Dame Judi Dench has long made her feelings clear about Cats, the doomed 2019 adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical. In an interview the year after its release, she said she had until now refused to watch the film – in which she played wise old Deuteronomy – and described the orange fur coat she had to wear as looking like “five foxes fucking on my back”.
In his upcoming memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? Dench further discusses his involvement in the film, which was universally criticized and whose director, Tom Hooper, has not made a film since.
“Oh my God, I can’t stand it,” she writes in the book, “and (Lloyd Webber) had waited so long for it to be made. What a waste of all that good will and talent.
“I understand that the critics were pretty hostile to the film. I never saw the final cut, so I can’t judge. All I will say is that no one is out to give a bad performance or make a bad film. You do your best, come up with something and hope people get on board and join in the fun.”
Among the aspects of the film most vigorously criticized upon its release was the film’s erratic CGI, which obliterated each animal’s anus but retained, in Dench’s case, a human hand, complete with a wedding ring.
In her book, Dench writes that she felt “uncomfortable from the start – I just didn’t feel right in the role.” She also doesn’t like “the way the young dancers were left hanging at the end of each take. They stood there, exhausted and completely ignored.”
However, Dench says she enjoyed discovering “I could still lift my leg in the air” and playing Bananagrams with her vocal coach on set. She also enjoyed meeting her co-star Taylor Swift and, on the last day of filming, was presented with 50 eternal roses, painted gold, by Jason Derulo, who played Rum Tum Tugger.
“There were no villains in the making of Cats,” Dench writes. “And if something doesn’t work out, there are always things you can say you learned.”
“Sometimes things don’t work out: the timing isn’t right, the actors don’t fit together, the elements don’t come together. But people’s intentions are for the most part honorable.”
Lloyd Webber heavily criticized the film, claiming that Hooper had not consulted those involved in the original West End series and saying “the whole thing was ridiculous”.
In 2021, he called it “completely false” and said the experience left him so “emotionally damaged” that he became a dog owner in an effort to recover.
“We didn’t really understand why the music was ticking. I saw it and I just thought, ‘Oh, my God, no.’ It was the first time in my 70-odd years on this planet that I went out and bought a dog. So the only good thing that came out of it was my little Havanese puppy.
The composer said he had to prove to an airline that he needed the companion as an emotional support animal in order to travel with him. “I said, ‘Just look what Hollywood did to my musical Cats.’ Then the approval came back with a note saying, “No medical report is required.” »
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