Charlie Rose: This is the year of Dench.
JUDI: Yes, I'm rather reluctant to go into the 20th Century -- [she stumbles over this, tries to recover and explains that she means the 21st century, while Charlie talks at the same time. They laugh.]
CR:You're loving New York.
JUDI: Yes, I do love it. Just love it.
CR: Then, pray God, why did it take you so long to come back?
JUDI: Well when I was here with the Old Vic in '58-'59 we came for a six months tour. I really, we had the most incredible time, just incredible. And I, I just thought it will never be ever like quite like this again. It'll never be better than this. So all the time that I was asked to come back, I felt, no I don't think I want quite to do it. I kept putting it off and putting it off, thinking it will be less than it was before. So I'm glad I waited all this time to come back.
CR: Glad because ...
JUDI: Because I've fallen in love with the city all over again. And I've come back playing a leading part. And I got Oscar and Tony to go home with.
CR: You have been having a progression of very interesting roles, first in theatre at the Old Vic, at the Royal Academy, then in film, then back on stage, then in film -- is it best when it comes the way it's come for you -- in a sense a kind of evolution, then exploding?
JUDI: Yes. I think it is. I mean I've never chosen what to do and I've often been asked what I would like to play and I never know the answer because I'm a very bad chooser. So I've always waited for somebody to come to me and say "Why don't you try this?" Then I get them to tell me the story. Don't read the script. And, then if something catches me, I say "Yes." And it always, if possible, has been my plan, if you could say such a thing -- you can't really in this business, to take, the next thing that I take is something as different from the last thing as possible. And is more frightening. I was, just before I came out here, asked by Trevor Nunn, to go to the National to do a play and I wrote back to him, I said "Please ask me, please ask me to come back to the National, I would like to, but please ask me to do something more frightening than that."
CR: What's more frightening? More frightening for you as a challenge?
JUDI: Yes. Absolutely that. Something that I feel I haven't tackled before. Something that's going to put me to the very edge of, of -- of fear, perhaps. For instance, I think in September I have to learn to play the saxophone.
CR: So the role at the National will require you playing a saxophone?
JUDI: No. It's not at the National at all. That's for something else.
CR: Ok, but if you look at Shakespeare in Love, if you look at Mrs. Brown, if you look at Amy's View, if you look at Tea with Mussolini -- all of them had some element of ..
JUDI: Fear. Yes, or ... or I did them for different reasons. I did Shakespeare in Love because I'd done Mrs. Brown and the thing that caught me for Mrs. Brown was Billy Connolly, not playing Victoria, but the fact that Billy Connolly, who I'm a huge fan of, was going to play John Brown. So that arrested my attention.
CR: Playing next to this actor...
JUDI: Yes, absolutely and get to know him.
CR: Boy, he says great things about you.
JUDI: Well, he couldn't say better things than I would say about him. I just think he's "the works."
CR: That was a wonderful movie.
JUDI: We did it in thirty days.
CR: What was it? Was it the story? Was it just simply to get to know the queen and and see it thru, look into your eyes and get a sense of this woman with all this coming off of this extraordinary love affair which she'd lost with her husband and all of a sudden she finds something.
JUDI: Yes, I think it was the fact that we've always speculated about this -- certainly in Britain we have -- and it's very unknown here. So many people when I came over to do the press -- you know, to talk to the press about it, didn't know about John Brown. He's kept very quiet. And so perhaps it's because it's a bit of a mystery about them that it was so fascinating. Even so I'm passionate about Scotland and we were shooting it up there.
CR: Did he have the same -- did the real John Brown have the same sense of strength?
JUDI: I think he did, yes, I think he did.
CR: Power?
JUDI: And I have no doubt that there was an affair between them. None at all. [Charlie stumbles over asking her how she knows this.] Well, as Billy would say [she says this in a deep voice with a Scottish Accent] "There's only so many picnics you can go on." [They both have a good laugh at this quote.] and oh, and I have no idea..... She was a widow, she was very, very susceptible, he was an unmarried man, she was mourning the loss of Albert, who she passionately loved -- I'm not meaning to in, any way....
CR: And she was distraught...
JUDI: She was distraught. And this man somehow made her face up to what she was failing to do.
CR: But Connolly made him interesting, strong, attractive -- all that.
JUDI: I'm sure that he was like that.
CR: Because you can imagine that happening from the way you two...
JUDI: Yes.
CR: And why was he attracted to her?
JUDI: Because I think he felt initially perhaps protective of her. He had been Albert's ghillie, so he'd known her when Albert was alive. I just think it was a chemistry between two people of very, very -- I mean totally opposite. I mean he was able to address her as "woman" and you know, I, apparently they had marvelous nicknames for each other. Unheard of.
CR: He called her...
JUDI: I don't know what he called her.
CR: She called him...
JUDI: Don't know.
CR: So nobody knows -- they just had nicknames....
JUDI: No, but I think they had nicknames for each other and I think they began to rely on each other for two very different things.
CR: Shakespeare in Love -- why did you do that?
JUDI: Because of John Madden.
CR: The director...
JUDI:
Because after working with, yes, with John, I wrote to him and said "If you have anything, anything -- any old part --I'll do it. And he knows this. He knows me well enough to know that I mean it.
CR: How many people do you feel this way about?
JUDI: Quite a lot.
CR: If you have something for Dame Judi Dench, I'm there for you ....
JUDI: Yes, Peter Hall.
CR: Peter Hall
JUDI: Trevor Nunn.
CR: Trevor Nunn.
JUDI: Frank Hauser. Sam Mendes.
CR: Richard Eyre?
JUDI: Richard Eyre. Howard Davis.
CR: Howard Davis
JUDI: Franco Zeffirelli. I've missed out a lot.
CR: Okay, obviously you're missing some, so whoever she missed, she meant to include you. Having said that, what is it they have in common that makes you want to work with them? Is there one quality that those directors have? Is it they understand...
JUDI: Because I know that they're going to see me through perhaps a rough sea. I know that they're going to, I know that -- the only way I can explain it is that you are on a great liner...
CR: Yeah?
JUDI: And you know with all those people that the person on the bridge is going to get you through it.
CR: Do you need that?
JUDI: I absolutely, passionately need it. Passionately, I do.
CR: As good as you are?
JUDI: Oh no, I need it more now.
CR: And with all the talent you have. More.
JUDI: Oh, much more. Much more. Because I'm much more unsure in a way. Because more is expected of you.
CR: Yeah. We expect the performance from you that's going to be unequalled. Do you find that you're willing to take more risk today? Or less risk? Because obviously you have more talent, you have more experience...
JUDI: I'm willing to take much more risk now.
CR: That's what I mean. Yeah.
JUDI: Because I don't want to bore the pants off everybody, including myself. So I want to do something that nobody's seen me do. Yes.
CR: Do you know what it is you love about this thing called acting?
JUDI: I do know what it is.
CR: What is it?
JUDI: It's....long pause....when I'm asked to make a speech ever, anywhere, I am so afraid, I am so frightened and people constantly say, "But you're an actress!" That has nothing to do with making a speech as me. Being an actress isn't -- that's not what it's about. Being an actress is trying to tell an author's story to an audience and the director and the actors are the sieve through which it goes. Therefore, you're not yourself, you're trying to portray another person entirely. And it has nothing to do with you. And I, as a person, am very, very bad about -- if you were to have a party -- I find it very, very difficult to walk into a party on my own. I have the same fear as I do about making a speech. So therefore I'm not good at communicating with people unless it's a one-to-one or it's a question and answer thing where you're having a conversation.
CR: Where the burden is on me?
JUDI: Yes, exactly. [They laugh.] I'm the one just sitting here.
CR: Just sit here and be smart.
JUDI: Being smart.
CR: But the idea is, is that you ...
JUDI: It's to do with communication.
CR: You're more comfortable -- what you love is being able to hide in a character?
JUDI: No. Not necesssarily hide. I think that's the wrong word.
CR: Hide is a bad word because it suggests you've got something you don't want people to see.
JUDI: I don't think it's as question of hiding. I'm better at telling a story to a group of people and making them either laugh or cry or be angry or be stimulated in some kind of way. That's what I do it for.
CR: I know this is stupid, but bear with me. What is it that -- what are the skills that you learn, how to use your voice, how do you, what are the skills that you have learned with these great assignments you've had, way back to playing opposite Ian McKellan in Lady Macbeth, with all the kinds of different roles that you've had that are extraordinary. What is it?
JUDI: The thing I've learned lately, after 41 years, is economy. That the least you do, the better it is. And I've learned a bit more about filming in the last few years, which I knew nothing about. Really at all.
CR: You were scared to death of it.
JUDI: I still am scared.
CR: Why?
JUDI: Because I am not very conf -- I just am not confident.
CR: But you like it more.
JUDI: I like it more now because of people like John Madden and Michael Apted who has just done the Bond -- the latest Bond film.
CR: You're M again, aren't you?
JUDI: Yes. And therefore, I ultimately think ... I just would never watch myself on rushes. I couldn't do that. But I ultimately can look at them and think "oh I think it's going, I think it's alright. I think what I've done is alright." Because I, you know, whereas, well in Tea with Mussolini for instance I'm hardly there now.
CR: And you don't like that at all.
JUDI: Well I have no control over it.
CR: Not because of ego but because....
JUDI: I have no control over it. I see that and I don't see a complete person. And therefore, what I do tonight on stage in Amy's View, at whatever happens I know I'll keep going til the end even if somebody, oh well, I won't even say that, but... [She laughs]
CR: Even if what? Say it.
JUDI: Even if somebody got up and said "Would you stop this?" I'd say "no." I'll probably go on out of it.
CR: Gotta finish this.
JUDI: Finish this story.
CR: Yes, leave, but I'm finishing it.
JUDI: Yes, do, by all means, but I'm going to finish. So I have a control over it, whatever might happen. Whereas in films, you do it and then the next day you always think, "Oh, I know how I should have played that scene yesterday -- much too late now." And then there it is -- in formaldehyde for the rest of time.
CR: Yes. And, and, but, but, but -- if you bring to the character you had in Tea, you, with Mussolini, you, you construct a character. And if they only show a part of that then they're only capturing half of what you did and it might be a distorted thing that they, that the audience sees. Is that it?
JUDI: Yes, I mean. I don't think you know about that woman. And, and originally you did know about her. She was a dancer. I mean she was an amateur, a rank amateur. But nevertheless she did it with enormous panache. She was a dancer and she thought she could sing and she thought she could paint. I mean there she is touching up frescoes in San Gimignano, the Duomo, there. And there's a, there was a long scene there. That's gone. I mean there's so many scenes that I did have gone, that I only see the shadow of a person.
CR: And if you'd have known they were going to edit it that way you would not have appeared in that film?
JUDI: Oh, I would have done it, because of Franco. Because I worked with him in 1960. I played Juliet for him in Romeo and Juliet at the Old Vic which was his first Shakespeare he ever did and so I love him. And so I would have, of course I would have done it.
CR: Have you had a conversation with him about....
JUDI: How much is cut?
CR: Yes.
JUDI: Yes.
CR: And he says?
JUDI: "He said I'm sorry there isn't more of you in this film." I said "well it's a pity that that the stuff that there was, wasn't any more there." And he went. [she mimics what Zeffirelli sounded like] I don't know what he said -- something in Italian that I didn't understand, but I adore him. I adore him, so.....sorry [I think she poked her microphone and Charlie tells her it was alright.]
CR: Such is the plight of an actress.
JUDI: Such is the plight of an actress on film.
CR: Yes. But you're doing more and more.
JUDI: I'm getting more and more offers.
CR: You've been getting offers, ever since Mrs. Brown, they pour in.
JUDI: They poured in more since Shakespeare in Love.
CR: Exactly. And are you being more selective and how are you going about choosing them since you've already said you're not a good chooser?
JUDI: I just go by the story.
CR: You go by the story.
JUDI: And by the director.
CR: Tell me the story and I'll see if I like the story.
JUDI: Absolutely.
CR: Now why did you play -- why are you in Bond?
JUDI: Oh, now Charlie, if you'd been asked to be in Bond, you'd have done it. [They laugh] Because it's so glamorous.
CR: That's true.
JUDI: Because my husband and my daughter would never have forgiven me if I hadn't been.
CR: Oh that's great.
JUDI: I mean, to be a Bond woman -- you have to say woman now -- as that's politically correct -- it's terribly exciting. And also to be his boss is very exciting.
CR: Ahhh! This is Pierce Brosnan? Is he the Bond?
JUDI: It's Pierce.
CR: Yes, so you are his boss in the 2000 Bond.
JUDI: And I get to be quite rude to him. But she's secretly quite fond of him.
CR: Hmmmm. Just that?
JUDI: Oh yes, just that, in that case, yes. There's no picnics for them. Well not yet, anyway. [They both laugh]
CR: Well we could have him smitten with her or something.
JUDI: Quite. Quite.
CR: Right?
JUDI: Well, perhaps you should suggest that.
CR: [Laughs] That's okay with you.
JUDI: Fine by me. [They both laugh]
CR: See? I love the fact that you would not turn that down, that somehow, doing all of the things that you have done that are serious, that are powerful, here comes something that's fun and also...
JUDI: And difficult.
CR: And difficult?
JUDI: Oh it's difficult.
CR: Why is it difficult?
JUDI: Well because there again it's film and, you know, I'm on uneasy ground -- on uncertain ground.
CR: Uncertain...
JUDI: But it's getting more sure, the ground. Because I'm learning more about filming. A long time ago, somebody said to me -- I went up about a film when I was at the Old Vic and they said to me "You have every single thing wrong with your face," they said, and it was something I never really got over. And I know it's true. But I've settled for it now.
CR: They said something's wrong with your face and it just...
JUDI: They said everything is wrong with your face.
CR: Everything [Charlie laughs]
JUDI: It's tricky for a girl to take.
CR: Yes, I can imagine.
JUDI: Even if you know it, it's quite tricky when somebody says it on the air, you know, out into the air.
CR: What impact did it have? It made you....
JUDI: Well it just made me never, ever want to do films. And I wasn't asked. I was asked to do about two or three, but just stick to the theatre where you can fool a lot of people a lot of the time. Sometimes when I come out of the theatre now they say "I thought you were much taller." You know that's thrilling. That's just thrilling. The play I want to do now is a play where the furniture's very, very small and I have to bend to come in through a door. And a lot of smaller actors. That's what I'd like. [Charlie is laughing, getting a kick out of Judi's routine] When Maggie Smith did Three Tall Women I wrote to her and I said "Couldn't it be called, Two Tall Woman and One Rather Not-So-Tall Woman?" They weren't having any of that.
CR: So you would like to be taller?
JUDI: Oh, you bet. But I feel as M I am, I am. I'm very, very tall.
CR: I mean you're 5'4" or something aren't you?
JUDI: No, 5'1 3/4"
CR: 5' 1 3/4" Okay. [They are breaking each other up with laughter.] Oh, you are short. They were right. You are short.
JUDI: That's right.
CR: So you've gone around since you were a teenager thinking "I'm small."
JUDI: No, thinking I'm tall. I think.
CR: I'm tall, I can do anything.
JUDI: Tall and...
CR: Until that somebody told you you have a face that's all wrong.
JUDI: Yes, that wasn't, that was hard to bite the bullet.
CR: Why did you, did you want to be an actress because of all the ....
JUDI: No, I wanted to be a designer. That's what I did -- a theatre designer.
CR: So what happened?
JUDI: I didn't. Well, my brother, Jeffrey, only ever wanted to be an actor and he became an actor and is a very, very good actor and I kind of caught it from him. And I went to Stratford on Avon and saw a production of King Lear where there was the most incredible set I've ever seen and I knew in one go that I hadn't the imagination to design like that. I'll never forget. It was a great big like this table, it was a huge kind of saucer on the stage which just moved and in the middle was a throne and a cave and everything -- it became a rock. And it was just breathtaking.
CR: And you said you said "I don't have the imagination to be that good."
JUDI: Something in me went "I'm not going to be good at this." And so I thought "Well I'll just try for the Central School." And go where my bro -- and, I went very half-heartedly. But then it all changed and I got to like it.
CR: And were you good early on?
JUDI: No, I think I was a bit half-hearted. But I got to be better.
CR: Because of hard work or because you had some...
JUDI: Because I had some encouragement. From the head of the drama section who was called Walter Hudd, an actor, and he gave me some wonderful encouragement after I'd done a mime where I -- we had to prepare these mimes and they said don't forget you've got to do this, prepare it in your mind, you'll have six weeks to do it. Straight out of my head. And the morning came we said there and they said "This is the morning of the mime." "The Mime!" I thought, "Good God! I haven't thought of the mime." So I did something extremely minimalistic and I got the most incredible notices. I thought "hell-o!" This...maybe I'm doing the right thing.
CR: You know that there are people watching you in this extraordinary several years that you've had building on a great career and saying "I'm not sure I can ever be that good so why am I doing this?" They are. Looking at you saying "I can never be that good so why am I doin' this?"
JUDI: Well, you've just got to -- if it's the only thing you want to do -- if acting is the only thing you want to do, that's what you've got to do. And have a kind of belief to, to do it. I know it's very easy for people who get work and can work.
CR: How much of acting -- before we look at some of these roles with you -- how much of acting is your interpretation of the character and how much of it is the sheer skills that come from the craft?
JUDI: The skills that come from the craft are what is, are the, are the ingredients in a way. I mean I think that you should first look at the author and, and the director will have an interpretation of that. Of the way he wants to do the play. And then somehow, it comes together because of the amalgam of other people. It's why I can never do a one-woman show. I've been asked many times. I couldn't do it. I'd bore myself silly. And I couldn't do it without the stimulus of other people. So, therefore, it's a kind of amalgam of everything. Being true to the author and telling a story at the end. And, and part of it, I mean it has to go through you because you're this kind of sieve. It has to go through you, but you're not that character. What you're trying to be is convince people that you are that person. Just 'cause you say something with enormous conviction on the stage doesn't mean to say that you believe it yourself. But for that person believes it then you have to believe it for that moment.
CR: In order for the audience to believe, you have to believe at that moment that you're trying to convince them.
JUDI: You have to absolutely if that's what your belief is and that's what your drive is, then that's what you have to believe and you have to work out what goes in between everything, it's -- people say "Have you learned the lines?" a lot of the time. It's not learning the lines, it's what's learning the thought behind the lines and what motivates you to say that and what your mind does when you hear that answer. So it's forever changing. It's a kind of, you know -- it's a cake that never becomes a cake, the theatre.
CR: It's brought you huge joy.
JUDI: Huge. Absolutely. Yes I love it. I said I would give it up when my daughter was born and Michael said "No, I think you would -- you'd not want to do that ultimately." And I think he was right. Though my family come first.
CR: You've been away from them longer than you have ever been away in your life.
JUDI: I have. In 29 years of marriage, I've never been away from Michael for 16 weeks. He's been over a couple of times, but -- I was in Bangkok for eight weeks. My daughter's been over and she's here now so that's lovely.
CR: And you said to me you'll never, probably ever do it again, be away so long.
JUDI: Not without some kind of arrangement that they were with me.
CR: And he still sends a rose every Friday.
JUDI: Friday. He does. I doubt he's probably cancelled it at home. I expect it arrives every Friday.
CR: Somebody please go by your flat and see if those roses are there. Right?
JUDI: Yes.
CR: Alright, take a look at this, from Amy's View. The appeal of this play for you, written by David Hare, brilliant English playwright, about the conflict over interpretation and value of theatre from a amateur film critic....
JUDI: Partly about that.
CR: And partly about the relationship between a mother and a daughter, the daughter being Amy.
JUDI: Partly about the changes that love takes and what is real and what is not real and coming to terms with yourself.
CR: That's what it's really about isn't it?
JUDI: Yes.
CR: Not what I said.
JUDI: It's about all those things.
CR: Roll tape, this is from Amy's View -- here it is.
A scene from Amy's View is shown in which the character that Judi plays, Esme, says: "The theatre is a young person's game. After a while it becomes undignified, dressing up, pretending to be someone else, saying lines that someone else has told you to. After a while you think -- where am I? Where do I fit in all this?"
CR: Did what you just said on stage ring true for you at all? Is that you at all? That somehow at some point it's a young person's game and later, it's just lines and you say where am I? I don't think that's you is it?
JUDI: That's not me, no. I think it's right to say don't come to the theatre because you feel it's a. the right thing to do, or b. cause you've been forced to or c. cause you think it's going to do you good. I don't think that's right. Come to the theatre to be somethinged.
CR: Engaged.
JUDI: Engaged. It's a good word.
CR: About people,
JUDI: Yes.
CR: Ideas, emotions,
JUDI: Yes, made to think something...
CR: Fears, hopes,
JUDI: Yes.
CR: Character. Why did you do -- I
know the answer, I think,
Tea with Mussolini? because it was Franco?
JUDI: because it was Franco.
CR: And Zeffirelli was...
JUDI: And because it was Maggie,
who's an old friend of mine
CR:Yeah
JUDI: Joan, who I knew and have never worked with before
CR: You worked with her husband.
JUDI: Sir Laurence?
CR: Yes.
JUDI: Never.
CR: Never?
JUDI: Well, once. On stage at Drury Lane.
CR: Tea with Mussolini, here it is -- roll tape.
A scene from Tea with Mussolini is shown in which the character that Judi plays, Arabella, introduces young Luca, to the wonders of Art in Florence.
CR: Of all the arts, is theatre the one you love the most?
JUDI: It is.
CR: More than painting, more than music, more than...
JUDI: Ahhh. Yes, sorry, I
as much as ...
CR: As much as. What would be close, what would be competitive?
JUDI: Painting.
CR: Painting. So when you come here do you go to the gal -- have time
JUDI: Oh, you bet. Oh, yes. I mean there's something so -- I remember being taken when I was about to take my advanced exams in art, my father and mother -- the boys had gone away by then -- took me to Florence and my father said, instead of reading up about it I'll take you to Florence to see it.
CR: Oh, wow.
JUDI: And he took me into the Ufitzi and I saw Venus Rising From the Sea and the Primavera and the Annunciation, Fra Angelico and I was -- I've never had an experience like that before. I was absolutely sickened, completely overcome to see the actual thing. I mean we were filming Tea with Mussolini. We were in the Ufitzi and Franco took me into that room and it was a Monday when it was all closed so we just stood in the middle of the room on our own [whispering] just wonderful and the great Cimabue crucifix was in the room that we were just sitting in.
CR: Art.
JUDI: Ahhh! Just completely...and music, too. I mean, I don't know why I should s....music as well. Music as well, I mean I'm completely...I can cry just completely unrelentingly if I hear great music, great conducting...
CR: Like what piece would make you cry?
JUDI: Mozart's Requiem
CR: Yeah
JUDI: Probably any Mozart. I mean I only have to hear that wonderful trio in Cosi and then I'm completely reduced to tears. In Rosenkavalier I mean I cry from the beginning ...the end, at the end of those, you know, that trio and then the duet and the....
CR: Let me take a look at Mrs. Brown -- Billy Connolly and you. Here it is.
A scene from Mrs. Brown is shown in which the character that Judi plays, Queen Victoria, refuses to accept John Brown's resignation. She tells him she would not know how to live without him.
JUDI: Seventeen takes it took to get me off the horse.
CR: [laughs] But you were watching that...
JUDI: I was watching it.
CR:...as if you were reliving the experience of doing that.
JUDI: Yes, I was watching that. Very, very rare for me to be able to do that. I couldn't watch Amy's View or anything, but I could, I could watch that.
CR: Why?
JUDI: Cause I've seen that several times and because we had such a wonderful time doing it that somehow I don't mind that now.
CR: Finally, Shakespeare in Love -- here you are.
A scene from Shakespeare in Love is shown in which the character that Judi plays, Queen Elizabeth holds court and formalizes the wager.
CR:Amy's View is playing until July 18th at the Barrymore Theatre. Then you go back to England?
JUDI: I do, the next day.
CR: Our loss. Thank you so much.
JUDI: Thank you.
CR: The pleasure is all mine. Dame Judi Dench. Thank you for joining us.