On the silver screen: 100 years of film finesse in two chairs

It's late in the day on the East Coast, and the Dames are getting restless. Not to mention, a tad giggly, the way old friends get at the end of a long day.

Not every day does one get a quick chat on the phone with two Dame Commanders of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, who both happen to be Oscar-winning actresses to boot. But it's understandable that Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, in New York for a whirlwind of interviews for their new film "Ladies in Lavender" (opening Friday at the Seven Gables), are just a little weary by the time they get to me, well past teatime on a tightly scheduled day.

Nonetheless, their diction remains precise and their manners charming, as befits this pair of longtime friends who are clearly at ease with working side-by-side — occasionally interrupting each other, with the greatest of delicacy. Dench and Smith (or Jude and Mags, as they call each other), both now 70, have known each other since the late 1950s, where they were both company members at the Old Vic theater in London.

"We were jobbing actors in a company, sharing a dressing room, starting out," said Dench, who recalled that they appeared together in "The Double-Dealer," "As You Like It" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor."

Over the years, their careers diverged, and they didn't see each other often. "Ships that pass in the night," said Smith. The pair were reunited for the Merchant/Ivory film "A Room with a View" in 1985, with Smith playing the prim chaperone Charlotte Bartlett and Dench as the bohemian novelist Eleanor Lavish. Fourteen years later, they returned to Florence to co-star in another period piece, Franco Zeffirelli's "Tea with Mussolini." It was, noted Dench, "a long time between drinks."

It was another joint project — the West End stage production of "Breath of Life" in 2002 — that led to their third film collaboration. Charles Dance, an actor making his film-directing debut, "saw the two of us together and read the story and thought of us," said Smith. "Ladies in Lavender" is based on a short story by William J. Locke, about a pair of elderly spinster sisters living in their childhood home in Cornwall in 1936, whose quiet lives are interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious young man (Daniel Bruhl).

Shooting the film, on location in Cornwall last year, was a "very sisterly" time, said Smith. The two were rarely apart, and Dance was sensitive to their bond. "Because he is an actor, he was very much aware of what we were trying to do," Smith said.

Apart from their collaborations, the two Dames remain very busy — with each continuing a recurring role in a blockbuster-movie franchise. Smith recently finished her work as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the fourth "Harry Potter" film, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," due in theaters in November. She'll definitely be in the next one, though she wasn't sure when it would start filming — "I guess in the new year."

Dench, who joined the James Bond franchise in 1995 as Bond boss M in "Goldeneye," likewise said she didn't know much about the next Bond movie — "all I know is that I'm going to be in it." Shooting will begin in January, with a still unidentified Bond. "I don't know if it's Pierce [Brosnan], or someone else," Dench said. "Every young actor around has been mentioned." (Smith, obviously intrigued, interjected, "Oh, I do hope it's Pierce.")

And each continues work in independent film. Dench spoke fondly of her recent work in "Mrs. Henderson Presents," a Stephen Frears film in which she plays a 1930s London theater owner (and presenter of all-nude revues).

Smith recently completed "Keeping Mum," a comedy with Rowan Atkinson, shot on the Isle of Man. "We went to work in a funny studio that was originally a cow shed," she recalled. "Not exactly soundproof, and lots of cows, who look very reproachful, because you're in their place."

For now, though clearly weary (and, if you believe a New Yorker article that week, disappointed because their whirlwind trip didn't allow time to go shopping at Tiffany's), they appear to be enjoying this moment of allowing their careers to merge. Each speaks affectionately of the other's talent. "I would go anywhere to see Mags in anything," said Dench. "The same for me," said Smith.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com