The director who compared Judi Dench to a savage: “We have had our run-ins”
Most people wouldn’t look at the kindly, diminutive figure of Judi Dench and think, “There she is, the absolute savage.” One actor and filmmaker would, though, and they’re supposed to be friends.
There’s not really a complimentary way to insinuate that someone has savage tendencies, since it instantly conjures the mental image of a feral Dench roaming around a film set or backstage at the theatre like a rabid beast, hunting for the next target of her frothing, unbridled fury.
To be honest, the truth isn’t too far away from that, even if there’s a bit of luvviness thrown in. As much as she’s a legendary presence in British stage and screen, there’s also plenty of evidence to suggest that the Academy Award-winning dame isn’t to be trifled with, especially if you catch her in a bad mood.
There’s definitely something endearingly and bizarrely wholesome about her dirty mind, foul mouth, and habit of weaving sweary embroidery for her nearest and dearest, but the other side of that coin is that the long-time M to Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig’s James Bond doesn’t take too kindly to perceived idiocy.
It wouldn’t be wide of the mark to assume that one of her close personal friends and a frequent collaborator in film, television, and the London performing arts would be immune from her wrath, but Kenneth Branagh would wholeheartedly disagree, since he was the one who called her a savage sort.
The pair have worked together on the movies Belfast, All Is True, Murder on the Orient Express, and Hamlet, the made-for-TV feature Ghosts, and several stage productions, including The Lion in Winter, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Winter’s Tale, so it’s an understatement to say they’re familiar with each other in a personal and professional capacity.
“She has a very healthy, a very rigorous, and I would say savage, artistic judgment and artistic conscience,” Branagh told the Los Angeles Times, a brush Dench refused to be tarred with. “I certainly don’t believe ‘savage,'” she retorted, before immediately proving the point he was trying to make.
“Was I savage when I gave you notes for Much Ado About Nothing?” she asked. Since he didn’t say anything, the answer was clearly ‘yes’. “We have had our run-ins about these kinds of things,” Branagh confessed. “I would say ‘savagery’ in terms of being an artistic puritan.” With the backtracking complete, it was finally embraced as the compliment it was supposed to be.
Why did she have to get him notes for the play, especially when Branagh is almost as synonymous with the works of William Shakespeare as she is? Two reasons: first of all, he’s pissed her off by adding an ad-libbed joke into a performance, which didn’t sit well with Dench, who was also directing. Secondly, he got pissed in the pub and disappeared before she could hand the notes over. It’s not what most folks would call savage behaviour, but as far as he was concerned, it was.
