Billy Connolly was petrified by the idea of acting with Judi Dench
until she disarmed him with her laughter
ONE of the nicer things about being tall is that you can measure yourself against the height above sea level of the Maldive Islands. Personally, I measure exactly six feet (183cm) in height. This places me in the international scale of well-known types as being taller than Douglas Bader (depending on which leg he is wearing that day), much taller than Albert Einstein, Toulouse-Lautrec, Napoleon and Judi Dench.
The delightful thing about towering over Dench is that when you are posing for photographs as John Brown standing with her as Queen Victoria, you appear to be an immense agricultural Scottish person whose queen's shoulder nestles under his oxter (that's armpit to anyone who dwells south of North Berwick). Dench would seem to be the most popular person in the British Isles and possibly the entire empire since the death of the Queen Mother. Judi also manages, between bouts of staggering popularity, to be an actor of galactic ability. Dame Judi Dench. The world's first completely compact and portable giant.
Our paths crossed in the most delightful of ways. I was making a television series about the history of Scottish art. Towards the end of filming I was standing on the hills above Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh talking to my producer, Douglas Rae, when he mentioned quite casually that he had got hold of the idea for a film about the story of the relationship between Queen Victoria and Brown, the ghillie from Balmoral.
I took immediate interest. Since I was a schoolboy I had heard, in a giggly, back-of-the-hand manner, about the rough working-class man who had an apparent love affair with the queen.
He asked me very casually, almost in the way that you would ask someone if they would like a cup of tea, if I would like to play the part of Brown. I answered with something approximating ``My God, I'd love to'', trying all the while to restrain myself from roly-polying down the hill to Holyrood Palace, screaming all the way.
When the dust settled and sanity prevailed, Douglas told me that the film was yet to be written, but that some of the biggest names in British drama had shown tremendous interest in the project.
My feelings went instantly from nervous foreboding (my normal state) to abject fear and loss of will to live. He mentioned that he was leaving the following day for London, when he would talk to Dench and officially offer her the part of Queen Victoria.
The movie's screenplay was to be written by Jeremy Brock and was awaited with bated breath. When it eventually arrived, it was greeted by all and sundry as no less than a masterpiece. I immediately sank into a black depression, like a night-time free fall into a giant tin of boot polish. The very thought of acting with Judi had me terrified. I could see myself being exposed as an impostor. At this point I came up with my master plan. I would have to meet her before it started. I asked Douglas to arrange a lunch for Judi and me in London. I couldn't face the idea that our first meeting would be at the read-through of the script where someone might giggle at my attempt to act with a living legend.
The request was met with furrowed brows and bewildered expressions, but nonetheless arranged. I arrived far too early and shuffled around in my seat, wondering what I would say to this woman, when I had an idea. I would nip out and buy myself a cigar that would settle my nerves a bit. Nervousness has invariably given me some really crap ideas. I set off for Dunhill's store, which was only one block away, and made my purchase. I was new to cigar smoking then and it took longer than I expected because of all the well-meaning advice I was given by the manager of the store. It's hardly like buying a packet of fags. From my previous position of being early, I was now late.
Cigars in pocket, I ran back to the restaurant to find Judi sitting at the table waiting for me. I apologised and went on at great length about the cigar store and why it took so long and was met with a warm, tolerant smile that I would get to know and love very much in the following years. During the lunch and the laughs that ensued, I asked her if she would like to see my pierced nipples, of which I was very proud.
I thought she would collapse on the spot. She turned down the opportunity in the giggling way that most people would turn down the idea of swimming the Channel in a duffle coat and wellies.
We talked and laughed our way through lunch and found ourselves to be unified on several fronts. We liked the same things and, more important, disliked the same things. The meeting turned out to be one of my better ideas.
The day of the script read-through arrived and we gathered, the entire cast, in a rather bleak room in Chelsea. Judi was her usual self, putting everyone at ease with her warm, friendly manner. The reading went very well; I felt so good that I sat beside Judi throughout. We had lunch where we talked and laughed with the cast of my dreams (Antony Sher, Geoffrey Palmer, Richard Pasco, David Westhead).
Judi has the female equivalent of the laugh of a docker or maybe a blacksmith. It is a hearty, buxom, sexy laugh.
The filming started soon after; our first scene together was one where I have been summoned to meet her in her summer house on the Isle of Wight soon after my arrival with my horses. The scene was meant to be very tense, since she (the queen) disapproved of Brown being there at all. It had been an idea of people in government to try to get her out of mourning the death of her husband, Prince Albert, and back into her duties as queen, which she hadn't been doing for years. She was sitting at her desk with two ladies-in-waiting standing behind her and various lackeys dotted about the room when I was summoned to enter and be interviewed.
I will never forget the power of the scene. There was a long walk from the door to the desk, which I tried to do in a semi-regimental manner with my kilt swinging around my milk-white legs. The queen is busy reading her diary for a very long time and is eventually reminded that I am standing there waiting, when she looks up and positively nails me to the floor with her expression of cold dissent.
At the end of the meeting, after several inquiries by her about my family and so on, I blurt out how much she must have loved her husband because she obviously missed him so much. It has the most profound effect on her and she loses her temper, bursting into tears and being escorted from the room in a dreadful emotional state, and I am roughly taken from the room, bewildered, having caused the entire scene.
There and then I learned a salutary lesson. Actors of the quality of Dench carry with them an ability to drag the very best from you. That is, when you are confronted by the power of talent so big there is no escape other than by acting right back again. There is no question of standing there waving your arms around and trying to remember the words.
There was a scene in a castle where we were attending a country dance. The music was wonderful as the fiddles took control of the eightsome reel. At one point we were standing opposite one another in the ring of eight dancers when our eyes met and I saw her smile that lovely sensual smile of hers and thought, ``My god, Judi Dench fancies me, what am I to do?''
Of course she didn't, but Queen Victoria didn't half fancy Brown and it came screaming out to me, teaching me in no uncertain manner the differences between acting and ``being there''.
When the film was finished we heard that it had been snatched up by the great film people Miramax and was to be released as a feature film all over the world. We were delighted, because it was originally intended for TV, to be broadcast in Britain by the BBC. Judi and I were sent over to the US to do some publicity for it.
We had the time of our lives trying not to take it too seriously while giving it the respect it deserved. I would always be asked how it felt to act with Judi and would always answer that it was a nightmare, dealing with the long silences, the tantrums and the sudden mood swings. She would laugh, we would both laugh and life on the press junket would become bearable again. People would even ask if she was serious all the time and had I learned anything from her. I always answered that the main thing I had learned was not to gamble with her. Several times during filming she would have a bet with me on when the shooting would finish that day. Normally the bet would be about pound stg. 50. I didn't win even once. She would then go and buy me a present with her winnings, usually fishing flies or cigars.
The eventual success of the film, particularly in the US, resulted in Judi being nominated for an Oscar. Every TV set in Britain was tuned in to that event. Victory was not to be on that particular evening; she would have to wait for a year before striding beautifully off with the coveted award for her performance in Shakespeare in Love.
We have remained friends of the closest gossiping, giggling variety. Her visits to my house in Scotland, with husband Michael and daughter Finty, were looked forward to by the entire family. I still enjoy the eightsome reel with her on these occasions. I loved the company of Judi and Michael so much before he tragically passed away. I can still see them sitting on the green wicker chairs, Michael resplendent in his kilt, with a shining amber glass in hand, listening to the music of the ceilidh in the woods in the glow of a bonfire. It took Judi a couple of years to return after Michael's death. When I saw her lovely face again it reminded me of Fyodor Dostoevsky's description of a woman in The Brothers Karamazov, ``a little tear frozen in time''.
The mention of her name creates a lovely little party in my heart.
This is an edited extract from Darling Judi, edited by John Miller, and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. It is still available from Amazon.com and you can click on the link to order it. This particular article appeared in the Australian on December 26, 2005.