The lady herself says one thing, her agent quite another, as the speculation of whether Dame Judi Dench has read her final movie or TV script intensifies. Whatever the truth is, retired or not, this icon of British drama has seven decades of exemplary work to look back on.
They say the eyes are the window to a person’s soul, and if this is the case then Dame Judi Dench is, in spirit at least, as youthful, ebullient and joyous as ever.
Yet, while the soul is willing, the body is less so, and Dench’s astonishing career may have come to an end, if a quote to a journalist at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show back in May is to be believed.
“Ultimately there’s not much you can do when your body starts failing you,” she says, finally succumbing to deteriorating eyesight, having first been diagnosed with macular degeneration in 2012. “I started getting scripts in a much bigger font than anyone else and, at first, I found it utterly ridiculous.
“However, I accepted after a while that this was the reality and I would just have to adapt to this new change in my life. At my age, when things alter they are very rarely temporary… they seldom go back to how they were before!”
Retirement would be a huge loss to the industry – after all, the brilliant 89-year-old can boast one Academy Award, six BAFTAs, two Golden Globes, seven Laurence Olivier Awards, two Screen Actor Guild Awards and a Tony.
“I’ve always been employed, yet always been fearful that the next job isn’t going to come,” she admits. “Trevor Nunn once came to wish me luck on the first night of something or other, and said, ‘Why are you always in tears on opening night?’. I replied, ‘It’s because I never think I’m going to be employed again.’
“And although it’s been quite a jokey, light-hearted thing to say, in the depths of me I always had that fear. Perhaps it’s very healthy to be like that.”
For those of us who grew up watching Dench onscreen during the nineties, the impression of her is as a serious and stern matron. For all the mirth in Shakespeare in Love, Dench’s Queen Elizabeth I is not amusing – in fact, she terrifies. And her portrayal of MI6’s head honcho doesn’t inspire warm and fuzzy feelings either.
The real Dame is, arguably, more akin to Evelyn, the warm-hearted widow in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
“Treat as you want to be treated,” says the loveable, powerful icon. “It’s an industry you can’t take too seriously. As soon as you do that, you’ve missed the point!”
