When a furious Judi Dench tore Emily Blunt to shreds: “I almost shit myself”
Even though she’s barely over five feet tall and has been designated as a national treasure, a term she despises to her very bones, Judi Dench is nonetheless someone that you absolutely do not want to get on the wrong side of, under any circumstances.
Unfortunately for Emily Blunt, she found that out the hard way, and it taught her an important lesson that she’s carried with her ever since. Most actors would be trepidatious at working with a legend, especially at the beginning of their careers, but nerves had nothing to do with Dench tearing her a new one.
The stage and screen veteran might be held in the highest esteem by her peers, and nobody who’s worked with her over her 60+ years in the spotlight has anything but the kindest words to say, but as Kenneth Branagh can attest better than most, she’s a stickler when it comes to professionalism.
That’s a touch oxymoronic when Dench gained infamy in acting circles for her profanity-laced embroidery, her fondness for double entendres, or that time she simulated being “pleasured from behind” to make Lesley Manville laugh so hard she pissed herself on stage, but anyone who doesn’t treat the job with the utmost seriousness and respect can find themselves on the end of a tongue-lashing.
In her very first professional play, an 18-year-old Blunt was cast as Gwen Cavendish in a production of The Royal Family, starring opposite Dench as the central family’s matriarch. Not many unknowns get a mentor of that calibre right out of the gate, and it was a learning tree that she was thrilled to sit under.
“She was so kind to me, and even though I was the only person under the age of 50 in that cast, she never made me feel like I wasn’t welcome in her dressing room,” she explained to Elle. “I felt like one of the gang. It was because of her inclusion every day. She has a funny, naughty, amazing sense of humour, and does not take herself seriously at all. She takes the work seriously, but not herself seriously.”
The future Academy Award nominee shared how “that kind of balance became really inspiring to me,” and spending that much time with “one of the most revered actors around” left her in such a “constant state of dork-out” that she cried when the play finished its run, because it was time to say goodbye.
However, it wasn’t without incident. “I remember the one time she got cross with me,” Blunt ominously intoned. “It was because I’d been out the night before on a bender. I was wildly hungover, and I almost didn’t make the curtain call for the matinee.” Needless to say, Dench wasn’t thrilled, and she read her young co-star the riot act.
What was Blunt’s reaction? “I almost shit myself, and I’ve never been late again.” After being lambasted by the decorated icon, the upstart vowed that she’d never make such an unprofessional mistake ever again. As far as anyone knows, she hasn’t, and it’s all thanks to Dench taking her to task.
