In a new column for The Guardian, filmmaker Edgar Wright recounts how he met, worked with, and ultimately said goodbye to, Dame Diana Rigg, the star of The Avengers and Game of Thrones who passed away yesterday at 82 years old. Like the outpourings of affection that came from her Game of Thrones co-stars, Wright’s piece is a mix of a personal testament to her character and adoration for the quality of her work. In it, he details the first time they met — when she met him at a bar to talk about the film and encouraged him to try a Campari and soda — and the last time they spoke.
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That last time, after the movie was largely finished, was one of two times he had to get ADR (automated dialogue replacement) from Rigg. The first time, he visited her at her home and brought a bottle of Campari with him. The second, she had just one word to record, and they spoke only briefly on the phone.
“Despite her illustrious work on stage and screen (big and small), the blushing adolescent in me was still nervously excited to meet Emma Peel,” Wright admits in his remembrance.
You can read the piece here. It’s a powerful testament to the impact Rigg had on the life of Wright, who cast her in Last Night in Soho, his forthcoming movie that turned out to be the last in which she would ever appear.
Rigg was nominated for an Emmy in 1967 and 1968 for the role of Emma Peel in The Avengers, a show that she was featured in from 1965 to 1968. She would later win a Bafta Award and would share that Award with Linda Thorson, Honor Blackman, and Joanna Lumley, who all had been featured as the partner of Patrick Macnee’s John Steed in the series.
Rigg would be nominated for an Emmy again in 1975 for her role in the project In This House of Brede, and again in 2002 for Victoria & Albert, and she would ultimately take home an Emmy for her role as Mrs. Danvers in 1997’s Rebecca. She would also appear on Broadway in a number of projects, including Abelard and Heloise, The Misanthrope, and Medea in 1994, which she would win a Tony Award for.
Recent projects included Victoria, All Creatures Great and Small, and The Snail and the Whale. She also had two projects in development including Last Night in Soho and Black Narcissus.
