Dame Judi Dench plays a lovely north London history teacher who develops a more than passing interest in a new colleague in Notes on a Scandal. Dench’s Barbara Covett is immediately entranced by the arrival of art teacher Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), and the two women soon become fast friends, sharing profound intimacies and confidences. But things turn when Barbara happens upon a sexual indiscretion committed by Sheba, with the women’s bond at serious risk of rupturing forever.
The film, directed by Richard Eyre and adapted by Patrick Marber from the 2003 novel by Zoe Heller, is a serious study in various adult themes, including erotic fixation and emotional self-delusion. And it marks a decided change of pace for Dench, Britain’s beloved Oscar-winning Dame, who has long specialised in women in control.
Dench is now one of her country’s leading film stars, an astonishing achievement for a much-laureled theatre actress who really only clicked with a cinema-going public when she was in her 60s. The actress turned 72 in December last year.
Did you know Zoe Heller’s book?
“I did yes, which is rather unlike me. Normally, with roles I run on instinct, though when Michael [Williams] was alive, he was always my reader. Nowadays, I often give scripts to friends, but not everyone can do it, and I know I can’t. Mike just knew what to pick. He’d say, ‘Read that line; read that little bit,’ and I knew straight away how right he was. That’s a facility I’ve got to somehow pick up myself to be able to do. But in this case, Geoffrey Palmer (Dench’s co-star in the TV series As Time Goes By) had given me the book to read so immediately I knew the story, and, well, it was one of those parts where, at the end of the day, you took all that make-up and stuff off and thought, ‘my God, I’m glad I’m back to normal.'”
What was it that made you say yes to the venture?
“Well, working with Richard; we have such a history — Amy’s View in London and New York, Hamlet, Iris, a TV Cherry Orchard … I seem to have just known Richard all my life, really, and he’s so reliable — no, reliable isn’t the word. He’s rocklike, totally dependable, though even dependable sounds too boring a word. The point is, you just look at him and you know straight away what he wants the next time. … And then, of course, there was Cate Blanchett, for whom my admiration is completely undimmed.”
Notes on a Scandal also gives you a chance to play someone nastier.
“I suppose, though Barbara’s not a villain; she’s just a victim of her own circumstances. I know several people like that: people who as far as you can see never have any kind of relationship with somebody or are just desperately needy.
And I gather that, unusually for you, you’ve actually seen this film.
“Yes, I was in New York and Los Angeles for a week, and one Sunday morning, I saw it. But it’s always so in your face when you see yourself on screen; it’s like [real], then it’s in formaldehyde, and there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s what I love about the theatre: each time you do it, you can make it better.
Are you happy with the constantly shifting shape of your career?
“It’s all been rather arbitrary, really. There were many years when all of my contemporaries did more films, and I think I did more theatre. But, in fact, all I’ve ever wanted to do if at all possible was choose the most unlikely next job, really. What happens is that people start writing plays for you that are similar and suddenly, you get a whole lot of roles offered to you that are rather similar, whereas in actual fact what I’d love to do is the most unlikely thing next. Fortunately in my career that has happened a lot of times — to be asked to do Cabaret, for instance: I thought, I’m not a singer; I sing the way I speak. But that was a very kind of way-out thing for Hal Prince to ask me to do, and I had the most wonderful time doing it.”
People often seem surprised that, given your film career, you continue to return to the stage.
“Oh, God, the more films I do, the more the theatre is absolutely like an old friend; I think, thank heavens there is something I can have more goes at. With Absolute Hell, I wish I was doing it tonight — wasn’t it a wonderful play, and sad and funny? I know it sounds fey, but the theatre is always a salvation; I think it’s something for our souls. I think it’s so essential to make people just forget themselves for a bit or maybe be more aware of themselves or be angry or enlightened or irritated or something: it keeps the nerve ends alive.”
Which in turn accounts for the fact that you don’t have a personal publicist for your film work and all that sort of stuff.
“No, no, no; that’s not my scene. I mean, I haven’t really done a film in Hollywood. Ian [McKellen] has done all that, but I haven’t ever. The only big Hollywood film was Chronicles of Riddick with Vin Diesel, but that was in Vancouver.”
For legions of admirers, you’re first and foremost Bond’s commandant, the wonderfully named M.
“Indeed. Pierce [Brosnan] and I joined together; we were new boy and girl together. I did the four with him and this one with Dan [Craig]. And isn’t he stunning — just stunning? How can he do that with all that stuff being chucked at him in the press beforehand