‘Oh God, I can’t bear it’: Judi Dench says Cats film was ‘a waste of goodwill and talent’

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

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, has not made a film since.

“Oh God, I can’t bear it,” she writes in the book, “and [Lloyd Webber] had waited so long for it to be made. What a waste of all that goodwill and talent.

“I understand the critics were rather hostile to the film. I never saw the final cut so I can’t judge. All I’ll 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.”

Among the aspects of the film most energetically criticised on release was the film’s erratic CGI, which erased every cat’s anus but retained, in the case of Dench, a human hand, complete with wedding ring.

“There were no villains in the making of Cats,” writes Dench. “And if something isn’t a success, then there are always things you can say you’ve learned.

“Sometimes things just don’t work out: the timing’s wrong, the cast don’t gel, the elements don’t coalesce. But people’s intentions are mostly honourable.”

Lloyd Webber has vociferously criticised the film, saying Hooper did not consult those involved in the original West End show and saying “the whole thing was ridiculous”.

In 2021, he called it “off-the-scale all wrong” and said the experience left him so “emotionally damaged” he bought a dog in order to recover.

“There wasn’t really any understanding of why the music ticked at all. I saw it and I just thought, ‘Oh, God, no.’ 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.”

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. “I said: ‘Just see what Hollywood did to my musical Cats.’ Then the approval came back with a note saying, ‘No doctor’s report required.’”