I don't wish to be morbid but the grim reaper really needs a year off. He was working over time this year, at least with the celebrity set. So when I read this interview with Dame Maggie Smith, in which she brings up the dread topic several times in relation to her ongoing battle with cancer, it was upsetting. Smith must see some kind of future for herself? “I don’t think there’s a lot of it, because of my age — there just isn’t. It’s all been. I’ve no idea what there will be.”Maybe it's due to that through line of delicious self-assured imperiousness that runs through her work, but I never think of Maggie Smith as being young, or old or anywhere inbetween. Like Miss Jean Brodie, she's just always in her prime. Maggie is still filming the last "Part" of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows but if she's going to retire soon --and who could blame her after 50+ years in the movies and on stage and her 75th birthday coming up in December -- I pray she ditches the witch hat for one last dramatic lead or one final Gosford Park-level juicy supporting triumph.
Is that selfish? You just don't want the greats to stick around, you know.
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