Nigel Havers on working with Judi Dench - "she’s extremely naughty”
The actor tells Lorraine Kelly on Saga’s Experience is Everything podcast about working with entertainment legends and the mischief he got up to along the way.
The actor tells Lorraine Kelly on Saga’s Experience is Everything podcast about working with entertainment legends and the mischief he got up to along the way.
Dame Judi Dench was apparently not amused when Nigel Havers decided to have a little fun at her expense.
The pair spent two years working together at the National Theatre, where the dressing rooms surrounded a courtyard, so actors could see straight into each other’s rooms.
Speaking to Lorraine Kelly on Saga’s Experience is Everything podcast, Nigel explains how Dame Judi was forever peering in to see what he was up to, prompting him and his dresser to plot a prank. “I had a wonderful dresser there, and I said to him: ‘What can we do to really wind her up?’”
The answer was a blow-up doll. Nigel gave it “a fantastic wig”, dressed it up and, between the shows on a Saturday, put on a very convincing display for Judi.
“Judi was completely like, ‘Oh my God, he’s got a girl in there,’” he says.
She refused to talk to him. Then on the Monday, he took a pin to the doll and the truth came out.
It was clearly part of the playful relationship between the pair.
“Working with Judi is not necessarily proper,” Nigel says. “She’s extremely naughty.” And he gave as good as he got: “I’m naughty back to her.”
Despite refusing to speak to him, Judi was clearly no stranger to a bit of mischief herself. “Judi’s sort of up for it all. She’s just a tremendous woman,” Nigel explains.
It’s far from his only story about working with screen legends. When Steven Spielberg rang to offer him a part in Empire of the Sun, Nigel admits he thought it was a wind-up. Once on set, he had a different problem with the legendary director.
“He used to wear the most appalling clothes while he was directing,” he said. “Bright orange T-shirt and jeans and stand right in my eyeline.” His solution? “I took him shopping one day and got him in dark blue.”
Michael Caine, who played his father in the 1986 film The Whistle Blower, made his mark on the very first take: “They went ‘Action ‘, and he went, ‘Hello, son’.”
And director David Lean, who cast him in A Passage to India, had an unusual way of choosing his actors. “He said, ‘I only ever cast people I like to have dinner with’,” Nigel recalls.
Nigel also reveals that he once auditioned for the role of James Bond. “I did audition for James Bond,” he tells Lorraine. He didn’t get it, but after working with Theo James on The Gentleman, Nigel would tip him as a possible future 007. He was particularly struck by the actor’s ability to handle the action sequences and stunts.
“I watched this young actor called Theo James, and I thought, ‘My God, he could be the next James Bond’. And I still think he would be wonderful. I think he’s really good looking.”
Listen to Nigel Havers on Experience is Everything with Lorraine Kelly.
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