Judi and Ken’s laughter on the Orient Express
JUDI Dench would like her future contracts to include a clause stipulating that she will refuse to work with grumpy co-stars. ‘I don’t want to work with anyone who hasn’t got a sense of humour,’ she insisted, with a hint of merriment behind those blue eyes. ‘It’s essential! i simply am not interested in working with them if they’re miserable by nature. ‘It’s like thefroth on the top of Guinness. You have to have the froth, and then you get to the real thing. ‘You discover people through larks,’ the actress told me, while explaining why she has worked with Kenneth Branagh ten times over the years. ‘i always get into trouble with Ken — and I like that!' The two pillars of the British acting establishment are together again in the Fox 70mm extravaganza of Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express. Branagh directs, and also plays the Belgian detective hercule Poirot; while Judii plays the imperious Princess Dragomiroff. in the film, the Princess arrives with her personal maid (played by olivia Colman) and two Shih Tzus. ‘She’s horrible to Olivia. She’s a very autocratic princess. So bossy. and russian. She’s just rude; and you wouldn’t want to work for her,’ Judi said when we met in Soho. i’ve seen some footage, and I can’t get enough of the moment when the Princess snaps at a waiter in the dining car: ‘order me the fish!’ (it’s all in the delivery.) ‘We had the most glorious time,’ she said, of her time on set with co- stars Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Penelope Cruz, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, Willem dafoe, Michelle Pfeiffer and dancer Sergei Polunin, as well as newcomers Lucy Boynton and Tom Bateman.
GAD, who was in the original Broadway company of Book of Mormon, was ‘the naughtiest’, she added. ‘Not only that: he stayed in the hotel i use when i am up in London. he’s ruined my reputation!’ One reason why everyone got on so well, she told me, was because filming took place in the interior of a luxury train. ‘You had to be part of the company, because nobody could get off!’ Judi had worked with Cruz once before (on Nine); with depp twice (on one of the Pirates of The Caribbean movies, Stranger Tides; and Chocolat); and too many times to count with Jacobi. She knew Tom Bateman, too, from Branagh’s theatre company. The director claimed that some of the cast were scared of meeting the acting legend. ‘She’s a dame, and they thought she was royalty. That was usually before they met her.’
She laughed when I relayed this information. ‘I don’t know why I should get that reputation — I’ve never been grand in any way.
‘I don’t think there’s anyone I’ve ever worked with, in 60 years, who would say that I’ve ever been very grand, or frightening.’ and then she guffawed. ‘Well, I like to frighten daniel Craig. and Pierce Brosnan,’ she said, of the actors she worked with in the 007 films when she played spy chief M.
‘I used to frighten the bejeezus out of them. But apart from that...’
Judi’s affection for Branagh is obvious. They first worked together in the early eighties, on a production of henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts for the BBC. It was directed by elijah Moshinsky, and also starred Michael Gambon, natasha richardson and Freddie Jones.
‘We got into trouble straight away,’ she recalled. ‘elijah said: “I want to see this incredible tension.” and so we all tried to act tense.’
They were seated around a dinner table; potatoes were being served; and instead of asking for one spud, Gam- bon announced: ‘I’ll have the usual eight.’ ‘We were weeping,’ Judi recalled. ‘elijah said: “Thank you Miss dench, thank you Mr Branagh, thank you Mr Gambon” and asked us to leave for the day.
‘I knew I could always work with Ken after that.’
Murder On The Orient express will have its world premiere at the royal Albert Hall on November 2.