Dame Judi Dench has been nominated as best supporting actress for her role as M in James Bond, receiving one of the eight nominations for Skyfall announced at a ceremony this morning.
It is the first time she has been recognized by Bafta for playing M, and comes as she finally finishes her 17 year stint in the role. Skyfall will be her final appearance in the James Bond franchise.
Her nomination is one of eight received by the film this year, including Outstanding British Film and Cinematography.
Javier Bardem was announced as a contender for best supporting actor, with potential accolades also including prizes for original music, editing, production design and sound.
Casino Royale has previously received nine nominations; a record high.
This year, Skyfall was narrowly pipped to the most nominations by Lincoln, which received ten, Les Miserables and Life of Pi which both received nine.
The award for best film will come from a short list of Argo, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty.
Judi Dench was first recognised by Bafta in1966 as "most promising newcomer", and has gone on to receive and impressive 26 nominations.
She has already won ten times, including best leading actress for Iris and Mrs Brown.
Billy Connolly sobbed as he received a Scottish Bafta award last night (10 Dec)
He was presented with a gong for an Outstanding Contribution in Television and Film by stand-up comedian Kevin Bridges.
Kevin thanked Billy for being a inspiration to generations of Scots comics and Billy replied: “This is a delightful thing, especially coming from Scotland.
“I’ve been nominated for loads of things and got b***** all. I occasionally get these good attendance things, like the guy in remedial class getting a prize for being kind.
“Genuinely, to get this from Scotland, I almost say it breaks my heart. It just hits me somewhere where I live.”
As Billy burst into tears, the crowd in Glasgow’s Fruitmarket applauded wildly.
He continued: “I don’t know what to do now. It’s been a real pleasure to talk to you. I guess you only get these things once … but could we meet every second week?”
The presentation came at the end of a 90-minute discussion about Billy’s Life In Pictures alongside a few dodgy jokes about thalidomide and the Gorbals.
The Big Yin talked about his roles in films such as 1978’s Absolution with Richard Burton and Mrs Brown with Judi Dench.
Of Burton, he said: “The funny thing was, I was drunk and he was sober.
“They shot the graveyard scene from the back and what you couldn’t see was him singing I Belong to Glasgow.
“He was a priest and I showed him where the pocket was in the cassock for his fags.”
Mrs Brown also left a big impression. Billy said: “At one point, I thought that Judi Dench fancied me. She kept giving me the eye in one scene and I thought, ‘What am I going to do?’ I danced about more and she started doing it again.
“It was getting worse and then it dawned on me that she was being Queen Victoria, so I fancied her back.”
Billy admitted he was disappointed to miss out on a Bafta for Mrs Brown – instead it went to Ewan McGregor for Trainspotting.
He said: “Ewan beat me with that filth about drugs in Edinburgh – and that language, too.
“I hate Ewan for beating me. When you get beaten by somebody you like, it’s worse.
BOOK: AND FURTHERMORE AUTHOR: Judi Dench PUBLISHER: Phoenix (Hachette Aust) RRP: $22.99 REVIEWER: Mary Ann Elliott
MUCH-LOVED British actor Dame Judi Dench could hardly be less like a dame in her delightful autobiography.
Coming from a down-to-earth Yorkshire family, the star of stage and screen talks candidly about her long career, starting with her professional debut with the Old Vic Company, appearing in many Shakespeare plays.
Graduating to such diverse roles as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, Cleopatra, Jean in As Time Goes By, Mrs. Brown (Queen Victoria), and as M in the James Bond films, Judi Dench has thrived on variety.
In her book it is obvious that the more challenges and diversity she has, the more she likes it.
Her generosity of spirit towards her fellow actors and her friends also leaps from the pages. Altogether she comes across very much as one imagines her to be; honest, kind, charming and witty, loving what she does.
At 77 she has no thoughts of retiring, fortunately for us, her adoring fans, having recently shot films in Rajasthan and in Hollywood, the latter directed by Clint Eastwood.
This weekend, Gerard Butler revisits the very Shakespeare play that launched his acting career: Coriolanus. This time around, Butler plays Tullus Aufidius, the rival of the title character in Ralph Fiennes’s big screen adaptation. So just how did a Scottish actor who started with Shakespeare boomerang back to the very same play a decade later after achieving Hollywood stardom? You can always trace a direct line through a few important roles to illustrate what led to an actor’s current success. As such, let’s look at nine pivotal performances that track the evolution of Gerard Butler.
Mrs. Brown (1997)
Shortly after finishing college, a 23-year-old Butler moved to Los Angeles for a short period during which he found work as an extra in 1992’s The Bodyguard. Ultimately, after a detour in law school, Butler moved to London to launch his acting career with performances in stage adaptations of Coriolanus and Trainspotting before making his big-screen debut in the British drama Mrs. Brown opposite Billy Connolly and Judi Dench. As folklore goes (on the film’s IMDB trivia page), Butler suffered hypothermia after running naked into the freezing ocean for one scene.
Dracula 2000 (2000)
After a don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it role in Tomorrow Never Dies (as Leading Seaman of the HMS Devonshire) and his first horror project (Tale of the Mummy), Butler scored his first leading man role as Count Dracula in the campy, Wes Craven-produced cult classic Dracula 2000. Although the film was not received well by critics (who maybe just didn’t get the humor of a permed Count Dracula or vampires being beheaded with garden shears — both are acquired tastes), it proved that Butler could support a just-profitable film that spawned two direct-to-video sequels. Take that, Tom Cruise!
Lara Croft Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life (2003)
Following a starring role in the well-watched (but ultimately forgettable) television miniseries Attila, Butler scored his first blockbuster love interest opportunity opposite Angelina Jolie in the Lara Craft Tomb Raider sequel The Cradle of Life. Here, Butler proved himself capable of the kinds of action stunts that would help him in his breakthrough box office project four years later. Although critics could not claim that the film was anything more than entertaining, Cradle of Life was a serviceable final Lara Croft film chapter for fans.
The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
After starring in Richard Donner’s sci-fi film Timeline, Butler was summoned by Joel Schumacher to audition for the role of the Phantom in his adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical. (Schumacher had been impressed by the Scot’s performance in Dracula 2000, just like you undoubtedly were after seeing the above clip.) After only four voice lessons, Butler sang “The Music of the Night” for Lloyd Webber and secured the first musical role of his career. Critics gave the screen adaptation mixed reviews and saved their praise for Butler’s co-star Emmy Rossum. The film ultimately went on to earn over $150 million worldwide at the box office.
300 (2007)
And then came the breakthrough role for Gerard Butler (and his well-toned physique) in Zack Snyder’s “comic book adaptation on steroids,” 300. Butler stars as King Leonidas, the brave royal who led 300 Spartans into battle against Persian Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his army of over a million soldiers. At the time of production, the actor said that training for the film was the most difficult thing he had done in his life. For his work in the film, Butler won his first Hollywood award: the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight. This was also Butler’s most lucrative project at the time, grossing over $450 million worldwide.
Nim’s Island (2008)
What better way to for Butler to decompress from a testosterone-fueled torso pic like 300 than with the weepy widow love story P.S. I Love You and then his first children’s film Nim’s Island? Playing the shipwrecked marine biologist father of Abigail Breslin’s Nim, Butler’s character struggled to fashion a boat out of miscellaneous materials so that he could return to his daughter who was busy tracking down her favorite author (Jodie Foster). While this film did not buoy critical perception of Butler’s acting abilities, it did introduce the Scot to an entirely new audience.
The Ugly Truth (2009)
Shortly after filming Guy Ritchie’s British crime pic RocknRolla, Butler entered a dark stage of his career during which he starred in two insufferable (but decently performing) rom-coms. The first being The Ugly Truth, which pitted the actor as a pigheaded television star who torments his hopeless romantic morning show producer (Katherine Heigl) with cynicism and gifts of remote-controlled vibrating panties. Although Heigl and Butler had snappy chemistry, The Ugly Truth was panned by critics. A year later, Butler would follow up this rom-com with The Bounty Hunter, the four-time Razzie nominated picture which starred Butler as bounty hunter hired to track down his ex-wife (Jennifer Aniston).
How To Train Your Dragon (2010)
A year later, Butler experimented with his first 3D picture — which also happens to be his most lucrative film domestically to date. In this DreamWorks action fantasy, Butler provides the voice of village chieftain Stoick the Vast, who watches as his awkward son (Jay Baruchel) attempts to become a dragon slayer to gain acceptance within his tribe. How To Train Your Dragon was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature but ultimately lost to Toy Story 3.
Coriolanus (2011)
Although Butler has achieved legitimate leading man status by starring in films that have grossed well over $100 million, the Scottish actor has never really been praised for his acting ability. Hopefully by coming full circle with this weekend’s film adaptation of Coriolanus — the Shakespeare play that Butler first appeared in as a young actor — he can prove his dramatic worth. Up next, Butler has plenty of projects on the horizon that could provide more opportunities for evolution including the sports drama Playing the Field with Jessica Biel and Dennis Quaid, the surfing drama Of Men and Mavericks, the political thriller Hunter Killer with Sam Worthington and How to Train Your Dragon 2.
She's the queen of costume drama - so isn't it about time she got a call from Julian Fellowes?
Written By
Will Lawrence
How do you make an Oscar-winning, theatrical Dame of the British Empire happy? After all, Dame Judi Dench appears to have everything. At the age of 76 she still has a thriving career, critical plaudits and a host of triumphs to reflect on from nearly 60 years working on stage and screen. But it doesn't take much to make her smile. "Very simple things make me happy," she begins hesitantly. "We have a friend coming over this evening. It's Halloween and we're putting out lots of candles. That makes me happy. Clean sheets make me very excited, too."
Dench calls out to her daughter Finty, who is in the kitchen, "What else has made me happy recently?" she asks. "Rajasthan," comes the answer. "Oh yes," beams Dench, remembering. "Nine-and-a-half weeks in India. Rajasthan is quite wonderful. It felt like being in the Arabian Nights."
She travelled to India a year ago to shoot the John Madden film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which opens in cinemas next year. "The only drawback," she says, "was that I missed the first lot of Downton Abbey on television."
Herself a veteran of many period pieces, including the recent Cary Fukunaga movie adaptation of Jane Eyre, and Cranford on BBC1, Dench is a fan of Julian Fellowes' Sunday-evening confection, which stars her friend and fellow Dame, Maggie Smith.
"I do love that show," she says. "I'm completely hooked and I find that it's one of those things that when I am watching it I'm so engrossed and it's only when I'm stopped by those ghastly, irritating adverts that I realise I've been thoroughly absorbed. It's like a wonderfully good book when you forget your surroundings."
Dench's surroundings oscillate between stage and screen, big and small, and in contrast to many of her peers - Smith and Vanessa Redgrave, whom she has known since drama school, for example - she's saved her most famous performances for later in life, only breaking into largescale moviemaking after 1997's Mrs Brown. Her turn as Queen Victoria, playing opposite Billy Connolly, earned the first of her six Oscar nominations (she'd win a year later with her Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love). "Mrs Brown holds a very special place in my heart," she says, "because I had done so few films before that. I had no film career to speak of. It was made for television and it was [Hollywood super-producer] Harvey Weinstein who said that it should be in cinemas.
"It completely changed my career. I suddenly got offered film scripts. I hadn't avoided films before, I just hadn't been asked to do them. It's not false modesty. I never made films because I never had the flair for it, and because my passion is the theatre I thought, 'That was that!' But with Mrs Brown I returned to America after 38 years. I remember Billy Connolly and I went back, and I fell in love with New York all over again."
She used to live in London with her husband of 30 years, actor Michael Williams, who died in 2001, but now lives in Surrey. "I'm very much here in this country," she notes. "People think I have got a pad in London but I don't; I live down here in the country. It's the place to be." When she's in London, however, Dench says that she can stroll down Oxford Street without too much hassle. "I find the British public very thoughtful and generous," she laughs. "Mostly people ask whether they could have an autograph for their grandfather!"
Dench was born in York in 1934, her father, Reginald, introducing her to the stage while working as a doctor at York's Theatre Royal. As a child, she was said to be sprightly, hot-tempered and talkative, one teacher suggesting that the most important lesson she should learn was how to be quiet. Her temper, apparently, sprang from her Dublin-born mother, Olave, a fiery woman who once hurled a vacuum cleaner down the stairs at an overly pushy sales rep.
Her latest role sees her portraying august actress Dame Sybil Thorndike in My Week with Marilyn, which tells the story of the making of The Prince and the Showgirl, the 1957 movie in which Laurence Olivier directed and co-starred opposite Marilyn Monroe. The production was plagued with problems, with Olivier and Monroe at loggerheads throughout. "Marilyn wasn't an easy person to cope with - certainly not for Sir Laurence - but Dame Sybil felt genuine sympathy for her and stood up for her," says Dench. "I know that to be true."
Dench recalls meeting Dame Sybil several times. The first was in 1958, when Dench, in one of her first roles after leaving London's Central School of Speech and Drama, was in Romeo and Juliet at the Old Vic. "She came round to see us afterwards and was so charming. We were young actors and she was lovely to us and strongly encouraging and gentle." Which is exactly how she comes across in My Week with Marilyn. "I think they got very, very close to how Dame Sybil was in the script," continues Dench, who also praises Michelle Williams for her role of Monroe: "She is just wonderful," she coos. "She has that same fragile quality."
Half a century on from those early days in the theatre, Dench's film career is in full swing - she spent two weeks in LA this year shooting Clint Eastwood's J Edgar, in which she plays President Hoover's mother. She is currently immersed in the secret world of 007, returning to Pinewood Studios for Skyfall, her seventh James Bond movie, where she reprises the character of M, Daniel Craig's boss.
"I couldn't possibly pick a favourite Bond," she says. "Pierce Brosnan and Daniel are very different characters, but the wonderful thing about both of them is that they have this slightly selfmocking quality, which is irresistible. It must be a terrible burden to be suddenly cast as James Bond." She laughs. "Just think, you'd have to wear good suits for the rest of your life."
As the James Bond films' longest-serving current cast member, Dench has become something of a fan favourite, although her commitment to the franchise has come at a price, preventing her from joining the illustrious British cast of the Harry Potter films. "I was asked to think about Harry Potter but I couldn't consider anything as I was doing Bond at the time," she says, "and I wasn't allowed to talk about it either. I'm very excited about the new Bond, though."
With Dench ensconced at Pinewood, she has no immediate plans to return to television, her last major outing being Cranford in 2009. "I have just done something for Simon Schama about Shakespeare, but there's nothing else," she says. "I haven't been asked."
It is difficult to imagine someone not asking her again soon. Is the Dowager Countess of Grantham in need of a visit from a long-lost friend? Perhaps Julian Fellowes should be told.
