Behind the Scenes (9781466882195) Page 5

  With Kevin Spacey and Peter O’Toole at the premiere for The Shipping News, 2001. Peter looks startled, I look somewhat taken aback by whatever someone is saying to us, only Kevin looks relaxed.

  I’ve never had trouble with a bottle of champagne until the premiere of The Shipping News. Kevin Spacey was no help on this occasion!! I’ve never seen the film, but I loved making it with Kevin. That’s where I saw icebergs for the first time. They are pure white, and inside they are bright turquoise. Flying over them is spellbinding.

  Iris Murdoch in Iris with Jim Broadbent as John Bayley, 2001

  Jim and I had a very similar sense of the absurd, and we laughed a lot between takes in Iris, which actually helped us to play some of those scenes.

  I discovered that we shared a love of cats. His was called Naughty and I said, ‘Oh, what a great name for a cat.’

  ‘Not so hot when you’re sitting in the vet’s waiting-room with a whole lot of people, and they come out and call Naughty Broadbent!’

  It was wonderful when he won the Oscar for best supporting actor, there was a lot of excitement in our corner.

  We have always loved cats. Mitts, Spider, Newps, Fossil (in the barrow). Newps was short for Newspaper, also known as the great flat-footed Newps.

  All the cats have been great explorers, especially Fossil. As soon as I put him down he was off into the wheelbarrow or whatever caught his interest. Fossil was particularly intrigued by the egg basket. Fortunately he never broke any of the eggs.

  Sammy’s first time as a pageboy (above right) was at the wedding of Sarah Kavanaugh to Kit Bingham. He was told he could have Tracy Island if he walked up the aisle and behaved very, very well. The children behaved impeccably and all went absolutely swimmingly until he said loudly, ‘Now can I have Thunderbirds, Tracy Island?’

  Opposite is my favourite picture of Sammy. For a very long time whenever you took a photo of him he mimed what you were doing.

  Being at the Oxford Union in March 2002 was such good fun in the end, except it was frightening. I was so worried that I would be asked all sorts of highly intellectual questions that I said I would only do it if I could bring my biographer with me to take the chair. Then the first question from the floor was ‘Who’s your favourite James Bond?’ and I thought this is going to be all right after all. Although in the photo below I look as though in a minute I’m going to ask John what I did, what was the play, what was the part and what was the date?

  Frances in The Breath of Life with Maggie Smith as Madeleine, Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 2002

  The Clintons came to see The Breath of Life one night. Madeleine Albright and Chelsea Clinton arrived at the beginning, but Bill Clinton and his wife only arrived at the interval. Somebody told me later that as President he became notorious for his unpunctuality.

  I didn’t know All’s Well That Ends Well, and I had never worked with Greg Doran before. The Countess is a wonderful part, and it’s a wonderful play, and I just loved being back at Stratford as part of that Company. I have so many friends there, and I know the area so well, it was just lovely.

  I hadn’t been back to Stratford in a play for more than twenty years and it was Finty who talked me into it. She said she had such happy memories of growing up there that she wanted Sammy to have the same experience. We had one of the happiest Christmases there, certainly since Michael died in 2001, and we felt very near him at Charlecote, where he is buried.

  The Countess in All’s Well That Ends Well with its director, Greg Doran, Stratford, 2003

  Shall I drive off into the sunset? This is a very flash photo of me and my very flash car. I don’t drive it. I just lean against it. It makes me feel about twenty-nine.

  Eight years after the first photo of the three generations of Williamses when Sammy was just two weeks old, this time with Minnie, the new Shih-Tzu.

  After our early years at the Old Vic, Maggie Smith and I only worked together at long intervals until recently, when we have done a play and two films in rapid succession. Charles Dance was so assured that you would never have known Ladies in Lavender was his first film as director. The young Polish violinist we rescued from the seashore in Cornwall was played by a very good German actor, Daniel Brühl, and this photograph was taken by his interpreter, Georgia Oetker.

  I’ve never seen The Chronicles of Riddick, but I get so sent up about it. Originally I went to have the camera test for it the day before I started, when my wig was almost down to my feet, and I had bright blue lenses. The next day they said, ‘No, you can’t wear the lenses because Vin wears them’, and they cut my hair like this as if I was going to the Oscars. So I didn’t really feel like I was meant to be – some kind of alien person.

  Ladies in Lavender with Maggie Smith, 2004

  The Chronicles of Riddick with Vin Diesel, 2004

  The Rose in Kingston Gala, 2004

  Peter Hall was launching this new theatre at Kingston, with a design based on Shakespeare’s Globe, and asked me if I would host a fundraising gala, with a cast of many of our friends. It was produced by John Miller and Joe Harmston, and as you can see we had a very starry cast, including David Oyelowo, Michael Pennington, Colin Salmon, Sam West, Samantha Bond, Martin Jarvis, and Charles Dance, who are all in this picture. I don’t know where Tim Pigott-Smith had got to, he was probably plotting to get the black glove back to me, which I had thrown at his feet in rehearsal (see final picture and story at the end of the book).

  I guess the title One Knight Only came from having just one knight in the cast, Antony Sher, with a supporting cast of dames: Joan Plowright, Helen Mirren, Eileen Atkins, Diana Rigg, and me.

  One Knight Only, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2005

  In rehearsal for One Knight Only. I have no recollection whatsoever of this gesture, or what I was doing, or what it means. Such over-acting!

  Judith in Hay Fever with Belinda Lang, William Chubb, Peter Bowles, Dan Stevens and Kim Medcalf, Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 2006

  Hay Fever was heaven, every single performance; I adored it. It was rather like Private Lives: you think you’re having a love affair every night. It was such good fun.

  Judith in Hay Fever with Peter Bowles as David, Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 2006

  One night of Hay Fever Peter Bowles said: ‘Jane Seymour drove out of the Champs-Élysées in her Hispano-Suiza.’ We corpsed so badly that the audience caught on, we got into terrible trouble. Then of course he had to say the line again, we could see it coming. I can’t remember what her name was meant to be, but it certainly wasn’t Jane Seymour.

  Tim Pigott-Smith came one night, and he sent the black glove to Dan Stevens, but I heard he was in, so I came in at the beginning with those gardening gloves on, one black and one green. In the interval Tim sent Dan a message, ‘Well done! Very, very well done!!’ Dan said, ‘What do you mean? I haven’t given it to her yet.’

  Playing the saxophone in Last of the Blonde Bombshells, 2000

  I’ve still got one of those. We had to rehearse a lot to get the fingering right; Kathy Stobart from Humphrey Lyttelton’s Band taught me. I’d love to be able to play it properly, and now I regret that I didn’t go on playing it. But whenever I just about got through a scale on it in my house, everybody left – the cats, the dog, Sammy, Michael, everybody.

  Lovely get-up, isn’t it?

  We all had such fun with The Merry Wives of Windsor, though I’m not sure it was as much fun for the audience as it was for us. Perhaps they should make more musicals out of Shakespeare, though I’m not so sure about Macbeth the Musical!

  Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor musical, with Alexandra Gilbreath as Mistress Ford and Haydn Gwynne as Mistress Page, Stratford, 2006

  Falstaff was originally supposed to be played by Desmond Barrit, but he had something wrong with his toe and had to drop out midway through rehearsals. So Simon Callow came in at very short notice. He was so good, because singing, which came easily to Des Barrit, didn’t come so easily to Simon. We missed Des, but my g
oodness Simon was just terrific, and such good fun. My brother Jeff was Robert Shallow, and Brendan O’Hea played Pistol.

  With Simon Callow as Falstaff

  I had never worked with Bob Hoskins before, it was a complete joy. I had worked for Stephen Frears several times, and I so enjoyed making Mrs Henderson Presents that I never wanted it to end. I played the woman who bought the Windmill Theatre and employed Vivian van Damm, played by Bob.

  Mrs Henderson Presents with Bob Hoskins, 2005

  Barbara in Notes on a Scandal with Cate Blanchett as Sheba, 2006

  I enjoyed doing Notes on a Scandal, it was a cracker to play, I loved it, and Richard Eyre was wonderful directing it.

  When Cate Blanchett and I had the fight at the end of the film I had a back-brace put inside my costume, like a tortoiseshell, for when I was smashed against the book-case.

  Cate had a bottle of champagne ready, and we opened it as soon as we finished the scene – we were very ready for that.

  Cranford had such a large female cast, including Eileen Atkins, Francesca Annis, Lisa Dillon, Michelle Dockery, Emma Fielding, Celia Imrie, Lesley Manville and Finty, that the producer Sue Birtwistle christened us The Amazons. Much of the location work was shot at Lacock in Wiltshire, which still has the right period look.

  The hedge had to be clipped first if three not-excessively-tall actresses were to be seen! It was nice to see a bit of sunshine that day, because it rained so much at Lacock during the shoot.

  Cranford with Julia McKenzie, 2007.

  Five Amazons at the window. Left to right: Julia McKenzie, Barbara Flynn, me, Deborah Findlay and Imelda Staunton

  We had to have fake snow laid for this night scene; here we all are, acting cold. Lacock is such a beautiful place, but I don’t think the people who live there ever have it to themselves.

  I had worked with most of the cast before. They had set up an amazingly complicated scene, where the carriage came round the corner, and we had to come out of the cottage, when Eileen had to say ‘Welcome to Cranford.’ They had set it all up, sanded the road and everything. They said: ‘Action, Eileen and Judi,’ so we went out and Eileen said: ‘Welcome to Ambridge.’

  One of the nice perks of this show was having to go to Los Angeles to promote the screening of Cranford in America with Eileen Atkins and Imelda Staunton.

  Dining scene with Michael Gambon, Lisa Dillon and Imelda Staunton

  There was a lot of eating I remember, and we had to use these difficult period forks with only two prongs.

  Lilli in Nine, 2009

  Nine was good fun, except that I had to rehearse this song just as my great heroine Sophia Loren arrived on her first day, and she sat in the front row of this theatre set while I sang it, which I found rather frightening. Daniel Day-Lewis was playing the character based on Fellini, and the musical was based on his film 8½. I hadn’t worked with Dan since playing Gertrude to his Hamlet at the National in 1989, and it was good to work with him again.

  Madame de Sade with Frances Barber and Deborah Findlay, Wyndham’s Theatre, 2009

  Rather a lot of frock in this production: we had to finish dressing at stage level, as we couldn’t get down the stairs from the dressing rooms in them. It was done by three old Japanese actors shortly afterwards – quite right too. Frankie Barber had a line, ‘My body was used as an altar.’ Dead silence in the theatre, except for one voice, ‘Oh, God!’ from a dear friend of mine who was in that night.

  Madame de Sade with Frances Barber and Deborah Findlay, Wyndham’s Theatre, 2009

  My Week With Marilyn, 2011

  Ken Branagh was playing Laurence Olivier and I was Sybil Thorndike in My Week With Marilyn. It was fun, but I was only in it for three days, because I was going off to work with Clint Eastwood. So the back of my head in the film is all Penny Ryder, doubling for me. I still haven’t seen it. I have never been keen on watching myself onscreen, I always think I could have played the scene better, but now it’s too late.

  It looks as if I’m asking a question which Clint maybe doesn’t want to answer. He didn’t give me any notes at all, not once during J. Edgar. Once I was sitting on a bed, looking at some things, talking to Leo DiCaprio, then there was a pause, and I said, ‘Are we about to go?’ He said, ‘We’ve been, we’ve shot it.’ I loved the fact that he was such a quiet director, he doesn’t like very much noise at all. There were no loud bells, or shouts of ‘Quiet. Turn over. Action!’ – it was all done with hand-signals, then Clint would just lean in and murmur, ‘In your own time.’ At the end instead of yelling, ‘Cut!’ he would just say quietly, ‘Stop.’

  With Clint Eastwood on the set of J. Edgar, 2011

  Annie Hoover in J. Edgar, 2011

  It was lovely working with Clint, we never started before 9.30 in the morning, and we wrapped at 4 p.m. – you can’t ask any more from a director. I once said to him, ‘Do you think I could do this scene again?’

  He said, ‘Why?’

  ‘We’ve just done two takes. I just feel maybe I could have another go at it.’

  He said, ‘OK, don’t think.’

  That’s a wonderful note, because the more you do it, the more you stop to analyse it.

  The costumes were very accurate, and very smart. My friend Pinkie Kavanaugh came out with me, and we stayed at the Four Seasons, it was like a holiday.

  With Leonardo DiCaprio

  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a lovely title for the film. The title suggested for the sequel was The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, but I’m not sure if that will be agreed by the Americans, because of the possible interpretation.

  The crowd scenes in India weren’t difficult at all, they are all so used to film crews, and John Madden is such an extraordinary director and man.

  Dev Patel had this lovely line: ‘No more playing on the porch with the puppies, you are a big dog now.’ He was a sweet boy.

  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel with Dev Patel, 2011

  Look at all those wonderful colours!

  In the back of a tuk tuk with Celia Imrie while filming the The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in Jaipur.

  Casino Royale with Daniel Craig, my second James Bond, 2006

  Daniel Craig is hugely good fun. He does most of his stunts himself. He is very different from Pierce Brosnan, but both are really good actors, both with an enormous sense of humour, which I think is very important. If you take yourself too seriously in it, or in anything really, I think it’s not good.

  Skyfall with Daniel Craig, on location in Scotland, 2012

  This was the only day we were actually in Glencoe filming Skyfall, though all the rest of those scenes looked as if they were. The mist stayed like that on the hills the whole day, it was very atmospheric.

  It’s not really a tattoo, it was made by Swarovski Crystal, who gave me this transfer.

  Skyfall premiere in the Royal Albert Hall, attended by the Prince of Wales. That’s when the front of my watch fell out.

  Here Sam Mendes is giving me a couple of notes between takes for Skyfall. I had never forgotten his reaction when he first directed me in The Cherry Orchard in 1989. I said that I wasn’t going to do something in one scene, I was going to try something else. He said, ‘Well, you can if you want, but it won’t work,’ and he turned away and wouldn’t watch. So at last I got my own back in Skyfall. When he said could he suggest something, I said, ‘Well you can, but it won’t work!’

  During rehearsals for Peter and Alice I kept asking John Logan questions the whole time. Eventually, when he was sitting at the table and I kept leaning over to ask him questions about the script, he said: ‘Now you see why I killed you off in Skyfall.’ It was lovely working with Michael Grandage again.

  With John Logan and Michael Grandage at the First Night Party for Peter and Alice, 2013

  Peter and Alice with Ben Whishaw, Noël Coward Theatre, 2013

  I look staggeringly like my Auntie Cathy here. Ben played the young man on whom the character of Peter Pan was based, and I played th
e original model for Alice in Alice in Wonderland. The play opens with an actual meeting between the two real people, with lots of flashbacks and scenes from the books. Ben is such a good actor, I wish I’d seen him as Hamlet.

  On an airport trolley filming Philomena with Steve Coogan, who co-wrote and co-produced the film and played Martin Sixsmith. Steve is the most brilliant mimic, and we had a lot of laughs during filming and afterwards. This scene was supposed to be taking place in Washington’s Dulles Airport, but in fact we shot it at Stansted, and I got searched every time I came to film!

  With Philomena Lee, whose story we filmed

  Philomena Lee was in two minds about Philomena when she first saw it, but then said she approved of it. It was severely criticised by several Catholic organisations in America, who said it was an unpardonable attack on the Catholic Church. But then Harvey Weinstein arranged for Steve Coogan to accompany Philomena to Rome, where they were received by the Pope, which countered that disapproval. I would really have loved to have gone with them and met the Pope, but it was the day I came back from India for the BAFTA Awards, so I couldn’t go.