From the past
Mr Dance in the TV show : Call my bluff
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Mr Dance was at The Booker Prize 2025 at a ceremony held at Old Billingsgate in London
It was also streamed on the Booker Prize social media channels.
From an interview about Mr Dance casting in The Witcher 3, years ago
according to CD Projekt's English adaptation director, Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz, getting Dance on board was akin to defusing a ticking time bomb.
Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz explained that they "didn't really have a strong notion that Emhyr should be a AAA talent. But there was a point during the development and promotion process when we put a countdown up on our website [...] saying that some important announcement was pending [...] and then we decided not to make the announcement."
Whatever that announcement was, they needed a replacement and fast. "The clock was running, and we had to [have] something to announce by the time the clock ran down to zero," Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz continued. "And I think it was somebody in marketing or biz dev who came up with the idea that we should just get a AAA actor [...] and when the clock runs down, announce them as the big reveal."
"It was one of our colleagues in biz dev who had a
in [the] talent management world and it was, you know, a couple of emails, a couple of phone calls, who's available, what's good? What are the roles? Well, if it's going to be a AAA talent we want to have, we want [them] to have a significant role. Not necessarily in terms of scope, but in terms of meaning for the plot, or for the world and so on and so forth. And we ended up [settling on] Emhyr, in terms of [the role], and we ended up [casting] Charles Dance."
While the exact timeframe of the countdown is unclear, Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz estimates that "it might have been [...] a clock that was running down from 48 hours. Sometime within those 48 hours, those decisions, negotiations, and communications happened [...] It went quickly enough that we were actually able to announce Charles Dance's Emhyr var Emreis, by the time the clock ran down."
Regardless of the minute-by-minute specifics, the end result is that in an incredible feat of marketing-based engineering, a miracle happened: CD Projekt got its big announcement, and we got the devastating charm of Charles Dance. "I suppose we hacked time and space in that instance to make it look all intended and smooth," Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz laughed. I'd call that a win.
Best childhood memory?
The best one, if it’s to be believed, is lying in a kind of void, looking up, seeing lots of faces looking down and going, “Oh.” I think I was in my pram looking at other mothers or neighbours looking down on me and admiring this curly-headed little child lying there. I wasn’t particularly academic at school. I excelled in art, English, athletics, basketball and rugby. But that wouldn’t have got me very far, really.
When I got to about 15 or 16, I started getting interested in the kind of things that adolescent young men get interested in: cigarettes, girls, drink. I didn’t pursue anything academically or with my athletics, which I think I could have done really quite well at. But I started to meet interesting people. I went on the Stop the Bomb marches, things like that. I started listening to the Rolling Stones. I had my first joint and it made me feel sick.
Best trait ?
To be calm in emergencies and situations that could be chaotic. To my surprise, and I’m sure other people’s, I can be quite calm. If there’s a burst water main or the ceiling suddenly falls down, I can think, “OK, what are we going to do now?” I don’t know whether it’s always been that way. I remember when I was around 18, I didn’t think I was going to live beyond 21. I thought something was going to happen to me. A girlfriend of a friend of mine at school died of meningitis. Then another friend of mine drove his Mini into an articulated lorry. These rather tragic moments at that time in my life maybe made me think I would be the next one.
Best thing about acting ?
In a world where the majority of people don’t particularly love their job, I am in this very fortunate position of doing a job that I love. I’ve felt like that for 50 years. I will hopefully continue to feel like that for a few more years. I remember going on tour with a play called It’s a 2ft 6in Above-the-Ground World – the title alludes to the height of the average person’s genitalia from the ground. I was way down the cast list. I played the Swedish boyfriend. I felt I’d come home. I was among people who kind of thought about the same things that I thought about. We shared the same language.
Best moment of your career?
Being hugged by Keith Richards. I never worked with but I met Sir Laurence Olivier. I’ve worked with wonderful people, from Meryl Streep to Judi Dench. But I went to this Rolling Stones gig and was given a backstage pass for me, my wife at the time and my two grown-up children. We went around the back of the set, behind the great floppy tongue, through the curtains, into the Rattlesnake Lounge. On the way round, this guy said, “White Mischief is one of Keith’s favourite films. He wants to say hello.” I said, “Bloody hell!” So anyway, we fly right past the line, past people like Anita Ekberg. These velvet curtains parted and there was Keith. I went to shake his hand. He hugged me. I got more of a buzz from that than I have from working with anyone else.
Best memory of Game of Thrones ?
That thing was run like a military operation. It’s the most successful thing that has been on television for years and years. It was beautifully done. Well written, well produced, may I say, really well acted. I had a great death scene. I was actually told about it in the street. This young person came up to me and he said, “You’ve got this great death scene.” I thought, “Have I? What is the manner of my death?” Because I hadn’t read any of the books. I went into the nearest Waterstones, got a copy of the book, thumbed through it and thought, “Oh, that’s all right. Being shot by my miserable son while sitting on the lavatory. Really good. I love that.”
Best aspect of playing Lord Mountbatten in The Crown ?
There was a wealth of material that the research departments on The Crown gave me. They had access to volumes of diaries and biographies. There was also a rather extraordinary 12-episode-long documentary series about Mountbatten, produced by Mountbatten, and fronted by Mountbatten. He was talking about the time he had shot successfully, when people admired him. I mean, he was an extraordinary man. He was loved and loathed in equal measure. There was a lot of material to go through. I don’t know that I look particularly like him, but with a well-made wig and a bit of make-up, that’s who you are.
Best way to keep fit?
I am pretty fit. I haven’t done it recently, but for a while, I would swim on a regular basis. Every morning, I’d just get up and go to the pool and swim. I haven’t done that for a while. Or I ride a bike. I’ve got a bench and some weights. I hate going to gyms. When you get past a certain age, you have to do a bit of resistance work if you want to retain any kind of muscle. I’m not into bodybuilding, but I don’t want to sag. I’m fortunate to live about five minutes away from Hampstead Heath. I can walk for miles there.
Best day of your life so far?
It sounds rather kind of dreamy and romantic, but when the children were growing up, we lived in Somerset for about 15 years. It was a big old place. It had a tennis court and swimming pool, both of which I put in. I dug out a duck pond. It was quite lovely, actually. One evening, I can’t remember whether it was spring or summer, I was just sitting on the bank by the duck pond. The sun was going down. I had that feeling and thought, “If I die now, this would be great.” Because I felt completely happy. It’s an extraordinary feeling when you get that. It doesn’t happen that often. I remember it so clearly.
Worst holiday ?
One of our first family holidays was in Turkey. There are beautiful places in Turkey, but this was booked on the strength of photographs in the brochure. We got there and it was a s---hole. The beach was full of people walking across it every day on their way to somewhere better, just arriving with bags, or another coach-load of people walking by. The rooms were not great. We enjoyed it because the sun was shining and there was a sea there.
Holidays have never been a big part of my life. My other half, Alessandra, is Italian. They’re big on holidays. I’ve had more holidays since I’ve been with her than I’ve had in my whole life. We had a short weekend in Athens not so long ago, and I thought I’d quite like to go back in the winter. There are some cities that are really fascinating. But I’ve been fortunate enough to work all over the world, in every major city in the world.
Worst trait?
Pomposity. I can be unbelievably pompous. I really can. But I am aware of it. I kick myself up the arse so I stop being so bloody pompous.
Worst job?
Years ago, there was an organisation, I think it was called Problems Limited. A lot of out-of-work actors were on their books. They’d ring up and say, “Oh, Charles, are you free? This woman wants her dogs walked. Can you solve this problem?” They rang one day and asked me to go down to the house of a woman in Knightsbridge. She wanted a little help with her cleaning.
I went down to this very smart apartment and this woman brought out about 10 priceless Persian rugs. She gave me a nail brush and a pot of cleaner. She expected me to clean on my hands and knees scrubbing. She kept supervising and told me, “Oh, this colour should be much brighter than this.” I can’t remember how long I was there. But I thought, “You are taking advantage of a poor, out-of-work actor.” It was horrible.
Worst thing about acting?
I could say boredom on a film set. A lot of the time, we expend energy making a silk purse out of a pig’s ear. I get a script that’s not so good and expend a lot of energy trying to improve it. Either by saying, “Listen, I would rather say this,” or by just going on to the set and saying something different. Or sitting up all night rewriting stuff. I’ve not been choosy enough. I’ve always been reluctant to turn work down unless it’s absolute crap. Because I think, “I’m being offered another job. I’m being paid reasonably well. If I can do something with this part, then I will keep working.” Maybe I should be like some actors who are prepared to sit around for a couple of years waiting for the right part. That’s not me, I’m afraid. I’m a working actor.
Worst moment of your career?
I was the third villain from the left in a Bond film with Roger Moore. I had one line, which the director actually tried to cut until Roger said, “Oh no, no. You can’t cut this line. It’s very funny.” The Bond films are all about stunts. There was one moment in a ski resort in the north of Italy where this explosion went off beside me and I’m thrown to the ground. I thought, “I’ve been with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I can do this little stunt.” I just had to fall over. I did it and landed badly – I did something to my shoulder. It was painful. We were all in beautiful ski suits. I said that I needed an X-ray. They took me to the local hospital. I got out of the ski suit and I had dislocated my shoulder. They gave me painkillers, put my shoulder back in and told me it would be painful.
But that afternoon, I had to ride a motorbike for the film. I had this prescription for painkillers. I get back to the set, go into my small trailer, pour myself some water, then I look at the packet and it’s a suppository. So now I had to get out of this one-piece ski suit and shove this thing up my arse. Then I had to ride a motorbike really badly.
The absolute worst thing ever?
The smell of foot rot in sheep. Before I got my first job in this business, I did a variety of labouring. I was a builder’s labourer. A plumber’s mate. A farm labourer. When I helped the farmer, I had to treat sheep for foot rot. It was horrendous. I guess it’s a kind of fungus. The sheep follow each other around and once it’s left the ground, the others pick it up. You have to get hold of the sheep and trim their nails on their feet. You spray this stuff. Then you let them go and they hobble away. Sometimes, half their foot has been cut off. But the smell is something that you never forget.
Charles Dance can be seen in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein on Netflix.
(c) Daily Telegraph
Italian interview from the past to promote
Ladies in lavender
Mr Dance in the cast of a netflix movie :
In Ladies First, with Rosamund Pike and Sacha Baron Cohen as a womanizer who finds himself in a very unfamiliar landscape — an alternate reality where women hold all the power.
The new film will be directed by Thea Sharrock ( The Beautiful Game, Wicked Little Letters, Me Before You).
Charles Dance on directing – Chiswick in Film Festival 2025...
was here for a screening of Ladies in Lavender (2004), the film with which he made his directorial debut.
It was a book of short stories, Faraway Stories by William Locke. I read them all, and I kept coming back to Ladies in Lavender. Images kept dropping down and I thought, ‘I think I know how to do this'”. So he set about writing a script.
I thought it would be great for Judi Dench, who was then in a David Hare play The Breath of Life with Maggie Smith”.
Mimicking the two of them perfectly, Charles recalled Judi saying thoughtfully: “I think I’d like to do this” and asking who he had in mind to play her sister. When he tentatively suggested Maggie Smith, she immediately said: “Oh, Mags will do it.”
Maggie Smith asked: “Is Jude going to do it? Well, I’ll do it”
They christened it ‘Lavender Bags’, and they were off.
Emma has also had a long career in the industry, working as a producer, executive producer, financier and filmmaker on a number of feature films and television series, including Lovejoy and Taggart for television, and the Bafta-winning film My Summer of Love.
She told the evening’s host Andrea Carnevali that with names like Charles Dance OBE, Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith attached to the project, it was relatively easy to finance:
“It was an absolute slam dunk”.
“Who are all those people?” she asked. When told they were the film’s investors she replied, “Well I’m a bit busy now, but I’ll be out later to give them all a blow job”.
Andrea asked Charles how he directed such eminent actors.
“Well I didn’t”, was the reply. When you have actors of that calibre you let them interpret the script to bring it alive.
“As an actor, if I can say something with a look, please let me do it, and get rid of the line”.
Asked by a member of the audience what makes a good director, he said:
“One who creates an environment which makes the actors feel they can contribute something”.
"I didn’t want the story to be dominated by the cinematography”, said Charles.
Were there times when he needed to assert himself and employ some of that familiar imperiousness?
“One day Judi was being uncommonly sentimental, and I said: ‘Jude, it’s a bit Celia Johnsonish’.
“How dare you?” she said, “And take your hand off my knee”.
There was also a line about which Maggie Smith said: “This is a big of a pig’s ear, Charlie”.
To which he replied “Yes, it is”, so she simplified it for him into something she would say more naturally.
Despite the stellar cast and director, the film was not easy to get into cinemas, he said, because it was aimed at an older demographic, but it stayed on in cinemas far longer than some of the megabuck blockbusters released at the same time.
Now, 20 years on, cinemas have woken up to the power of the grey pound, he said:
“I was doing Strindberg at Richmond with Geraldine James. We were both in Jewel in the Crown“, (the 1984 TV series about the British Raj which gave Charles his big break).
“The audience reflected that. They’d come to see how Geraldine and I were holding up. Some nights it was looking out at The Thursday Murder Club“.
Charles will be back as we know him, steely-eyed and intimidating, as the villain in the second series of Day of the Jackal, with Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch, which they are filming at the moment.
https://chiswickcalendar.co.uk/charles-dance-on-directing-chiswick-in-film-festival-2025/
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