This one hurts. I knew she was ill, but I always believed she was immortal. And, of course, her work is. But it’s hard to accept that all that piss and vinegar didn’t give us just a few more years of the extraordinary pleasure of her company.
That’s if she liked you. If she didn’t – and the list is long – then her company was downright terrifying. You don’t get to be Maggie Smith on screen without being Maggie Smith off screen, and the acerbic wit, the putdowns, the total lack of fucks given were at least as funny and powerful as the lines writers like myself tried to create for her. But for those of us lucky enough to find her approval, her friendship was passionate, her wisdom unmatched, her loyalty fierce as the sun.
I wrote the part in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for Maggie and only for Maggie. There’s simply no greater thrill for a writer than knowing that the Great Dame is going to be saying your words, dignifying your material, timing the gags incomparably, and finding truth, wit and pain in every line. I got to work with her twice more, on the sequel and on another movie, the second time I’d written a part especially for her. And then knowing she’d say no, but wanting to make her laugh, I also offered her the part of an all-singing all-dancing teacher in the Mamma Mia! sequel. I was, and am, incredibly proud of the typically terse text she sent me in reply: “Not even for you, dear.”
Every evening in India the old actors would have dinner together. Every morning Maggie and Judi would swim in their Victorian swimsuits. And every day we would all laugh and laugh. She had two laughs, Maggie; a dry cackle, and a genuine, head-back roar. To hear the latter was the greatest pleasure, to inspire it the biggest privilege. I’ll miss them both. I’ll miss her.
We made the first Marigold Hotel movie with absolutely no expectation that anyone would ever see it, let alone that there would be a sequel. But when we were out in India for the second time, someone brought up the idea of a third film. “I’ll only do it,” said Mags, “if you call it Marigold Hospice.” Rest in power, you brilliant genius.