BY JAY STONE, POSTMEDIA NEWS APRIL 26, 2012
Judi Dench in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
NEW YORK - When British actor Tom Wilkinson went to India to film The Best Exotic Magnolia Hotel - a comedy-drama about a group of older British people looking for a place to retire - he didn't like the country much. It was crowded and noisy, and even the birds seemed to be mocking him.
"I swear to God, one of the sounds I heard over and over was this one bird saying, 'It's you I hate. It's you I hate,'" Wilkinson said, in a convincing crow-like squawk.
He told co-star Judi Dench, who was both amused and inspired. When the shooting ended - by which time both of them had fallen in love with India - she presented him with a parting gift: a cushion embroidered with the words, "It's you I hate."
Dench is known for her needlework. Indeed, she has embroidered a lot worse on many a cushion for many a friend. She once gave playwright David Hare a cushion stitched with the anti-critic motto: "F--- 'em, f--- 'em, f--- 'em, f--- 'em."
It's not what one might expect of a Dame of the British Empire, but at 77, Dench is a reluctant icon of British theatre and film. She's an honoured Shakespearean actor who is probably best known, these days, as spymaster M in a series of James Bond movies.
"It's very good street cred with young chaps," she says of her Bond role, with the precise diction that sounds like something from one of the Bard's more raucous comedies. "And it's very nice indeed, because that's the way you get an audience for tomorrow. If I can get them to maybe come and see something else, maybe not necessarily Marigold, but something else, then that's our audience for the future."
Dench has an unusually close connection to that audience. She says, "If you play M in James Bond, you get approached mostly by children of my grandson's age, 15 and up. His friends come to our house and imagine that it's a bit like MI6."
She's an unlikely spymaster, but she isn't that far from Evelyn, the character she plays in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Evelyn is a British widow suddenly left to take care of many baffling tasks. Along with a handful of other seniors - the cast includes Wilkinson, Bill Nighy and Maggie Smith - she goes to Jaipur, where a slightly rundown hotel has been advertised as a retirement paradise.
Dench is also a widow - her husband, actor Michael Williams, died of cancer in 2001 - and says she understands Evelyn. "The fact that she was the widow, and that she was missing her husband, and she had a child she didn't want to impose on - all that, I can sympathize with and I can understand."
Evelyn finds companionship in India, which Dench also says she understands. "When you've been widowed for quite a long time, it's very, very nice to have the company of somebody, suddenly. It doesn't have to be a great passionate sexual affair, but it's very nice to have the company of somebody who actually says, 'Oh, I'll find your keys for you,' or 'Let's go to the theatre tonight.'"
The theatre would be a good choice. It was 55 years ago that Dench made her stage debut, as Ophelia in Hamlet at The Old Vic Theatre in London. Since then, she has won a slew of acting awards and honours, including an Oscar for an eight-minute performance as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love. She is suffering from a few physical ailments now, including fading vision, called macular degeneration, which means she can no longer read scripts (people read them to her). She may even be getting near the end of the Bond trail: The rumour is that M is killed off in the new 007 film, Skyfall.
However, on a recent visit to New York, she told reporters she has no intention of retiring. She loves acting, partly because it's a chance to learn things. She says her husband once told her that the reason she became an actress is because she is nosy. "Even as a child, I've only ever wanted to learn something new every day," she says.
It's the same curiosity, she says, that makes her want all her movie roles to be different. India was another learning experience for Dench, who agrees with her character's description of the country as "an assault on the senses." It didn't take the actor long to adjust to her new surroundings.
"Within 24 hours, I was completely fascinated and bewitched by the country. . . . The beauty of the people, I thought, was astounding. The colour, the noise, the smell. Everything about it is completely staggering. I can't wait to go back there."
She recalled shooting a scene one day, when three elephants unexpectedly walked by. "Somebody said, 'It's like the 73 bus; you stand there and wait for an hour and a half, and then three come.'"
Despite her exuberance, Dench acknowledges she does see some signs of old age creeping in.
"I shout a lot at the radio. I know that's old. And my family says, 'Oh for goodness' sake, ma, shut up.'"
The assumptions she once had about aging have turned out to be true, which she seems OK with, as long as she continues to act.
"I just don't want to retire," she says. "I thought I would have six children, (but) life isn't like that. . . . You have to somehow accept it and look for the plusses."
It's a philosophy she got from a German friend, and it became a mantra in her family.
"Look for the plusses, and, somehow, it's a very good piece of advice. Even if it's a very small plus, you get something out of something, instead of an erosion of always thinking your cup is half empty."
The Best Exotic Magnolia Hotel opens May 4 in Toronto; May 11 in Vancouver; May 18 in Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Ottawa, Victoria and Winnipeg.
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