Judi Dench - The Great Dame

Everybody has an opinion of Judi Dench.   Men and women, young and old, parents and children – and almost all are united in their fondness, admiration and respect for her.  Even the taxi driver taking me to Chelsea, where I’m due to interview the great Dame, smiles: “Now that’s a legend.” 

Legend.  I wonder how she’ll feel about that.  Only a few months ago, Dench was interviewed by British newspapers and railed against the ‘national treasure’ image they put to her.  It’s the same now when I bring it up again. 

“Ugh,” she says half-laughing and looking away with a grimace.  “'National Treasure' is really desolating.  Rather mummified, like it’s in formaldehyde, an old museum, horrible!”  But legend, I enquire?  “Well, that’s better,” she admits slowly.  Then pauses for a moment before quipping: “Though rather over-blown, I think.”

If anyone deserves legend status, it’s the 76-year-old Dame.  One of Britain’s most esteemed actresses, she’s spent the last 52 years appearing in everything from theatre to TV to top-grossing Hollywood films.  She’s played Queens and MI5 agents, psychotic schoolteachers and stalkers, and has been recognised for her performances with an Oscar, ten BAFTAs, seven Laurence Olivier Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globes and a Tony Award.

“It’s hard for young actors today because they’re expected to go out and strike 13 straight away.”

Where do you even go from there?  Well, forwards and backwards, it seems.  Dench plays Titania in Sir Peter Hall’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Rose Theatre in Kingston this month - a play she first did with the celebrated director at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) 48 years ago.

They’ve worked together on eight productions since - including the film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1968, which Dench muses she has yet to see - but this one is particularly special.  Both are big supporters of the Rose.  Dench held a fundraiser to help build the theatre, which opened in 2008, and Hall has directed numerous plays there, including Bedroom Face last year starring Dench’s actor daughter, Finty Williams.

Due to open on February 9, rehearsals are currently underway, though neither needs the practise.  “I remember every word of it,” she confides. “Every single minute of it comes back to me, I could do the whole play.  And while we’ve both changed, well, we’ve both got older,” she acknowledges, raising her eyebrows in that distinctive way, “Peter’s original spark is bright and burning.”

So is Dench’s.  Dressed in a puffy white Victorian skirt for rehearsals, and sipping a glass of Berocca, she could easily pass for someone in their early 60s with that pixy face, trademark cropped hair and luminous skin.  But she’s not interested in turning back the clock.  Admitting in the past that she feels ‘too old’ for plastic surgery, she’s also rather enjoyed her personal and professional journey to date.

Born in York, Dench went to Central acting school where she became a set designer briefly before making her professional acting debut at the Old Vic in 1957 - age 23.  Perhaps better known today as a movie actress, she spent the majority of her first 30 years winning theatrical acclaim, working for the National Theatre Company and the RSC.

It was only in 1997 that this changed.  And that’s partly down to the choices of her late husband, the actor Michael Williams whom she married in 1971.  Never interested in reading scripts, Williams did it for her until his death from lung cancer in 2001.  “He was wonderful at it,” she remembers, “now I do it a bit more and Finty does it.  She’s very good.”

The 1997 movie, Mrs Brown, was her first hugely successful collaboration with movie-mogul Harvey Weinstein, followed by her Oscar-winning performance in Shakespeare in Love the next year.  Since then, the critical and commercial successes have continued with Iris, Chocolat, The Shipping News, Mrs Henderson Presents, Notes on a Scandal and of course her ongoing, and arguably most famous, portrayal of M in James Bond.  (“I get to say frightfully cool things and give Bond a hard time.  What could be better?”)

“I’m not keen on instant TV, having to ring all the bells at once. And I don’t like the word celebrity either.”

Having the time in her early years to develop and hone her talent on stage has played a large part, she says, in getting where she is today.  Which is why she’s so concerned for young actors coming into the profession now.  “You learn so much at drama school and then you have to go and make mistakes, watch people and learn somewhere.  But there are very few places to do that now because the whole repertory system has changed.  There aren’t any reps around the country and there’s less money around. 

“It’s hard on young actors because they’re expected to kind of go out and strike 13 straight away.  I was at the Old Vic from 1957 to 1961, and I watched everything the whole time.  In a way, you learn more that way than suddenly being given a huge part.”

By default, the rise of reality TV holds little appeal for her.  In a month when film actors Vinny Jones and Stephen Baldwin took part in Celebrity Big Brother, she smiles: “Well, it’s their choice, but I wouldn’t do it!  I’m not keen on instant, having to ring all the bells at one moment.  I don’t like the word celebrity either.”

What she has come around to, though, are TV talent shows like Sky 1’s Got to Dance?  “I suddenly thought the other day, this might fire young people to think ‘God, I think I can do that!’  You see people dancing and skateboarding in so many places, I mean really skilled.  And I think any encouragement of a talent when you’re young is terrific and to be applauded.  You’ve got to find a spark in somebody and ignite that.”

Dench refuses to quench her own spark these days, insisting she will continue to work until ‘I’m just not asked to’.  In the meantime, she says: “You just keep trying to learn and hope that something is going to be offered to you that is really different.”

Being offered anything at all can also have its benefits.  “I do quite like to know what I’m doing in advance or I get into a panic,” she admits.  “Trevor Nunn (British film and theatre director) once came to my room on the opening night of a play to wish me luck and I was crying.  He said ‘What the earth are you crying for?’ and I said ‘I don’t have a job after this, I just don’t know what I’ll do next!’ The worry never goes away, you never take anything for granted.”

Right now, she has her six-week run at the Rose.  Then there’s the 23rd Bond movie, her seventh, though she’s not exactly sure when filming starts.  After that, and though she doesn’t believe it, the offers will continue flooding in.  With that rare ability to enthral an entire theatre and cinema-going public, regardless of their gender or generation, there’ll be no tears for this legend anytime soon.

Coutts & Co sponsors A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Rose Theatre, which runs from 9 February to 20 March.  To find out more, visit  www.rosetheatrekingston.org.uk

By Barbara Walshe