In a prestigious career spanning almost seven decades, not even an actor of Dame Judi Dench’s vintage can avoid a few stinkers.
And now the veteran actress, best known for playing M in the James Bond franchise, has reflected upon her work in an upcoming memoir – includingthe much-maligned Cats movie, which described as a ‘waste of goodwill and talent’.
Titled Is It Too Late to Make a Run For It? the book revisits the highs – and lows – of Dame Judi’s professional life.
And there’s a lot upon which to reminisce, as she’s starred opposite two iterations of 007 and won an Oscar for her performance in Shakespeare In Love.
But 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!’ Dame Judi wrote, as she spoke about the film’s toxic reputation for the first time.
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The veteran actress recalled with frustration how Andrew Lloyd Webber had waited ‘so long for it to be made’, but the film still ended up ‘a waste of all that goodwill and talent’.
She also revealed that she spared herself pain by having never seen the finished version – which puts her in a group of many, given the film famously hit cinemas without all its editing and CGI properly finished.
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.’
However, Dame Judi insisted the cast, which included Francesca Hayward, James Corden (who admitted to walking out of the premiere), Jason Derulo, Sir Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Sir Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson and Ray Winstone – did ‘their best’.
She added of the movie, directed by Tom Hooper: ‘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.’
The Mrs Brown and James Bond star also observed that ‘sometimes things just don’t work out: the timing’s wrong, the cast don’t gel, the elements don’t coalesce’.
‘But people’s intentions are mostly honourable. There were no villains in the making of Cats. And if something isn’t a success, then there are always things you can say you’ve learnt.’
Her close friend Sir Ian, who played Gus the Theatre Cat, 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.
Decider said that it was ‘too indigestible even for a hate-watch,’ while Metro took a slightly more positive slant (depending on your perspective), describing it as ‘the best worst movie about cats ever made’.
Meow.
Following the film, Dench was nominated for worst supporting actress at the annual Golden Raspberry Awards.
Is Cats a wrongly reviled cult classic?
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Yes, it's actually not that badCheck
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No, it's every bit as terrible as people sayCheck
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I've never seen itCheck
When asked about her nomination in 2020, she said on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row: ‘Oh, am I? That would be good. As far as I know, that’s a first!’
She added: ‘I’m not big on reading reviews, anyway…. you kind of know, yourself, about something, I think.’
At the 2020 Razzies, the thespian ultimately lost out in her category to her Cats co-star Wilson, who portrayed Jennyanydots.
Cats also won worst picture at the ceremony, and Hooper was named worst director, while Cats star Corden landed the worst supporting actor accolade for playing Bustopher Jones.
Cats clawed in $78.4 million (£58.7m) at the box office, failing to make back its production budget which was thought to be in the region of $80 – $100m (£60 – £75m).
Hooper, who won an Academy Award for directing The King’s Speech in 2011, and also helmed The Danish Girl and Les Misérables, has not directed a film or TV show since Cats in 2019, instead focusing on commercial work.
However, according to reports he is attached to direct the film adaptation of Millie Bobby Brown’s book Nineteen Steps for Netflix, as well as Photograph 51, a movie about scientist Rosalind Franklin.
Cats is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.Is It Too Late to Make a Run For It? is out on November 3.
A version of this article was first published on October 17.