She came and conquered with her first “hello”
Dame Maggie Smith reflecting on a question from Charlotte Breese
I’m delighted, because I think if I wasn’t giving the introduction there is no way I would get in to hear her,” says author Sallyanne Atkinson on Day 3 of the Fairway Galle Literary Festival, adding that the latest news doing the rounds was they were killing each other on the streets to get in.
The scene is the Eddystone Hall at Jetwing Lighthouse; packed to overflowing – with a crowd that is literally buzzing with excitement and anticipation. The room suddenly erupts in a standing ovation and the festival’s most talked about star walks up to the stage. With her first deadpan “hello”, Dame Maggie Smith has her captive audience bubbling over in laughter. At the Galle Literary Festival for the first time, England’s most recognizable actress needs little introduction.
The audience is a gathering of eager fans: From those who have followed her work as a stage actress, to drama worshippers of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”, “Lady in the Van” to fans of Downton Abbey’s sassy Dowager Countess of Grantham to her younger fans who see her only as the beloved head of Gryffindor House in the Harry Potter series.
When Atkinson first met the celebrated thespian, it was in her “pre-Dame” years, almost 50 years ago as a young journalist interviewing her for her legendary role in ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’, she tells the audience. From the get go, Dame Maggie holds the room captivated, her carefully selected readings and anecdotes sending the audience into ripples of laughter. Her session- aptly titled “Dame Maggie Smith: The Serious Art of Being Funny” was moderated by writer Charlotte Breese who first met Dame Maggie as a teenager at her parents’ house. Breese is the wife of Pakistani writer and columnist Irfan Husain and stepped in for her husband who was unable to lead the conversation.
Their discussion travelled back and forth between Dame Maggie’s hilarious and insightful stories behind the scenes and off the stage. Speaking on her experience working in period dramas such as “Downton Abbey” – she says, “Truth be told, I cheated” when it came to donning authentic period costumes including the much dreaded corset. The costumes were beautiful, but she couldn’t bring herself to lace herself up for 12 hours every day. “And the hats were so heavy.” “Those period plays are very very tricky,” she adds, talking of the time when Dame Judi Dench and herself were wearing stiff collars, and found the glue holding their high wigs seeping into them, with Judith asking her “do we look natural enough?” proceeding to posture comically, allowing the audience to envision the two stalwarts in all their naturally comic glory.
She also divulges her trick to memorizing lines- “It sounds crazy” she discloses but she prefers to write down her lines by hand, marking the punctuation and grammar, which she admits is “tedious” – a technique that has her noted as an actor who knows the entire script before filming begins.
She also relived her time working on the “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” series in Jaipur, India. “I enjoyed the first movie more before I got to sit around in a wheelchair. But then so did the flies,” she adds. She also shared the extreme weather they dealt with during shoots- a tidbit audiences who loved the wanderlust filled movie might have never guessed before. “I have never been so cold,” she says, remembering “everyone running around in flimsy things.”
“Usually one does not reject things” but there was one particular role Dame Maggie knew she would never do. Offered the role of a “Lady Cavendish” in “Vanity Fair”, “it was a very small part” she was told. Flipping through the script she finally found her prospective character’s lines- “Lady Cavendish leaps, startled from the bath”, adding with an expression of mock horror. “No she doesn’t” and so decided her involvement or rather the lack thereof in the project. It’s a line she refuses to cross – “but that is required from an actress now, to be stark naked. “Not for me, I’ll wear a corset,” she adds cheekily.
Interestingly the only school plays Dame Maggie performed in were limited to her classroom. She never had a life changing revelation while watching a specific performance, she says. Her first performance was at age 17; playing Viola in Twelfth Night at the Oxford Playhouse. “It was just something I always wanted to do.” She also credits her English teacher in school; a Miss Dorothy who urged her to pursue theatre professionally.
She’s also not one to read reviews, and has famously confessed to never seeing Downton Abbey. “On the whole actors don’t mingle with critics”, she says remembering how her husband, playwright Beverley Cross would read her bits and pieces from reviews- his comments ranging from “It’s alright Mog (his nickname for her)” to “I’d like to punch that so and so from the Guardian,” she smiles.
Between the waves of laughter that subside for a few sober minutes, she is asked whether she ‘camps’ her diverse resume of characters. She answers in a tone echoing a certain Dowager Countess “I never camp. You just play them as honestly as you can.”
-Purnima Pilapitiya