“I never quite knew what was going on”: the movie Judi Dench loved making but didn’t understand
(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Wed 22 October 2025 7:30, UK
Sometimes, an actor takes on a role without having a clue what they’re signing themselves up for. If the director is renowned, that’s often enough to whip someone into submission, even if the screenplay reads like a load of hogwash.
The least an actor can do is admit to not understanding a script instead of pretentiously nodding along as they promote the film. Take Sean Penn, for example, who revealed that he wasn’t sure what the point of his character was in The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick, a mesmerising but ultimately enigmatic film.
He once told The Guardian, “A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact. Frankly, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing there and what I was supposed to add in that context! What’s more, Terry himself never managed to explain it to me clearly.”
Then there are the actors who worked with David Lynch. They often spent the time it took to make the film deciphering the narrative, often with a lack of success. Can you blame them? That’s the sign of their trust in Lynch, though, because few actors would put as much faith in a director as Lynch’s collaborators did with him.
In reference to Inland Empire, Justin Theroux once admitted to The Village Voice, “I couldn’t possibly tell you what the film’s about, and at this point, I don’t know that he could. It’s become sort of a pastime—Laura [Dern] and I sit around on set trying to figure out what’s going on.”
It seems that no one is immune to being confused by a script – even Judi Dench has signed herself up for parts that have left her baffled. It makes you question how a good performance can be given when you don’t fully understand what you’re working with, but some actors are skilled enough to just trust the process.
Dench lent herself to a film she didn’t understand back in 2004, but while the aforementioned titles involved actors putting their trust in movies that actually turned out to be good (albeit divisive), the British acting icon can’t say the same about this one. What exactly possessed Dench to take on a role in The Chronicles of Riddick is a question that I’d love to know the answer to.
In her book And Furthermore, Dench revealed her love for making the movie – even though she had no idea what the fuck it was about: “I never really understood the film, but I got to do that thing which I have always longed to do in a play, where somebody says something to you and suddenly your face goes into a mass of cracks, and then you collapse into a tiny little pile of china. I kept doing that a lot, materialising and then disappearing.”
She continued, “They filmed me against a green screen with green spots all over my face, and I never quite knew what was going on. The film has still not been released in Britain, though it did get a late-night showing on television, and I wouldn’t have missed the opportunity of making it.”
It seems like Dench was enthralled by the special effects, and the Oscar-winner didn’t mind appearing alongside Vin Diesel – not exactly the height of Hollywood acclaim – if it meant doing something she hadn’t really done before. It was a cinematic flop, unsurprisingly, but Dench seems to have no regrets about the awful sci-fi action flick.
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