BAZ BAMIGBOYE: Dame Judi Dench has called time on her oh so saucy needlework

Judi Dench, theatrical dame of the realm, lamented that due to failing eyesight she is no longer able to sew her famous saucy tapestries. For years, the actress would while away her downtime on set creating intricate needlework that she would give to friends.

A lot of folks — including David Hare and Richard Eyre — have been recipients of her handiwork over the years. ‘They’ve probably thrown them out,’ she said, laughing.

We were meant to be chatting about the Oscar nomination she received this week for her witty, poignant performance as Granny in Belfast, Kenneth Branagh’s family drama set during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The film has taken £10 million in the UK so far.

Dame Judi Dench (pictured), theatrical dame of the realm, lamented that due to failing eyesight she is no longer able to sew her famous saucy tapestries

Dame Judi has been nominated for eight Oscars. She won the Academy award for her role as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love in 1999

I’ve observed her, first hand, creating her tapestries; and I couldn’t help but notice that there was a lot of — for want of a better phrase — male wildlife in them. ‘Well yes,’ she admitted merrily. ‘Some were quite rude.’

It’s that sense of mischief that Branagh captures in Belfast, which marks their 12th time working together, in 35 years. But there’s also grit in Judi’s Granny.

When you watch her in the final moments of the picture, she launches an emotional charge that can catch you unawares.

Those who have questioned why she, and not the exquisite Caitriona Balfe, received an Oscar nomination should study what Dench does, seemingly effortlessly.

She had just returned from a funeral when her long-time agent Tor Belfrage broke the Oscar news. ‘I’m genuinely very surprised,’ she said.

Judi plays Granny in Belfast (pictured left), Kenneth Branagh’s family drama set during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The film has taken £10 million in the UK so far

She won the golden statuette in 1999, for portraying Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare In Love. And were she to triumph again, for Granny, she would — at the age of 87 — be the oldest acting winner in the awards’ history.

She is not amused about me mentioning her age. ‘Oh, do shut up!’ she said, in mock anger. ‘Age, age,’ she repeated. ‘If you start thinking of your age, and you get to a certain age, you start thinking you must retire,’ she admonished me, ‘and I’ve told you before that I’m not going to do that.’ 

In any case, she added: ‘I feel quite young and quite silly.’ Which is why, she felt, she got on so well with Jude Hill, the 11-year-old actor who plays her grandson in Belfast. 

Hill is quite remarkable in the film. ‘We were in the same bubble and we had lots of larks,’ she told me.

It’s that sense of mischief that Branagh (left) captures in Belfast, which marks their 12th time working together, in 35 years. But there’s also grit in Judi’s Granny

Ciaran Hinds, who plays her hubby ‘Pop’, had fun, too. He’s also been Oscar-nominated. Dench still marvels at how they managed to make the film in the heart of the pandemic. ‘We filmed in the lockdown and none of us had been out of our homes. I felt grateful just to be a little bit together with other people, in a bubble.’

She has since completed a film with Eyre, based on Alan Bennett’s play Allelujah! And she will tread the boards in the West End again, for three nights only — June 19, 26 and July 3 — at the Gielgud Theatre, where she’ll be in conversation with Gyles Brandreth.

I saw them do this at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, with Judi reminiscing about her career.

‘We’re just going to have a chat,’ she explained. ‘Gyles is easy to talk to. He could do the thing on his own! I don’t have to join in at all. I could just butt in every now and again.’

How high kicking Ariana nearly put the boot into Obama 

Actress Ariana DeBose has never been afraid to speak up — even if that meant ‘gently bickering’ with the mighty Steven Spielberg during a recording session for West Side Story.

And if that wasn’t enough Barack Obama and his wife Michelle were there, too.

The former president was sitting cross-legged in the studio in Manhattan, so close to DeBose that she feared she might accidentally boot him as she danced to the classic number America.

Actress Ariana DeBose (pictured) at the Disney Studios’ Los Angeles Premiere of West Side Story last December

The actress revealed former president Barack Obama was sitting cross-legged in the studio in Manhattan – so close to DeBose that she feared she might accidentally boot him as she danced to the classic number America. Pictured: Ariana as Anita Alvarez in West Side Story

She also feared that one of the Secret Service agents accompanying the couple might ‘punch me in the face’, because they were worried, ‘I was going to kick him with all those iconic moves’.

Michelle was a bit less perilously placed than her husband: seated in a chair, taking a keen interest in DeBose’s conversation with Spielberg about whether the music was being conducted at the right tempo.

‘She looked at me — you know, those little moments where women see each other … it felt like that,’ she recalled.

In fact, the accomplished DeBose and the legendary filmmaker got along just fine, despite the bickering. ‘I’ve never been afraid to speak up, even if I lost the battle,’ she told me. ‘I don’t need to be right. I’m more interested in being heard.’

DeBose’s performance as the ‘scrappy little queen’ Anita has won her accolades from critics and award season heat, including a best supporting actress Oscar nomination (West Side Story has seven in total) and a citation in the same category from BAFTA. Plus, she’s in the running for an EE Rising Star honour.

She also feared that one of the Secret Service agents accompanying the couple might ‘punch me in the face’, because they were worried, ‘I was going to kick him with all those iconic moves’

Her view is that, ‘if you’re playing a character you’re not willing to fight for, then why are you playing that character?’. And, boy oh boy is she qualified for the part of Anita. The temperature rises whenever she’s on screen — especially in the America sequence she performs with boxer boyfriend Bernardo (David Alvarez).

Raised by a single mother in Wilmington, North Carolina, Ariana learned to dance before she could properly walk. I’ve seen her, over the course of a dozen years, rise from the ranks of the chorus line to featured, then starring roles. She’s an electrifying dancer. ‘I speak dance better than I speak English,’ she joked.

When she made a conscious decision to cross from stage to screen, she was warned that musical theatre actors are ‘too big’ for film. She was undeterred. ‘I didn’t have a problem humbling myself, and going back to camera class to try and figure it out,’ she said. ‘If you can work on stage, then you can work on screen.’ But the opposite is not always the case — ‘and that’s just the truth,’ she added, when we met in London. ‘To work on stage is to be incredibly versatile.’

Raised by a single mother in Wilmington, North Carolina, Ariana (pictured) learned to dance before she could properly walk

There’s no doubt that the camera loves her. She was in the Netflix film The Prom, and the AppleTV+ musical comedy series Schmigadoon!, and has been working on and off in the UK for the past several months for director Matthew Vaughn on his new spy thriller Argylle, which also stars Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Henry Cavill and Samuel L. Jackson.

She told me she liked Vaughan’s ‘fun, unconventional’ style, and it was clear from when I visited the set last year that the feeling was mutual.

The day before we met, Vaughn and his wife Claudia Schiffer invited her down to his film studio compound, near his home in Oxford, to meet the family and have lunch. Their chef prepared her favourite meal: mac ’n’ cheese.

She’s hoping to work with Vaughn again, if only so she can get invited back, she joked.

West Side Story is still in cinemas (it’s magnificent on the big screen), but moves to Disney+ from March 3.

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