Judi Dench Calls Cats a Waste of Goodwill and Talent

Judi Dench says the 2019 film adaptation of Cats was a waste of goodwill and talent, while emphasizing that she never saw its final cut and cannot judge the finished movie herself. The actor discusses the film in her forthcoming memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? In passages attributed to the book, Dench recalls that Andrew Lloyd Webber had waited a long time for the adaptation to be made and writes that she understands critics were hostile to it. She adds that nobody sets out to give a poor performance or make a bad film, and that people involved did their best. Dench played Old Deuteronomy in the film, based on Lloyd Webber’s stage musical. Her memoir also reflects on why productions can fail, citing the many elements involved in making films, plays and television. She writes that timing, the cast and other elements may not come together, while saying there were no villains in the making of Cats and that people’s intentions were mostly honourable. The actor’s remarks stop short of a direct assessment of the finished film: she says she did not see the final cut and therefore cannot judge it. The passages present her criticism alongside a distinction between the...