In a prestigious career spanning almost seven decades, not even an actor of Dame Judi Dench’s vintage can avoid a few stinkers.
The veteran actress, best known for playing M in the James Bond franchise, has reflected upon her work in an upcoming memoir.
Titled Is It Too Late to Make a Run For It? the book revisits the highlights of Dame Judi’s professional life.
And there’s a lot to reminisce on – from starring opposite two iterations of James Bond, to winning an Oscar for her performance in Shakespeare In Love.
More ignominiously, this also includes her role in Tom Hopper’s 2019 Cats adaptation, where she played Old Deuteronomy.
‘Oh God, I can’t bear it!’ Dench wrote as she spoke about the film’s toxic reputtion for the first time.
Recalling how creator Andrew Lloyd Webber had waited ‘so long for it to be made’ she described the film as ‘a waste of all that goodwill and talent.’
As per The Independent, Dame Judi continued: ‘I understand the critics were rather hostile to the film.
‘I never saw the final cut so I can’t judge. All I’ll say is nobody sets out to give a poor performance or make a bad film. You do your best, offer something up and hope that people will get on board and join the party.’
She went on to describe it as a ‘miracle’ that any film gets made at all – ‘let alone turn out to be a success, because there are so many moving parts.’
Those also responsible for Cats include James Corden (who admitted to walking out of the premiere), Taylor Swift, Idris Elba and Dame Judi’s long-time friend Sir Ian McKellen.
Sir Ian described the film adaptation as a ‘ridiculous enterprise’ but told Yahoo! Movies that it could be a future classic regardless.
Its ‘classic’ stamp must have gotten lost in the post though, as Cats currently sits with a 19% ‘Rotten’ score on aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
Indeed, the critics seemed to have their claws out for Cats – including Flick Feast, who called it a ‘cat-astrophe.’
‘A truly terrible ‘Memory’ that will haunt me for a thousand lifetimes,’ said Mad About Movies Podcast, awarding the film a lowly F.
Decider said that it was ‘too indigestible even for a hate-watch,’ as CineXpress deemed it ‘one of the biggest misfires I’ve ever seen on the big screen.’
Taking a slightly more positive slant (depending on your perspective) Metro described it as ‘Cats is the best worst movie about cats ever made.’
Meow.
During this period of reflection, Dame Judi recently recalled being told by a film producer that she’d never make it as a star – due to her ‘wrong’ face.
‘Very few people aspired to work in cinema. I certainly never expected to,’ she told The Times as she recalled her meeting with a ‘big Hollywood producer.’
‘He stared at me for a long time, then said: “Very nice to meet you, but you’ll never make a movie because you have every single thing wrong with your face.”’
‘I suppose that was the era when you had to be quite a looker,’ Dame Judi added, noting that he had been ‘very polite about it.’
She continued: ‘With amazing presence I said, “Thank you very much for your time,” stood up, put the chair back against the wall and, as I left, I thought: “What a relief. I can throw all my energies into becoming a theatre actor.”‘
The rest, as they say, is history.