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There's Nothing Like a Dame
Sunday, June 20, 2004
By Bill McCuddy --
FoxNews.com
NEW YORK Dame Judi Dench
sits regally in her chair on a rainy day in midtown Manhattan.
Appropriately enough, the
Oscar-winning British actress beams royally. She also makes no apologies
for a somewhat campy appearance in the summer hit "The Chronicles of
Riddick," starring Vin Diesel.
But on the notion that Diesel
could be the next James Bond, Dench, who has starred in five 007 films,
stands by her man Pierce Brosnan like Tammy Wynette.
In fact, Dench and Pierce
Brosnan are both in the upcoming "Bond 21."
Bill McCuddy: Something like
"The Chronicles of Riddick" must be a hoot for someone classically
trained.
Dame Judi: Well, frightening
because it's another role to play. And on a huge set you're very
frightened about letting the set down. But [it's] very, very exciting.
McCuddy: Do you ever find
yourself saying, "You know on stage we would do this differently"?
Dame Judi: (Laughs) No, no,
no, because this is nothing like anything I'd ever done before. I've never
done any of that special effects stuff ever. It's just wild.
McCuddy: Is that something
you look for now in your career? A new challenge?
Dame Judi: Yes. When
something is different from the last thing that I've done something as
different as it possibly can be ... I mean, people are inclined to see you
in something and then send you something [similar] saying, "This would be
a very good part."
McCuddy: So, for example,
after "Iris" did you get...
Dame Judi: Yes, yes, not
something [exactly] like Alzheimer's after "Iris," but something with some
disability of some kind. But, in actual fact, what you want is something
totally different. And that's what I got.
McCuddy: Yes, you did. Very
different. Does Vin Diesel call you Dame?
Dame Judi: (Smiling)
Certainly not. He calls me Jude.
McCuddy: And no one calls you
D.J.
Dame Judi: (Laughing) No,
they don't.
McCuddy: That seemed like a
Vin thing. "Yo, D.J."
Dame Judi: No. I went to
supper with him when I met him and that afternoon I found a sweater which
had DIESEL written backward across the front. I thought, "That's what I'll
wear!" When I got there I suppose this is rather an old joke but I
hadn't been aware of that clothing company called DIESEL. I thought it was
very witty.
Nothing like this Dame
Judi Dench
stars in a Vin Diesel action film. Say what?
The New York Daily News -- June 5, 2004
BY JOE NEUMAIER
Wooed with flowers, Dench
said yes to Vin Diesel, script-unseen.
These days, matriarchs are
Dame Judi Dench's specialty: royal, familial, even official, like her
spymistress M in the James Bond films.
But the esteemed British
actress sees herself in a different light. Dench likens her ethereal space
diplomat in the sci-fi flick "The Chronicles of Riddick" (opening Friday)
not to her aging Virgin Queen in "Shakespeare in Love," but to that film's
star and fellow Oscar-winner, Gwyneth Paltrow.
"Perhaps after 'Riddick,'
audiences will think I'm this thing I've always longed to be: the tall,
willowy blond," says Dench. "In fact, I act that all the time, until I
catch myself in a mirror. Inside, I am absolutely that!"
In "Riddick," Dench, 69,
sports cascading locks and floats on air. Audiences who know her from
"Shakespeare in Love" and her other Oscar-nominated performances in "Mrs.
Brown," "Chocolat" and "Iris" may be surprised to see Dench sharing the
screen with Vin Diesel.
"It is a complete departure,"
she admits. "But I've never wanted to take the safe option - never. It's a
new challenge. I think it's very boring to do the same thing all the
time."
Dench says Diesel charmed her
when he visited her during her run in David Hare's play "The Breath of
Life."
"Vin was chivalrous. He came
to London and gave me flowers I couldn't take upstairs, they were so
large. I never read the script, since I never got over the asking. I was
excited about being wooed to do this film."
Dench has acted
professionally since 1957. Although she's always dabbled in films, she is
generally regarded as the greatest British stage actress of the last
half-century - and one who has moved seamlessly between TV dramas and
comedies.
Her movie career gathered
momentum when she played M for the first time in the 1995 Bond entry "GoldenEye."
She then starred as Queen Victoria, grief-stricken by the death of her
husband, Prince Albert, in 1997's "Mrs. Brown."
"Nobody [in America] knew I'd
done anything else besides M - all of 38 years, gone in a flash!" she
says, chuckling. "Almost all of Shakespeare's plays, a lot of Ibsen and
Chekhov - gone. Suddenly I had to learn how to act for films.
"It was very nice to be
discovered, and a bit funny at that age. It felt like a new door opening.
I was well known in England, and not known in the U.S. at all."
A few years after "Mrs.
Brown," Dench lost her own husband. She had met actor Michael Williams at
the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. They married in 1971 and
performed together often. (Their daughter, Tara, known as Finty, is an
actress, too.)
CARRYING ON ALONE
In 1999, Dench learned, while
doing "Amy's View" on Broadway, that Williams had been diagnosed with lung
cancer. He died in January 2001. "After Michael passed away, work was the
great consolation," she says. "I did [movies like] 'The Shipping News,'
'Iris,' 'The Importance of Being Earnest,' often with just a few days in
between.
"I don't suppose I'll ever
adapt to life without Michael. I think if one is fortunate to have a happy
marriage for a very long time, and lucky enough to have experienced love,
you never get over losing it - but you do learn to live with it. Yet
sometimes the loss catches you unawares, which is like a punch in the
solar plexus.
"I talk about him now more
than I ever did. I feel he's a kind of presence that's there all the time.
When I did 'All's Well That Ends Well' at Stratford last year, I was
frightened, because all our life he had been there - he wooed me there, we
were both in the company, he's buried there. And there's no question in my
mind that I was helped by him the whole time I was there."
But as for peppering her
illustrious career with action movies like "Riddick," Dench relies on her
intuition. "I take the work very seriously, but not myself, and I think
that's a saving grace," she says. "I go utterly on instinct. It is all I
ever act on, and all I ever go by."
This bad guy finishes first
Playing sinister characters
on the big screen raises classically trained Colm Feore's acting fortunes
Latest role is Lord Marshall
By: RICHARD
OUZOUNIAN -- ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER
The Toronto Star -- June 4, 2004
If this is Tuesday, it must
be Stratford.
You can forgive Colm Feore
for needing a bit of help to figure out where he is, considering the
insane schedule he's keeping.
He recently spent several
weeks in Vancouver, appearing opposite Christian Slater in an espionage
thriller called The Deal.
After that, he flew to Rome,
where he stayed until last Monday night, playing Julius Caesar for the new
ABC miniseries, Empire.
Then he hopped on a plane to
Canada to be with his wife Donna for the Tuesday night opening of A
Midsummer Night's Dream, which she choreographed for the Stratford
Festival.
Immediately following the
performance, they grabbed their three kids and headed onto an overnight
flight for Los Angeles for the gala Wednesday premiere of The Chronicles
Of Riddick (opening in Toronto next Friday.)
This kind of timetable has
become standard operating procedure for the 46-year-old Boston-born,
Canada-bred actor who has carved out a substantial name for himself on
film and television over the past decade.
Canadian audiences granted
him heroic status when he triumphed in the title role of the hit
miniseries Trudeau, but to most moviegoers around the world, he's best
known as one of those men you love to hate.
Remember the guy who erased
Ben Affleck's memory in Paycheck?
How about the snarling D.A.
who pursued Renιe Zellweger in Chicago? Or the homicidal maniac who
terrorized half of New England in Storm Of The Century?
That's Feore, who still
maintains a refreshingly unpretentious view of the movie business: "I just
keep showing up. Be employable, be useful, be on time. That's my motto."
He sits back in a downtown
Stratford coffee bar, grabbing an hour to talk about his latest film, The
Chronicles Of Riddick, in which he plays the evil Lord Marshal, head of a
fanatical group called the Necromongers, who are waging a galactic war in
the 26th century.
His efforts to conquer the
universe are given a tough time by the film's leading man Vin Diesel, but
fortunately their onscreen antipathy ceased when the cameras stopped
rolling.
"We hadn't worked together
before, but I think it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship," says
Feore in a sly parody of the final line from Casablanca.
"He's absolutely delightful.
He has this wonderful, gruff, muscular exterior, but there's a lot more to
him than meets the eye. On one hand, we have the former New York City
bouncer, who could waste you with one punch, but underneath, he's actually
a sophisticated bookish creature who sits on the set reading and
occasionally has to get out of his chair and thump people."
Feore grins as he leans in
conspiratorially to reveal the hidden truth about his special relationship
with Diesel.
"We would have long
conversations about whether Northrop Frye or Harley Granville-Barker was
more reliable when it came to critical evaluation of the Shakespeare
tragedies. God, we even talked about Chaucer!"
And
as if sharing the screen with Diesel wasn't fascinating enough, Feore's
other co-star was the luminous British actress, Dame Judi Dench.
The
woman known equally for her legendary Lady Macbeth on stage as well as
playing "M" in the last four James Bond films, had just received an
honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin, the alma mater of Feore's
father.
"So
I tried to take the piss out of her," grins Feore, "and I asked her if I
should call her Dame or Doctor. She looked me right in the eye and said
just Judi would be fine. She was heaven. What a trouper. If they wanted to
shoot a close-up of her at 2:30 in the morning, she'd be there, absolutely
gracious.
"When we were rehearsing, she always put her handbag down near the door
and one day somebody asked her why. `Well,' she said, `that's in case I'm
asked to leave.' Not likely to happen, Judi."
Dench told Feore that she couldn't understand why director David Twohy had
pursued her so relentlessly to join the cast of Riddick, but Feore knew
the reason.
"I
told her, `Judi, you're the only one who can help us understand what this
movie's all about. We're all in this wonderfully complex floating mystery
and we need a classy actress like you to explain all the tricky stuff to
people.'"
Feore was pleased to find
that the film had a substantial amount of intellectual underpinning, and
he credits Twohy with that.
"David had a very clear idea
of what he wanted. He brought a bunch of recognizable elements from our
world and mixed it up with this fantastical science fiction plot.
"Different religions, races,
factions all kinds of things that give us a sense of humanity. Its
clearly not now, but its still us. No matter how remarkable these
creatures are, they're still grounded in our reality.
Feore shakes his head in
admiration. "I have to hand it to David. It takes not only a great deal of
intelligence but a truly bravura sense of style to throw all these
elements together and make them coalesce."
There's also a political
subtext to the material that intrigues Feore as well.
"The character I play and all
of his followers are convinced that our faith is the only true one and if
anyone doesn't want to submit, then we'll just have to crush them.
"It is not far from our
experience right now to have an enormous superpower running roughshod over
the rest of the world," he says with an edge to his voice. "I'd ask David
if he intended any overt political message and he'd just smile and say
`It's all of that and more.'"
The fact that Feore finds
himself back home in Stratford on the opening night of yet another season
is a reminder that he began his career on stage, not on screen.
For 13 seasons from 1981
through 1994 Feore was a member of the acting company at the festival,
playing many of the great leads of world theatre: Hamlet, Richard III,
Romeo, Iago he tackled them all.
And strange as it may seem,
he now feels that the years he spent honing his classical skills have come
in handy as he ventures increasingly into the world of the cinematic epic.
"Everything I did at
Stratford is useful," he insists. "They'd come to me during Riddick and
say, `There's this big fight scene ahead and we've suddenly decided it
would be great if you could be in it ... but we've only got five minutes
to rehearse."
Feore flares his nostrils
with a bravura that John Barrymore would have envied. "I'd say to them,
`Have you ever seen Hamlet, or Richard III or, God forbid, Cyrano de
Bergerac? Give me the sword and point me toward the leading man. I won't
kill him.'"
He throws his head back and
laughs. "I love these big movies. I love the sheer action of them. You
have to live up to it without overdoing it. You must rise to the level of
the giant sets and the overwhelming costumes and find the right tone to
set."
He grows reflective. "You
know, come to think of it, the character I'm playing is just like Richard
III. He's trying to take over the whole world and if that bald guy hadn't
gotten in the way, he would have had a perfectly happy film."
Currently, Feore spends most
of his time making films around the world. "I like to work," he says, "and
I like to stay at home, too, but sometimes those decisions are out of your
hands."
He does admit that he hasn't
yet achieved his ambition, "which is to be in that issue of Vanity Fair
where they list the best guys to hire for a movie to explain the plot to
everyone. But I'm getting there. You keep chipping away and hoping that
one day you'll finally reach a critical tipping point."
Feore came back triumphantly
to Stratford in 2002 as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady and he won't rule
out any future stage projects, although he loves his ongoing film career
as well.
His
recent co-star, Dench, offered him an object lesson in how to combine the
two. "They had to do some re-shoots, but Judi was acting in a play in
London, so they flew everybody over and reconstructed part of the set
right next door to the theatre where she was working.
"She
was doing a play six days a week. But on the seventh day, she did not
rest. Oh, no. She filmed for 18 hours straight through without a word of
complaint.
"Sometime in the not-too-distant future, I'd like to do the exact same
thing. I think that's what this business should be all about."
Wednesday, June 2nd, 10:30 PM EST on the
SCI FI Cable Channel
The Chronicles of Riddick: A SCI FI Lowdown ...
is an
exciting, fast-paced inside look at the eagerly anticipated follow-up to
the SF action hit Pitch Black. We rejoin main character Richard Riddick on
a harrowing journey through a futuristic landscape where the fate of the
universe hangs in the balance. From a diverse cast that includes Vin
Diesel, Thandie Newton and Dame Judi Dench, to 310,000 square feet of
monumental sets, to cutting-edge CGI effects, The Chronicles of Riddick is
epic in its ambition and scope.
Thanks to Connie E, USA, for bringing this to my attention
Riddick's Diesel Wooed Dench
from the SciFi.com Website
Vin
Diesel, who reprises his most famous role in the upcoming SF epic film The
Chronicles of Riddick, told SCI FI Wire that he personally lobbied to get
Judi Dench to take a role in the movie, an unorthodox choice for her. "I
flew out to London and I saw a stage performance that she did with another
lovely actress named Maggie Smith," Diesel said in an interview. "And I
started courting her. Just begged and pleaded and said, 'You know, this
character
was written for you, and you are this character. This is how we want to
play.' And she was
so into it."
Diesel,
a fan of Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy stories, found a kindred
spirit in the esteemed British actress. "In Vancouver [where Riddick was
shot], we would have dinner together and, like two kids playing in this
whole universe, [we'd] talk about different [things]," Diesel said. "I
mean, she's just remarkable. No one would ever expect that [she] and I
would have a conversation that is so fantasy-based. A conversation you
might have had with a friend after watching Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the
Rings, you know what I mean? ... Really, really, really cool."
Diesel,
who also acts as a producer on Riddick, said that he went so far as to
make the casting of Dench as the "air elemental" Aeron a top priority. "I
mean, ... I couldn't imagine anyone [else] being [cast] until Judi Dench
was," he said. "I kind of made that a point. It was very, very important
to me to have Judi Dench play the role of Aereon." He added, "She is a fan
of [SF&F]. ... I mean, she hasn't spent her life playing Dungeons &
Dragons, but you know, theater is, at the core, mythology-based. We can go
through the numerous Shakespeare [plays]. ... It just goes on forever, the
mythological references thematically in many of the plays and stuff that
she's been doing forever."
Diesel
added that his only regret was that he wasn't able to get Dench involved
in a game of his beloved D&D. "Like I said, she doesn't play Dungeons &
Dragons, and she doesn't necessarily play video games. But she's
intrigued." Did he try to get her to play? "Almost," he said. "If it was
up to me, I would have." The Chronicles of Riddick, the follow-up movie to
Pitch Black, opens June 11.
Thanks to Ellen G, USA, for bringing this to my attention
Diesel Revs Up 'Riddick's' Engine
From the Zap2it.com Website
Sun,
May 16, 2004, 12:05 PM PT -- By Vanessa Sibbald
Vin
Diesel sounds like he's in love and the object of his affection is -- Dame
Judi Dench. It isn't so much a romantic love, but instead, the kind one
has for an idol.
Working
with Dench on their upcoming film "The Chronicles of Riddick," was "like a
dream come true," Diesel tells Zap2it.com from the set of his latest
project, "The Pacifier" in Toronto. "People would ask me, 'Who do you want
to work with?' five years ago and I'm saying, 'Judi Dench!' And they're
like, 'Judi Dench? I thought you were going to say Michael Bay,'" he
laughs.
It's
not the first time during the interview where he laughs at people's
miscomprehension of his image. Clearly, there's more than just an action
star under Diesel's bulked-up muscles. Among other things, he's an old
Dungeons and Dragons fan, who loves playing with kids and whose other
dream project is directing a film about the 3rd century Carthaginian
general Hannibal. But back to "Riddick," the sequel to the surprise 2000
hit "Pitch Black," one of the first films that brought Diesel to
audiences' attention.
It turn
out that it was Diesel himself, who is producing the film as well as
starring in it, who talked the English Dame into taking the role of Aeron,
a character that he describes as "a powerful presence in the film that
opens it up and gives it a certain understandable significance." During
foreign press for "XXX," the last film Diesel shot before taking a short
break and entering the 7-month production schedule for "Riddick" (both "A
Man Apart and "The Knockaround Guys" were shot before "XXX"), the actor
flew to England to see Dench in a play with Maggie Smith -- "another
brilliant actress."
"I
started the relationship by going out and seeing her perform and I guess,
as an actor, that's the best way to do it," he says, adding that, after
the performance he went backstage and "did my best to charm her."
Apparently, it worked. But as Dench came onboard, Diesel and
writer/director David Twohy realized that, in a way, the stakes had been
raised. Now they had an opportunity to create something really special.
"Once
you got Judi Dench, it just meant that you had to stay committed to making
the script and each moment as soundproof as possible," Diesel explains.
"Just because it's such a luxury, and for me a dream, and such a coup for
the picture to have such a marvelous actress. If you were going to have
that marvelous actress in the film, make it as incredible as you can --
never stop thinking about it."
Fans
expecting "Pitch Black 2" may be surprised to find a whole new mythology
in place for "Riddick," which explores the background of the optically
enhanced character -- but doesn't follow the same structure of the first
film.
"We all
know how shy I am about sequels -- I'd be much richer if I wasn't -- so
this couldn't be 'Pitch Black 2.' There's 'Pitch Black,' there's no reason
to do 'Pitch Black 2,' he says. "'Pitch Black' was about dealing with
those character in the present, under those very specific and immediate
conditions. 'The Chronicles of Riddick' is an exploration of everything
outside of that one planet and that kind of mythology that lives in the
future."
Turns
out, the partnership between Twohy, whose other credits include "The
Arrival" and "Below" as well as the screenplays for "Warlock," "Terminal
Velocity" and "The Fugitive," and Diesel is not likely to end soon. While
Diesel wouldn't say if a second sequel is confirmed, he did say that they
have "two other stories" about Riddick that follow "Chronicles."
"The
cool thing about David and I working together is that David is a sci-fi
guy and I'm a fantasy guy," says Diesel. "David has written these
incredible science fiction pictures and I've spent my life playing
Dungeons and Dragons and living in the world of fantasy."
But
Diesel's real baby is "Hannibal," an epic story about the Carthaginian
general who rode an elephant across the Alps to attack Rome in the 3rd
Century B.C., which the actor is not only producing, but will star in and
hopes to direct.
"I'm
dying to direct this," he says, adding that he's presently going over
conception art for the film. " I see the images in my head. When we have
story meetings I end up acting out scenes -- it's my favorite story to
tell."
The
project is one that Diesel has been talking about since doing "XXX,"
although it now has a screenplay courtesy of David Franzoni ("King
Arthur," "Gladiator"), who adapted it for the screen from a novel by Ross
Leckie. Until Diesel sets a start date for the project (and investors come
on board), he is keeping himself busy shooting "The Pacifier," Adam
Shankman's ("Bringing Down the House") new comedy about a Navy S.E.A.L.
who is assigned to protect the five children of a recently deceased
government scientist.
"Literally, it's heaven working with these kids because I'll go through a
whole scene with an 8 month old baby on my lap, smiling at me and wanting
me to play with him -- it's so adorable! It's so easy to lose all the cool
stuff behind when you're playing with these babies because I'm walking
around the set lifting this baby up going, 'Whee!'" Diesel laughs.
"The
Chronicles of Riddick" opens nationwide Friday, June 11.
Empire Online Website
Riddick Trailer Online
First look at Pitch Black sequel
17/12/2003
 Pitch
Black was something of a marvel when it first appeared on our
screens. A small cast, a charismatic anti-hero and two clever concepts:
aliens that only attack at night and a character who could see in the
dark. It may not sound like much on paper but the factors all came
together to bring us an absolutely gripping sci-fi horror that assured Vin
Diesel's future in movies and proved once again that you don't need $200
million to make a hit.
The
first trailer for The Chronicles of Riddick is now online and,
while it's difficult to tell at this stage, it has a lot of potential.
Diesel's back in the role that made him famous with his distinctive
engine-idling growl and imposing presence reminding us why we liked him in
the first place - before xXx turned him into a sub-Bond studio
star. The look of the film is astonishing and if nothing else someone
should probably give lollipops to the men and women who handled the set
design.
But
with the expensively constructed burnished metallic backdrops and the pleasing presence of Judi Dench,
the sequel is a very different affair to its predecessor. Abandoning one
of the two clever concepts (the alien planet is now but a distant memory)
and ramping up the production scale considerably, The Chronicles of
Riddick seems likely to become everything the first film avoided and,
while we hate to say it, may be suffering from delusions of grandeur.
If,
however, director David Twohy actually manages to realise his ambitions
with the project, this could be one of the films to watch out for
next year.
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