Why dame judi dench

Her first Shakespearean role was as Ophelia at 18 straight from drama school. As a young girl she played an angel in one of the York Mystery Plays.

She was a very close friend of Robert Hardy and described his stage performance as Henry V in as "wonderful". Pictured with John Stride on one of a set of eight British commemorative postage stamps celebrating the th anniversary of The Old Vic Theatre, issued 30 August The stamp shows Dench and Stride in a performance of "Romeo and Juliet". Her husband, Michael, used to have a long stemmed red rose delivered to her every Friday. On leaving school went to art school to do theatre design but switched to a course at London's Central School of Drama.

At her first film audition she was told 'Miss Dench, you have every single thing wrong with your face'. She made he professional debut in Liverpool before going to the Old Vic in Florence was lovely, of course, and it's a wonderful love story. I did enjoy doing the part, because Maggie Smith and I were old friends from We both arrived in Florence on the same day and neither of us had any family with us, so we would spend all day together filming and then go out to dinner together, catching up on our Old Vic days.

But I didn't enjoy working with James Ivory. I didn't feel that I was on his wavelength and I didn't feel that he wanted me in the film, I have to say that. I remember doing that scene in the middle of the square where she goes mad and attacks the man selling postcards; James went to see the rushes and told me afterwards that everyone had laughed at it, they'd thought it was very funny.

I thought perhaps we'd turned the corner but, when I came to post-sync the film, that scene was missing.

When I asked why, he told me that Helena Bonham Carter hadn't been feeling up to it that day, so he'd cut the whole sequence.

I don't know if that was the real reason he cut it - I just don't know. I hate how people have been attacking Daniel Craig. It's despicable and it disgusts me. I have filmed with him in Prague and the Bahamas and he is a fine actor. He brings something new and edgy to the role. His critics will be proved wrong. And then it was working with Bob Hoskins , who I had never worked with before - except radio.

It was like being given a wonderful meal - full of the things you love most. I don't like reading scripts very much. I like it better for someone to just explain to me what it is about this story. I don't think anybody can be told how to act. I think you can give advice. But you have to find your own way through it. The best moment of playing [ William Shakespeare 's] Juliet is the nanosecond when they offer you the part. On plastic surgery: I've considered it, but I'm too old now.

Every time I go to America I wonder if there is some process where it could all be sucked out and I could be out of there in time for dinner, but I'm frightened it would all drop off under the anaesthetic.

Of course I have a temper. Who hasn't? And the older I get the more angry I get about things. It's not sudden anger, it smoulders and then if I really let it go on for a bit the shit hits the fan. I get very angry about general injustice. I get angry about the way people say 'Tomorrow X will make a speech about X'.

Just let them say it. I get furious about the whole business of not allowing conkers in school, and banning things because they are supposedly dangerous.

I am riveted by the current Iraq inquiry, though angry already because I feel it will end with a report and nobody's actually going to be arraigned for what happened. Young actors go into a run and don't do all the performances.

That would have been unheard of at one time. I know I can sustain a run because of my training. I mourn that there are so many repertory companies that aren't around any more. I don't want the arts to take the form of a reality programme.

I heard somebody say the other day that it is good if people can bring drink and food into a theatre and get up and go if they don't like the play. Well, yes, go out if you don't like it, but where do you draw the line?

They tell people not to take pictures of us on stage but when you look up you see red lights twinkling at you. When you go abroad people always talk with such love about British theatre, but the irony is it's not appreciated by the Government as it should be. The state of the arts has always been, and will always be, precarious. But there is something so alarming about the huge cuts made to companies, particularly when you read of the astronomical amounts some people are earning.

Being fulfilled is closing the drawer again and I don't want to do that just yet. I'd bore myself silly. I wouldn't learn anything new. I'd just sit around and I hate wasting time. I hate waste of any kind. I love quiz programmes. I am riveted by The Weakest Link but I'd be too terrified to appear on it. I've loved living in the same house, in the same grounds with my family. Sammy grandson was 4 when Michael died and he does look extraordinarily like him sometimes.

I don't expect you ever get over that. Time changes something, I suppose, but you miss the basic things. Michael was a realist, down to earth, a Lancashire man. I'm a Yorkshire woman and so that was pretty volatile, I suppose. He was Cancerian, I'm Sagittarian. He would say: 'I'm always rushing for the dark, you're always rushing for the light. If we hold in the middle, there's a kind of balance'. Once, a long time ago, I read some bad reviews and I made the decision not to read the reviews.

You get some critics who don't like you, or the play. But they don't have to do it every night. Emily Strachan. Faustus Part 1: A Deed of Gift Good Angel. Hilda Lessways. Hide Show Music department 1 credit.

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But it was another royal performance, this time as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love , that proved Oscar-worthy. Despite an on-screen time totaling just eight minutes, Dench's performance was so dazzling she walked away with the Best Supporting Actress Award. She also delivered a moving performance as the titular character of Philomena , based on the book about a mother's search for a son given up to adoption. Dench's approach to her work is unusual. She famously doesn't read parts before accepting them, choosing instead to rely on the word of her friends and colleagues to help her make a decision.

With her stage work, she often comes to rehearsals not having read the entire play. It's hard to argue with the results.

Over the course of her career, Dench has been recognized like few other actors. Along with her Oscar, she's received a total of seven Academy Award nominations. Dench married actor Michael Williams in The couple worked several times together, including in the British television series, A Fine Romance , and the film Tea with Mussolini. The two remained together until Michael's death from cancer in Dench and Williams had one child together, the actress Finty Williams.

Despite being diagnosed with macular degeneration and undergoing knee surgery in recent years, Dench continues to devote herself to her craft and draw rave reviews as one of the most celebrated actresses of her generation. We strive for accuracy and fairness.