{"id":935123,"date":"2026-10-20T16:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T16:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/935123\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T16:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T16:22:11","slug":"oh-god-i-cant-bear-it-judi-dench-says-cats-film-was-a-waste-of-goodwill-and-talent-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/935123\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Oh God, I can\u2019t bear it\u2019: Judi Dench says Cats film was \u2018a waste of goodwill and talent\u2019 | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dame Judi Dench has long made her feelings clear about Cats, the doomed 2019 adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber<\/a> musical. In an interview the year after release, she said she had so far declined to watch the movie \u2013 in which she played wise moggy Old Deuteronomy \u2013 and described the orange fur coat she had to wear as looking like \u201cfive foxes fucking on my back\u201d.<\/p>\n

In her forthcoming memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? Dench reflects further on her involvement in the movie, which was universally panned and whose director, Tom Hooper<\/a>, has not made a film since.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh God, I can\u2019t bear it,\u201d she writes in the book, \u201cand [Lloyd Webber] had waited so long for it to be made. What a waste of all that goodwill and talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand the critics were rather hostile to the film. I never saw the final cut so I can\u2019t judge. All I\u2019ll say is nobody sets out to give a poor performance or make a bad film. You do your best, offer something up and hope that people will get on board and join the party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dench\u2019sOld Deuteronomy with human hand and wedding ring. Photograph: Twitter<\/p>\n

Among the aspects of the film most energetically criticised on release was the film\u2019s erratic CGI, which erased every animal\u2019s anus but retained, in the case of Dench, a human hand, complete with wedding ring.<\/p>\n

In her book, Dench writes that she felt \u201cill at ease from the beginning \u2013 I just didn\u2019t feel right in the role\u201d. Nor, she continues, did she \u201clike the way the young dancers were left hanging at the end of each take. They\u2019d stand there exhausted and be completely ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Dench says she did enjoy discovering \u201cI could still lift my leg in the air\u201d and playing Bananagrams with her vocal coach on set. She also liked meeting co-star Taylor Swift and, on the final day of filming, was given 50 everlasting roses, spraypainted gold, by Jason Derulo, who played Rum Tum Tugger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were no villains in the making of Cats<\/a>,\u201d writes Dench. \u201cAnd if something isn\u2019t a success, then there are always things you can say you\u2019ve learned.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes things just don\u2019t work out: the timing\u2019s wrong, the cast don\u2019t gel, the elements don\u2019t coalesce. But people\u2019s intentions are mostly honourable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lloyd Webber has vociferously criticised the film, saying Hooper did not consult those involved in the original West End show and saying \u201cthe whole thing was ridiculous\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 2021, he called it \u201coff-the-scale all wrong\u201d and said the experience left him so \u201cemotionally damaged\u201d he became a dog owner in an effort to recover.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t really any understanding of why the music ticked at all. I saw it and I just thought, \u2018Oh, God, no.\u2019 It was the first time in my 70-odd years on this planet that I went out and bought a dog. So the one good thing to come out of it is my little Havanese puppy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The composer said that he had to prove to an airline that he required the companion as an emotional support animal in order to travel with him. \u201cI said: \u2018Just see what Hollywood did to my musical Cats.\u2019 Then the approval came back with a note saying, \u2018No doctor\u2019s report required.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dame Judi Dench has long made her feelings clear about Cats, the doomed 2019 adaptation of the Andrew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-935123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}