Dustin Hoffman tells how he won over Maggie Smith

Dustin Hoffman on directing Dame Maggie Smith in new film Quartet

PUBLISHED: 17:05 EST, 27 December 2012 | UPDATED: 19:06 EST, 27 December 2012

Somewhere on a film studio's cutting room floor is a six-minute scene showcasing the hitherto unheard and unappreciated opera-singing talents of Dame Maggie Smith, Sir Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins and Billy Connolly.

Their rendering of a song from Verdi's Rigoletto was to have been the climax of their new film, Quartet, but director Dustin Hoffman decided to scrap it — much to the relief of all concerned — because, as Connolly puts it: 'Let's face it, we weren't very good.'

And Tom Courtenay adds: 'The film is better without our singing. The irony is that all the extras in the film were real opera singers. Any of them could have sung perfectly well while we mimed. But Dustin wanted realism.'

Dustin and the Dame: Director Dustin Hoffman and his leading lady Dame Maggie Smith at the BFI London Film Festival premiere of Quartet

Hoffman — making his full debut as a director at the age of 75 — says: 'It was all huge fun, and none of us took ourselves at all seriously. I have never enjoyed myself so much.'

The story centres on four elderly opera singers — played by Smith, 78 today, at her Downton Abbey-style best; Courtenay, 75; Collins 72; and Connolly, 70 — living out their twilight years in a retirement home for musicians, Beecham House, named after the celebrated British conductor Sir Thomas. They're troubled by dementia, creaky joints, terminal tetchiness and bittersweet memories of the past.

Smith and Courtenay's characters, Reg and Joan, were briefly married, which doesn't help matters. 'All I want is nothing more than a dignified senility,' complains Reg.

Imperious Joan sneers at having to spend the rest of her days in a home associated with Beecham. 'His father made laxatives,' she says. 'Seems rather apt for a nursing home.'

The four are being persuaded to sing together in a fundraiser, organised by the pompous Cedric Livingstone, played by another septuagenarian, Sir Michael Gambon, 72.

Resting voice: Billy Connolly plays a retired opera singer in Dustin Hoffman's Quartet which hits the cinema on New Years Day

Hoffman had long wanted to direct a movie. His first attempt was in 1978, with Straight Time, in which he also played the leading role of a newly released criminal. 'I got very confused with both jobs, so I fired myself from directing to concentrate on the acting,' he says.

'I was so traumatised that it's taken me nearly 35 years, and almost the rest of my life, to get back in the director's chair.'

Quartet had been in the planning stages for some time and already had a director, and a leading actor in Albert Finney, but they dropped out and the script was sent to Hoffman.

Before filming, he had to tackle one major problem. As an actor, he has a fearsome reputation for standing no nonsense from directors; so has Dame Maggie.

Was he scared of her? 'I'd been forewarned that she can destroy you if you bull**** her, and I promised myself I certainly wouldn't do that.

'When we met, we sat on a couch and I said: "I think we have the same reputation for being hard on directors." And she said: "Some." I told her: "Yes, I can say the same thing." And she was brilliant. We understood each other.

'Mind you, she was the biggest diva of us all,' he jokes. 'While we all had a two-hour commute every day between London and where we were shooting in Buckinghamshire, she managed to bag herself a house less than ten minutes away from the set.'

Dame Maggie is up for a Golden Globe award next month for best actress in Quartet, and so the idea of another hit film about OAPs is very welcome. Having starred in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, about a group of British seniors who settle in India, which was well received by audiences and critics (she's been nominated for Screen Actors Guild awards for it and Downton), she's hoping it's the start of a new trend.

'There haven't been many films made about the elderly, yet the ones that have been done have all been very successful,' she says.

This is all good for Maggie, as she's normally the first in the queue to be offered such parts.

'I don't know why I've always been cast as an old lady — but I'm not complaining,' she says.

'I'm all too aware that this is a very tough business and my advice to anyone looking to come into acting is "try not to cry too much", because it is hard and can be heartbreaking. So, to have worked as much as I have, in any role, is a real privilege.'

Always the Lady: Dame Maggie Smith, seen as Dowager Duchess Lady Violet Grantham on Downton Abbey, said she does not mind being typecast as an old lady

With Dame Maggie and Sir Tom already cast, Dustin had to find two more actors to play the other members of the quartet, Wilf and Cissy. 'I asked Maggie who should play Cissy, and without missing a beat, she said Pauline Collins.'

Dustin had not seen Shirley Valentine or anything else Pauline had appeared in, so he watched her in Woody Allen's Tall Dark Stranger and was suitably impressed. But there were a few cultural differences to overcome.

'I don't think he really understood me at the beginning,' says Pauline, who rose to fame as parlour maid Sarah in Upstairs, Downstairs. 'I remarked that, unlike Maggie, I seemed to have spent my career "downstairs", meaning that I was always playing parts under the stairs.

'But he took it to mean I was always billed below the title, and he said: "After this film, you won't be any more." It took a while, but we totally get each other now.'

Pauline's character, Cissy, has vascular dementia. She says Hoffman gave her free rein to interpret the role how she liked and she partly based it on her mother, who had dementia.

'He is a dynamo and one of the kindest and most inspiring directors I've ever worked for,' she says.

Billy Connolly jokes: 'On the other hand, I found him to be a complete nightmare. He threw tantrums, we had to endure long silences and he has a habit of touching you inappropriately.'

Hoffman had long been a regular at Connolly's stand-up gigs, so the two of them were friends. 'When Dustin asked me to join the cast and he reeled off all the other names, I thought: "Oh, Jesus, I can't do it," ' says Connolly.

'But I thought about it and remembered how much I'd enjoyed working with another big name — Judi Dench, in Mrs Brown. That brought out the best in me, so I told myself not to be a coward and I hoped Maggie and the rest would do the same for me in Quartet.'

Dustin laughs as Billy goes on to explain how he found playing the tactless, over-sexed yet loveable Wilf.

'Dustin let me throw in my own ad-libs, which is generous.

'It worked for me because I think people get to a certain age and feel they're finally able to say what they want.'

Hoffman says he never had any doubts about the film's box-office potential. 'Quartet is no different from a film about dancers or athletes in that it's about having an extraordinary gift that goes and then no one wants you any more. It looks at people who become invisible because of age.

'Every member of the supporting cast really is a retired musician or singer, whose phone stopped ringing with offers of work a long time ago, even though they can still deliver.

'These guys are 70, 80, 90 years old, yet as soon as they arrived on set, they brought such energy and verve we all felt it. Directing the film didn't seem like a job and I don't know if I'll ever feel like that again. I truly lucked out.

'Life is a game with God,' he says, pointing to the skies. 'It's like saying: "Don't be so sure that you're gonna stop me." To me, that's what this film is all about.'

Quartet opens nationwide on New Year's Day.

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