RIP Maggie Smith

I found your acting extraordinary.

I suppose most of us will remember her for her roles in the Harry Potter movies or in Downton Abbey but there were also other places where her brilliance shone. 

The one I remember is the moment in Sister Act where she says just two words, "I lied". So much goes into those two words. It is the mark of a truly great actress that they can make something of just two words.

I am no actress. I have never had any desire to be one. School plays were torture for me. I have written plays for children to use in the schools I worked in but I did not want to be on stage. 

One year there was a Playwright's Conference held at a university I was attending. Most of the students had gone home for the Easter break. I had remained behind in the hall of residence. The playwrights, the actors and actresses, the set designers and more all descended. Within half an hour of his arrival I had the playwright David Williamson, placed in the room next to mine, banging on the door and wanting to know was there a kettle. (I provided not only a kettle but everything else.) 

He wanted to know if I was there for the conference of course. No? I explained who I was and why I was there when the students had gone home. "You are absolutely safe," I told him, "I have no desire at all to appear on stage or screen."

He laughed but word must have got around because that evening one of the other conference attendees introduced me to a table of people whose names I recognised as, "This is Cat and she does not want to be an actress". They cheered me, someone pulled out a chair and they included me in their conversation. I was not a rival.

I remember Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave and others coming into the conversation. These people were talking about technique and what they could learn from such actresses. They might have been rivals for roles in other places but here they were talking about actual acting. I know very little about such things. Yes, I have read Stanislavski. No, I do not understand the actual process he was talking about, not from the inside. I am not an actress.

I think Maggie Smith would have understood perfectly. On screen she would always come across as the person she was acting as being, never herself. It is a remarkable gift perhaps but it must also be immensely difficult to do. 

I know very little about training to be on stage or in film but I hope that young hopefuls are told, "Go and watch what Maggie Smith does and how she does it...find out how Judi Dench does this or that...look at the way X... or Y... uses this or that...". 

And perhaps the rest of us can learn something from them too, something about humility. It may not always show on the surface but I am sure the best of them know about that...and are willing to learn from each other.