or Shakespeare?
MAGGIE SMITH: I'd love to see your "Hamlet."
MAGGIE SMITH: I would.
CHARLIE ROSE: Would you really?
MAGGIE SMITH: You don't have to be tall.
CHARLIE ROSE: What would you -- anything that you want to play?
JUDI DENCH: Not really. I'm not...
CHARLIE ROSE: You've done it all, from the old Vic...
JUDI DENCH: I wish there were lots more parts in Shakespeare. But, you know, they're all going to -- we were saying today, it's Mistress Quickly and the nurse in "Romeo and Juliette" really that's left.
MAGGIE SMITH: Joan used to say that there are only grotesques left, which is kind of right. ... Lady Wishford ... Mrs. Malaprop....
JUDI DENCH: That's why it s really nice to have, you know...
MAGGIE SMITH: Exactly.
JUDI DENCH: ... Ladies in Lavenderwith two women, you know, that -- at least they weren't, you know, jauncing up and down, or whatever the nurse does and all. They were kind of two people you could probably believe in.
CHARLIE ROSE: How many roles do you get offered now? Are there plenty of real things you can do? Can you work all the time? Do you want to not work very much?
MAGGIE SMITH: No, I don't get offered all that much.
CHARLIE ROSE: You don't? I mean, do you wish you were working more?
MAGGIE SMITH: No, I think...
CHARLIE ROSE: It's about the right place.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, yes. This one...
JUDI DENCH: You never stop.
CHARLIE ROSE: You never stop.
MAGGIE SMITH: No, you'd go insane.
CHARLIE ROSE: Insane. Insane.
MAGGIE SMITH: Insane, you are insane.
JUDI DENCH: I like it, though.
MAGGIE SMITH: Of course...
CHARLIE ROSE: You like it being insane, or?
JUDI DENCH: I just can't resist it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is that right? You can't?
JUDI DENCH: No, no...
CHARLIE ROSE: So if a director calls and it's a reasonably good script, you're there?
JUDI DENCH: I don't know. If they tell me the story well.
CHARLIE ROSE: It's the story.
JUDI DENCH: Yeah. And it's who I work with.
CHARLIE ROSE: I'll bet you the test is you're not going to be embarrassed, that's the test.
JUDI DENCH: No, the test is who...
MAGGIE SMITH: Who else is in it.
JUDI DENCH: Who else is in it.
CHARLIE ROSE: So you can have fun or because it's affecting...
JUDI DENCH: Oh, yes, entirely that.
MAGGIE SMITH: There's no point in being miserable.
CHARLIE ROSE: No, there's not. That's it? Who else is in it?
JUDI DENCH: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is it somebody I'd like to act with...
JUDI DENCH: Yes, yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: ... or somebody I would like to hang around with on the set?
JUDI DENCH: Yes, all that.
CHARLIE ROSE: All of that.
JUDI DENCH: Yes. Michael Caine ... was it Michael Caine who said with a script, he sees where it s set?
CHARLIE ROSE: ... do I want to go to Brazil?
JUDI DENCH: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: And if it's set in Brazil, he'll go.
JUDI DENCH: Yes. I don't think that's...
JUDI DENCH: Yes, I think it's to do mostly with the people.
CHARLIE ROSE: Can you imagine having done -- doing anything else?
MAGGIE SMITH: No. I absolutely can't.
CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, there is no other job you say, God, I -- no?
MAGGIE SMITH: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: You got lucky.
MAGGIE SMITH: I really got very, very lucky, indeed. You thought of other things, didn't you? (Nodding at Judi Dench)
JUDI DENCH: I did. I was going to go...
MAGGIE SMITH: Thank God you didn't do it.
JUDI DENCH: Thank God, actually because I'd be out of work...
CHARLIE ROSE: ... interior designer?
JUDI DENCH: Um-hum.
CHARLIE ROSE: What, you had no talent?
JUDI DENCH: ... designer.
CHARLIE ROSE: You had no talent?
MAGGIE SMITH: Huge talent.
JUDI DENCH: I wish I could really, you know, really those wonderful designers...
CHARLIE ROSE: You mean as an architect or as a designer of...
JUDI DENCH: Yes, theater designer.
CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, theater? Would you really?
JUDI DENCH: That's what I trained for.
CHARLIE ROSE: And so how did you become...
JUDI DENCH: Because I saw this production of King Lear at Stratford...
CHARLIE ROSE: And it just...
JUDI DENCH: And it blew my mind.
CHARLIE ROSE: How old were y.... how did ... why did it blow your mind?
JUDI DENCH: Well, because my idea of a designer was a big change at the end of act one. And you know, when I went to Stratford, of course there was no curtain, and there was this huge thing on the circular thing on the stage for King Lear, which just turned slightly, and this thing in the middle, which was a cave or a throne or -- so nobody had to change anything. It just became everything, with lighting. That blew my mind. I thought, I'm never going to have that imagination.
CHARLIE ROSE: So you left design because you didn't think you could be as good as you had seen.
JUDI DENCH: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Have you ever felt that way about acting? Have you ever seen somebody do a performance and you said oh, my God, I could never do that. Why am I doing this?
JUDI DENCH: Oh, yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: You have?
JUDI DENCH: Oh, yes, I have seen.
CHARLIE ROSE: Name one.
JUDI DENCH: In "Member of the Wedding..."
MAGGIE SMITH: Julie Harris.
JUDI DENCH: Julie Harris.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes.
JUDI DENCH: In "Member of the Wedding."
CHARLIE ROSE: Really?
MAGGIE SMITH: It was wonderful.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, did you feel the same way when you saw it?
MAGGIE SMITH: Yeah, I did, actually.
CHARLIE ROSE: She just went over the top in terms of...
MAGGIE SMITH: I am a bit of.... and the way she had of talking.
JUDI DENCH: Yes. And I remember swinging on something, swinging on a -- on some kind of bar.
MAGGIE SMITH: I remember the boy poaching that doll, too.
JUDI DENCH: Yes, yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: When have you walked away from a role in which you said whatever happened, I was at the top of my game?
MAGGIE SMITH: I thought you were going to say when have you walked away from not doing something you were asked to do.
CHARLIE ROSE: I'll come back to that.
MAGGIE SMITH: I don t know.
CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, don't you have those moments in which you say, I mean, I've talked to opera singers who can remember the two moments that it was as good as it could be. And at the end of the performance, they just said, I don't know how it was, why it was, what happened, but it was.
MAGGIE SMITH: No. I mean, some nights in the theater are like that, aren't you? You think, oh, that was good, everything was working. But I can't pick them out.
CHARLIE ROSE: I have this suspicion that a romantic like me views this with more romance than there is in it, that it is for you, both of you, as good as you are, it is in a sense, I want to find all the romantic aspects of it and you view it -- I view it as poetry, and you view it as prose, maybe, that you view it as architect ... you view it as finding and making those words and lifting them off the page and giving life to a character. And I find that -- I look at that and think of it -- the romance that must be involved in it. But for you, it's brick by brick. It is like brick laying.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Am I right? That's the way you see it?
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, it is, yes, it is, but it's a strange thing when you get to the total, isn't it? The whole of a part or the whole of a play. That is a magic moment. I think probably the first in a rehearsal, there's a moment, isn't there?
JUDI DENCH: When you run it all together sometimes.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes. Yes. And you -- that's when you have a great feeling of how it's got to where it is.
JUDI DENCH: Yes. And if you -- it's a question of -- it's our job to tell a story. It's like seeing a man on a tightrope. You can be absolutely bewitched by the person walking across the tightrope and the kind of facility with which he -- with what he has to do what he has. But an act like that, years and years and years of very hard work. And he's concentrating on balance. But you don't see that. You see this man walking on this minutely thin wire. On best nights, that's what it can be like. On the best nights.
CHARLIE ROSE: You feel like you're on -- on the best nights, you feel like you're on a wire.
JUDI DENCH: Well, on the best nights, you've told the story. And there is a very rare thing that happens sometimes, very rare. And how you explain it, I don't know. But there's a -- I mean, it's even rarer now. But there is a kind of thing that happens, isn't there...
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, there is.
JUDI DENCH: ... on one night that captures fire within everybody.
MAGGIE SMITH: Everybody on the stage.
JUDI DENCH: And you give a performance, and it also happens...
MAGGIE SMITH: With the audience.
JUDI DENCH: And you just know that up until then, that's the best performance you can give, of that play. But then tomorrow you have to be better.
MAGGIE SMITH: Or try and get it back.
JUDI DENCH: Oh, yes. Or try and get it back.
MAGGIE SMITH: Try and get the thing back. But it's
JUDI DENCH: Why did I feel it? Yes. Sometimes, it has to do with being hungry, isn't it?
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes.
JUDI DENCH: I always think if you're really hungry, that's a good thing.
CHARLIE ROSE: Hungry for food?
JUDI DENCH: Yes.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: In other words, you shouldn't eat before the performance?
MAGGIE SMITH: Oh, no.
JUDI DENCH: You'd drop off.
CHARLIE ROSE: You want to be hungry. How many times has that happened to you?
JUDI DENCH: Oh...
CHARLIE ROSE: Five, four, 10?
JUDI DENCH: I bet it's the same for us both, in all the things we've done. I suppose what in 50 some -- (Judi covers her mouth and tries to mask the number of years she's talking about) years -- I suppose it must have happened perhaps 11 times.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, I think.
JUDI DENCH: Maybe about that, do you think? Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: A little bit more than 10.
JUDI DENCH: But it doesn't necessarily happen in everything you do, at all.
MAGGIE SMITH: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: When was the best time?
JUDI DENCH: Oh, I don't know. The most memorable time for me was the first night of Anthony and Cleopatra at the National, because I was just laughed into, you know, anywhere. When I said I would play Cleopatra, people used to openly laugh in my face. And -- but when we came to doing it that night, that performance we gave was the best that we had given so far. And I never have had the feeling before of coming off the stage and thinking, well, take it or leave it, that's all we could possibly do with it. And it was -- that was throughout the company. So that was just a real stroke of luck. Whether it was to do with being tired or hungry or whatever, but it's impossible, isn't it, to reproduce it?
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes. Completely.
CHARLIE ROSE: But you have some of the same moments, though. You've had that happen to you.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, I have. But in a different way. It -- there's the magic of doing a comedy for the first time in front of an audience, because you don't know where they're going to laugh or how. And that I remember in Bath doing the first performance of Lettice and Lovage. And that was amazing. Because we were just so astonished -- because you rehearse and you rehearse, and what made you laugh originally is long, long gone, isn't it?
JUDI DENCH: Yes, you do, you just...
MAGGIE SMITH: And then the audience is suddenly alive. It's a wonderful, wonderful feeling.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is it as good today as it's ever been for you?
MAGGIE SMITH: What?
CHARLIE ROSE: Going out on stage. Going before a camera.
MAGGIE SMITH: I haven't done it for a while.
CHARLIE ROSE: How many years?
MAGGIE SMITH: When did we do "Breath of Life?"
CHARLIE ROSE: Last time you were on stage -- last time you acted was "Breath of Life?"
MAGGIE SMITH: Three years ago. Well, in the theater.
JUDI DENCH: No, I've done "All's Well" since...
MAGGIE SMITH: When was that?
JUDI DENCH: 2002? Yes. 2002.
CHARLIE ROSE: My question was more, it's just -- is acting still as challenging, exciting, interesting? Do you get the same...
MAGGIE SMITH: It's more difficult now, I think.
CHARLIE ROSE: Difficult? Why so?
MAGGIE SMITH: Well, it's just what you said this afternoon, there's so much to prove. There's so much that is expected of you.
CHARLIE ROSE: Prove? You got to prove something at this stage?
MAGGIE SMITH: Well...
CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, you know, in other words, the legend is there.
MAGGIE SMITH: Well, it's -- I don't know if it's that. But it's, you know, you're always on trial.
CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, it's a little bit like, Maggie, we're heard how great you are, show us?
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes.
JUDI DENCH: It's like getting a lot of good notices. The moment you get good notices, it puts the markers on you, because then everyone goes, all right (Judi slinks back into the chair with a "come on, then, arms-folded, show us somegthing" pose).
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes, exactly.
JUDI DENCH: This is the thing where we've got good notices.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yeah.
JUDI DENCH: Isn't it?
MAGGIE SMITH: Yeah.
JUDI DENCH: It's true. Yes. It's much better to get bad reviews, and you can really -- you know. At Stratford, we did the Comedy of Errors Trevor Nunn did a musical and we were feeling rather jaded one afternoon. And so I said, what we'll do is we will do it for that person in the blue coat who is sitting rather eagerly, this woman in a blue coat. We'll all do it for her. We'll all feel a whole lot better, except that after the interval, we went out, she's left. Made it memorable because nobody...
CHARLIE ROSE: But it's still challenging and fun for you to do? I mean, you obviously work all the time. So you get the same out of it? It's -- everybody is satisfying. You're not jaded at all? Jaded?
JUDI DENCH: No, I don't feel jaded. I feel lucky, and I love what I'm doing. Love it. I love it! And I love working with a company of people. I like it very much indeed.
CHARLIE ROSE: The camaraderie of a family, so to speak.
JUDI DENCH: Yes, I love that.
CHARLIE ROSE: You too?
MAGGIE SMITH: Absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: What are you doing next?
JUDI DENCH: I'm going to do next the film of Zoe Heller's book, "Notes on a Scandal."
CHARLIE ROSE: Who is directing?
JUDI DENCH: Richard Eyre.
CHARLIE ROSE: You can't lose.
JUDI DENCH: Cate Blanchett.
CHARLIE ROSE: Richard Eyre and...
MAGGIE SMITH: She's very good.
CHARLIE ROSE: She is very good, isn't she? But he is very good, Sir Richard.
JUDI DENCH: Yes. He has two huge hits in London at the moment...
CHARLIE ROSE: Which are?
JUDI DENCH: Which is Mary Poppins and Hedda Gabler.
MAGGIE SMITH: Yes.
JUDI DENCH: It's a good double.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, but I mean, they are two things that have been done before. Can't we just get some new stuff in London?
JUDI DENCH: Yes, that would be good. But the two plays that have been done before, two really beautiful productions.
CHARLIE ROSE: Thank you for coming. It's great to see you.
MAGGIE SMITH: Thank you for having me, as they say.
CHARLIE ROSE: As they say in America.
JUDI DENCH: Lovely.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, lovely.
JUDI DENCH: Thank you, Charlie.
CHARLIE ROSE: Great.