JUDI DENCH CALLS CATS FILM A WASTE OF GOODWILL AND TALENT

Dame Judi Dench has criticised the 2019 film Cats in her forthcoming memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? “What a waste of all that goodwill and talent,” she writes. Dench says she never saw the final cut and therefore cannot judge the finished film. She played Old Deuteronomy in Tom Hooper’s adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Dench writes that she felt “ill at ease from the beginning” and did not feel right in the role.

Dench says Lloyd Webber had waited a long time for the musical to become a film. She acknowledges that critics reacted negatively to Cats, while saying that nobody sets out to give a poor performance or make a bad film. She also criticises how people on set treated young dancers, saying nobody acknowledged them as they stood exhausted after takes. In an interview the year after the film’s release, Dench said she had declined to watch it. She also criticised the appearance of the orange fur coat she wore for the role.

Dench recalls enjoying Bananagrams with her vocal coach and meeting fellow cast member Taylor Swift. She says Jason Derulo, who played Rum Tum Tugger, gave her 50 everlasting roses spray-painted gold on the final day of filming. “There were no villains in the making of Cats,” she writes. Dench says people can learn from a film that does not succeed. She suggests that timing, the cast’s chemistry and the way a production’s elements come together can affect its outcome.