DAME JUDI DENCH
them. I dared not get too emotionally involved when I was fi lming.
“I was playing Philomena, who is still very much alive. This brings a new responsibility. I have played plenty of real people who have died but when someone is sitting there in front of you it’s a different matter.
“I could not believe the level of cruelty which she suffered. This all happened during my lifetime not in some distant century in the past.
“I think that is what I found so shocking. While we were living our own lives, there were others who were put through this personal torture – all of whom had no power or redress. And Philomena, who was raised a Catholic, still carries a lot of guilt about what happened to her. She believes somehow she’s partly to blame.
“I found it remarkable that she could be robbed of her child in awful circumstances and yet live such a good and purposeful life without rancour.”
Dame Judi would deny that she uses the fi lm as a prism through which to refl ect on her own close family upbringing but she did recall the voice of her mother Eleanora when getting the accent right.
“My mother was from Dublin and I could hear her saying quite a lot of Philomena’s lines very clearly,” she says. “I found the accent no problem and the words came easily with such a good script.”
Martin Sixsmith’s book The Lost Child Of Philomena Lee forms the basis of the fi lm’s story. It reveals that despite all the injustice she suffered Philomena retains her religious faith. By comparison Sixsmith ( played by Steve Coogan in the movie), is highly educated and a man at ease around infl uential people and within opulent locations. But the former political correspondent also lost his job in politics and so is cynical and distrustful of people’s motives. “Philomena does not have his sophistication or world weariness,” says Dame Judi. “So she is impressed by the luxuries he takes for granted as they embark on this road trip across America to try to get facts.”
Dame Judi’s moving performance in the hands of award- winning British director Stephen Frears, who directed the 2006 fi lm The Queen, could be destined to add to her own Oscarwinning success.
“I am reminded yet again,” she refl ects, “that there is no price you can put on the good fortune of a happy family life.”
Philomena is released in UK cinemas on November 1. THE MAGDALENE SISTERS, a 2002 fi lm from Peter Mullan, who wrote and directed it, powerfully exposed the abuse of young women by the Catholic Church in Ireland. He focused on the true story of four teenage girls who were sent to what were called Magdalene Asylums – also known as Magdalene Laundries because of the non- stop work they did – who were regarded as “fallen” by their families.
Mullan, 53, who won worldwide recognition for fi nally telling the truth about what was happening under the nose of the authorities in the Sixties, could not contain his disgust at the facts when we spoke.
“Of the women in the Magdalene one was raped by her cousin, another was said to be too pretty and would tempt young men, a third was a single parent and a fourth was educationally challenged,” he said.
“They were regarded as ‘ fallen’ and nuns looked after them. The Catholic Church was often the big social dustbin. There was an extended form of abuse. The church made sure it was unaccountable.
“One nun said to me there was ‘ doubt’ on the abuses they received. There was no doubt, just one big cover- up.”
The Irish government has promised between £ 30million and £ 50million in compensation for the surviving women who spent time in workhouse conditions in the laundries. But the four orders of nuns which ran them are refusing to contribute.