exponential63: happymathilda: From 1994 interview when asked…
From 1994 interview when asked the reasons for the success of A Room with a View:
“I’ve never seen it, so I don’t know. Florence was lovely of course, and it’s a wonderful love story.
I did enjoy doing the part, because Maggie Smith and I were old friends from 1958. We both arrived in Florence on the same day and neither of us had any family with us, so we would spend all day together filming and then go out to dinner together, catching up on our Old Vic days.
But, I didn’t enjoy working with James Ivory. I didn’t feel that I was on his wavelength and I didn’t feel that he wanted me in the film, I have to say that”.
James Ivory’s perspective on this (from Robert Emmet Long, James Ivory in Conversation, 2005):
Long: What about Judi Dench, another formidable English actress who has become a household word in America?
Ivory: She was certainly there, all right. But afterward, when we were all done with each other, I had the feeling she wished she’d never agreed to play Miss Lavish after all.
Long: Why is that?
Ivory: Because it wasn’t a very big part, and then we ended up cutting it down further. It wasn’t that she wasn’t good, but because one of her “big” scenes, where she paces out with a measuring tape the murder that Lucy Honeychurch witnessed in the Piazza Signoria, in order to put it in her novel, just wasn’t needed to tell the story. But, as with many actors, the scene that you cut is always the one that they seize on, arguing that it “delineates” the character best or is their “best work” in the film, or whatever. She never forgave me. It’s too bad, because audiences enjoyed what remained of her performance very much. She got an Evening Standard Best Supporting Actress for the part in 1987. To make amends, I sent her a beautiful little drawing that an artist in Florence had made of her, but she never acknowledged it.
Long: The expression on your face seems to say, “I could tell you a lot more.” Is there more?
Ivory: Well, there was a bit more. During postproduction we – I mean Ruth [Prawer Jhabvala] and I – weren’t so happy with Judi’s accent for Miss Lavish. Ruth grew up in England and has a very good ear for English accents. This one was, well, a bit too brightly aggressive, even for a sharp-eyed lady novelist; she seemed always to be too much “on”. So I asked Judi at her post-sync session to tone it down, and even asked her to consider making Miss Lavish into a Scotswoman … [S]he refused. A Scotswoman would be all wrong, she said, looking displeased. Maybe for a mere American to question her accent was too much.
I’m on the record as loving Maggie Smith’s performance in the film. Judi Dench is fine, but it’s Charlotte who stays with me.
Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/59514068384.
