Judi Dench did not say much about Cats during her recent cover story with British Vogue—but she did make one thing clear: She really did not love her costume.
“The cloak I was made to wear!” she said—or, more precisely, “cries,” per British Vogue. “Like five foxes fucking on my back.”
Cats’s visuals were something to behold, even beyond the costumes. As the film’s visual effects crew rushed to get everything done—under the watchful eye of an allegedly tyrannical and inexperienced Tom Hooper—certain issues went unnoticed. For example: Dench’s bare, human hands were exposed in the version of the film first released in theaters.
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Dench has not seen all of Cats yet, she told British Vogue—but she’s seen how her character came out, and she is not exactly chuffed. Instead of the elegant presentation she’d hoped for, she told the publication, she came out “a battered, mangy old cat. A great big orange bruiser. What’s that about?”
On the bright side, one kindly fellow British actor did pay Dench a compliment on the film after its release: Ben Whishaw apparently sent her a text, in which he “just doted on it. So sweet. So lovely.”
