Maggie Smith or Judi Dench?

Maggie has the nicer bosom. Judi has always looked like an old woman.

- You're not young. I say this to help you. -

- Someone HAS DIED! -

I love the feeble "I know" from Blanchett.

"Oh God, not her!" as loud as you like, lol

Judi Dench is AMAZING in Philomena and should have won the Oscar.

I agree R5 it's a real shame Philomena didn't come out in 2012 (when JLaw win for an average romcom performance). Dench was funny and touching in this.

Cate Blanchett was virtually unbeatable for 2013.

Maggie Smith made a bigger splash earlier in her career. In 1969, Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and then her 70s movies: Death on the Nile, Murder By Death, California Suite.

At this same time, Judi Dench was sweating it out at the RSC and The National.

This is even evident as late as 1985, when Maggie got a plum role in "A Room With A View" and nobody remembers Judi in it at all.

This began to change as Judi started getting noticed on television.

I think now, Judi has the more interesting career and has become a film star late in life. Maggie is stuck ripping off one liners on Downton Abbey.

"That's really tacky!"

Team Maggie

"Lasagna tends to disagree with my bowels. I'll ask for a small portion."

Judi has done musicals. As far as I know, Maggie has not. Judi was in the bond series, but ( this might be the difference) Maggie was in The First Wives Club.

Fucking loved Judi in Notes on a Scandal. Brilliant performance.

I think Maggie is much more gifted at comedy than Judi. She has never really been funny on purpose, usually cast as the straight woman when she does try comedy.

Judi is gifted with Shakespeare

Maggie has done musicals!

Apples and oranges.

I've had a cruch on Judi ever since A Fine Romance.

I would have loved to have been there with that amazing cast when they made Death on the Nile.

I wonder if Maggie ever has flashbacks of Nicholas Clay in his black swimming trunks in Evil Under The Sun?!

R11. I don't like the first word in this post

On Broadway as well, r12.

No contest - Maggie Smith. Judi Dench is wonderful but Maggie has a legendary career.

I met Maggie Smith at the Ivy in London in December 2017. She was there with the woman who played her daughter on Downton Abbey (I forget the character's name - Aunt Gwendolyn maybe?) Anyway, after dinner they were milling around the bar area and I came over to tell her that I was huge fan. I told her I loved her in "California Suite." She was like, "THAT movie?" I said, "Well, you did win an Oscar for it!" She was really quite lovely. She looked very much like she did in that Marigold Hotel movie (hair style-wise at least).

Personally, I like both as actreses, but Dame Maggie has a hot son, so she wins!

“ What is a weekend?”

[quote]Personally, I like both as actreses, but Dame Maggie has a hot son, so she wins!

Judi's daughter burned down their Georgian house in Hampsted.

I remember watching this series when it aired and Judi was brilliant in it but hardly anyone has heard of it and can't find it online. If you ever see it on YouTube it's definitely worth watching.

I saw Maggie Smith on stage in London. It was one of my favorite nights of theater. She was hilarious.

Hmmm...tough call.

OP The answer is Vanessa Redgrave.

Judi never shared the screen with Bette Davis. And held her own.

R26 you mean the one who plays the same old lady in every movie? Same facial expressions, same mannerisms, same accent. When did she stop bothering?

Neither of them can hold a candle to Glenda Jackson. Sorry.

Maggie Smith by a mile. Judi has anus-face.

R29 Tell that to the Tony committee.

Dench usually shows the same emotion now as she did in that sitcom with her husband 100 years ago.. Marigold Hotel sucked, and the bond movies ugh.

[quote]I think now, Judi has the more interesting career and has become a film star late in life

In part because of Glenda Jackson's retirement. Glenda was the first choice to play M in Goldeneye. That movies gave a huge boost to Dench's career which was solidified by Mrs. Brown a few years later.

In spite of all the acclaim that she's received over the last twenty years, there's still a sense of Judi being second tier among the great British female actresses . It doesn't help that her one Oscar win was a complete joke.

R23.....that show is STILL on PBS/KQED...

I saw them both in a not-so-hot David Hare play in London called Breath of Life. Smith played Dench’s character’s husband’s mistress so of course had the better role. I’d say it was a draw as to who was better.

R 23 sorry ! Judi on PBS is in As Time Goes By: You Must Remember This

Maggie was great when she was younger, Judi is better older.

Does Maggie Smith's pussy stink?

Dame Maggie. Watch her in The VIPs. Absolutely stunning.

I’m in national treasure...

Met a wig designer for the theater some years ago who said Dench was absolutely lovely person, but he hated working with Smith. I think they are both pretty wonderful in their performances most of the time. Only time I think Maggie was off her game was in "Travels With My Aunt" which should be been better. Something about her performance doesn't ring true, and for some reason I think she should have been dottier.

R42 I think Smith was too young for the role--remember, K. Hepburn was originally cast, then fired (along with Cukor), so Smith took over--it was only three years after Jean Brodie, so Smith played the age in a more caricatured way. The all-male staged production was much better.

How could "one" choose? l love them both--Maggie since The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie--and Judi since As Time Goes By on PBS. If you haven't seen it, get the recent movie Tea With Dames. Maggie seems naturally witty and Judi is a great laugher--you'd want to tell Judi stories just to hear her laugh. Also with Eileen Atkins (you'd know her if you watch Doc Martin, and Joan Plowright (widow of Laurence Olivier). Joan is rather stuffy and full of herself as befits her status as Lady Olivier I guess. I think it would be great if somebody who knows them started a podcast for Judi and Maggie for them to just sit and chat every week. They appear to be close friends.

Both- in A Room With a View.

However could Kate do the flashbacks?

What has Joan Plowright got to be stuffy about? She's only famous because of her husband. A beggar's Vivien Leigh, without the Oscars

r48 Plowright always strikes me as dowdy, the archetypal plain wife of a closeted gay man.

Maggie Smith in Capturing Mary. She plays an elderly alcoholic who befriends the caretaker of a London mansion. He let's her inside and she reveals how her life spiraled out of control after a bad experience at a party at that house in her 20s.

I am reading a television critic named Rudolph Klein in the BBC newspaper called ‘The Listener’ from 2 February 1967.

He is describing a production of ‘Volpone’ at the Oxford Playhouse of September 1966 starring Leo McKern.

He doesn’t mention McKern but says 'Judi Dench and Maureen O'Brien are too most fetching actresses.

I loved Maggie Smith in "Evil under the sun"

Judi Dench is an extremely talented actress, of course, but I prefer Maggie Smith. Favorite performances (not necessarily their best, but the ones I liked the best): Judi, Mrs. Brown; Maggie, Miss Jean Brodie.

I saw a few episodes of Judi's sitcom with her husband and it depressed me. I didn't really like "At Time Goes By" that much, either. In the latter, she overuses that arch, testy manner that she often does, and in the former, both she and her husband were such sad sacks who didn't even seem to like each other that much. From what I've read of her husband, he had his great qualities, but it sounds like he had short man syndrome and was a strict Catholic.

Why must everything be a contest? I think they are both wonderful. I think Maggie Smith is a treasure. Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is genius. On stage you cannot take your eyes off her. Judi is a more subtle actress but just as effective.

R44 I think no one should reply to this thread without watching Tea With Dames. While "Prime of..." was an iconic performance, and Smith's had a long career with high profile turns, I always thought that Dench had much more range, and so was more interesting. I watched that documentary expecting that Dench would have the greater Presence - but Smith the quicker wit, and more interesting intelligence. (Unfair to judge Plowright, who was blind, deaf, with borderline dementia. Other than that...)

Maggie Smith: My House in Umbria. Period.

I love them both. Judi had a greater classical stage career, and late pop film career. Maggie is kind of matchless though, as the grand dame who is funny. She mentions that comedy was her great strength in Dames... Is there a role both have played at one time? Perhaps in their younger years, Titania? or Rosalind?

Maggie Smith was quite great in ‘Quartet’ with Alan Bates and Isabelle Adjani. James Ivory was reportedly not interested in her for the role of Lois at first, but she was cast at a producer’s insistence and ended up really impressing him.

Maggie Smith gives her opinion about Judi Dench at 0:50.

"...the better, more interesting career?" , Judi Dench. No question. Her roles have been varied and many.

With a few exceptions, Maggie Smith has done little interesting work for decades. She has been cashing in on her sotto voce cunt routine. It's a shameful waste of an exceptional talent.

R59 How very VULGAR!

Maggie Death or Judy Stench?

Old English Dame 1 or Old English Dame 2?

I love her little squeal at 2.49.

Of course the man is far too old and Maggie’s coquette is perfectly insufferable.

But listen to their rapid-fire speech and how talk over each other.

Judi Dench is a g-damn, untrustworthy midget.

It's admirable she's pulled off playing normal people, but still.

I don't know the answer to this. All I know is the video at r2 should be a constant meme on all DL threads.

Judi is a hoot in the campy black comedy "Absolute Hell"

So hard to choose, as I love them both. But, seeing as Maggie stars in more of my fave films and won me over long ago, then I must go with her.

Did Maggie die, or is someone just bumping all the Maggie threads?

I've loved Maggie Smith in everything I've seen her in, especially The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

However, seeing Judi Dench in a role doesn't do anything for me one way or the other.

Maggie's got the comedy, for sure. Judi has gravitas.

I'm a British Theatre Snob who's known Miss Dench doing serious plays and Shakespeare since the 1960s but you Americans only got to hear about her twenty years ago when she was picked up by the repellant Weinstein.

The repellant Weinstein got her a new PR team and got her doing commercials, brainless comedies and Bond.