Dame Judi Dench has finally let us know – like really know – what she thinks of her appearance in the much-derided big screen adaptation of Cats.
And it’s all delightfully sweary.
The 85-year-old acting legend, who played Old Deuteronomy in the box office flop, didn’t hold back when she was quizzed about the film in the latest edition of Vogue.
The Oscar-winner revealed she has yet to see the film in full, but admitted to being upset at how she looked.
“The cloak I was made to wear!” she told the fashion magazine. “Like five foxes fucking on my back.”
Dame Judi said she hoped she would look elegant but instead resembled “a battered, mangy old cat”.
She added: “A great big orange bruiser. What’s that about?”
Iconic.
Almost every aspect of the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit musical was savaged by critics, though special attention was paid to the visual effects, with each character turned into a cat-human hybrid through the use of CGI.
Dame Judi has become the oldest cover star in British Vogue’s 104-year history, gracing the front of the magazine’s June issue.
In the accompanying interview, she also discussed the future of the James Bond franchise, having first played spymaster M in 1995’s Goldeneye.
Amid growing calls for a woman to take over as 007 after Daniel Craig, Dame Judi said Bond creator Ian Fleming would not be in favour.
And while she said she is all for female action leads, in the case of a woman as Bond, Dame Judi added: “Call it something else, then?”
The star is isolating at home amid the coronavirus pandemic and said she hopes the crisis will alert the public to the plight of those who are “completely alone”.
She said: “What is a good thing is that it has made people aware of the predicament of others who are completely alone. If a great deal of kindness comes out of this, then that will be a plus.”
And the actress dismissed any thought of retirement from a stage and screen career that has now entered its eighth decade.
Read the full interview in the June issue of Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands on Thursday 7 May.