Dame Judi’s called time on her oh so saucy needlework
JUDI DENCH, theatrical dame of the realm, lamented that due to failing eyesight she is no longer able to sew her famous saucy tapestries. For years, the actress would while away her downtime on set creating intricate needlework that she would give to friends.
A lot of folks — including David Hare and Richard Eyre — have been recipients of her handiwork over the years. ‘They’ve probably thrown them out,’ she said, laughing.
We were meant to be chatting about the Oscar nomination she received this week for her witty, poignant performance as Granny in Belfast, Kenneth Branagh’s family drama set during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The film has taken £10 million in the UK so far.
I’ve observed her, first hand, creating her tapestries; and I couldn’t help but notice that there was a lot of — for want of a better phrase — male wildlife in them. ‘Well yes,’ she admitted merrily. ‘Some were quite rude.’
It’s that sense of mischief that Branagh captures in Belfast, which marks their 12th time working together, in 35 years. But there’s also grit in Judi’s Granny.
When you watch her in the final moments of the picture, she launches an emotional charge that can catch you unawares.
Those who have questioned why she, and not the exquisite Caitriona Balfe, received an Oscar nomination should study what Dench does, seemingly effortlessly.
She had just returned from a funeral when her long-time agent Tor Belfrage broke the Oscar news. ‘I’m genuinely very surprised,’ she said.
She won the golden statuette in 1999, for portraying Queen Elizabeth I in
Shakespeare In Love. And were she to triumph again, for Granny, she would — at the age of 87 — be the oldest acting winner in the awards’ history.
She is not amused about me mentioning her age. ‘Oh, do shut up!’ she said, in mock anger. ‘Age, age,’ she repeated. ‘If you start thinking of your age, and you get to a certain age, you start thinking you must retire,’ she admonished me, ‘and I’ve told you before that I’m not going to do that.’ In any case, she added: ‘I feel quite young and quite silly.’ Which is why, she felt, she got on so well with Jude Hill, the 11year-old actor who plays her grandson in Belfast.
Hill is quite remarkable in the film. ‘We were in the same bubble and we had lots of larks,’ she told me.
Ciaran Hinds, who plays her hubby ‘Pop’, had fun, too. He’s also been Oscarnominated. Dench still marvels at how they managed to make the film in the heart of the pandemic. ‘We filmed in the lockdown and none of us had been out of our homes. I felt grateful just to be a little bit together with other people, in a bubble.’
She has since completed a film with Eyre, based on Alan Bennett’s play Allelujah! And she will tread the boards in the West End again, for three nights only — June 19, 26 and July 3 — at the Gielgud Theatre, where she’ll be in conversation with Gyles Brandreth.
I saw them do this at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, with Judi reminiscing about her career.
‘We’re just going to have a chat,’ she explained. ‘Gyles is easy to talk to. He could do the thing on his own! I don’t have to join in at all. I could just butt in
every now and again.’