The glowing praise Judi Dench refused to accept: “He’s talking through a hole in his arse”
In a profession built around basking in the warm glow of audiences, critics, and the people who decide who gets the shiny trophies to take home every awards season, praise is usually something actors thrive on. Unless that person is Judi Dench, in which case she’ll tell one of her peers to shove it.
Not just any of her peers, either, but an old friend and former co-star who’s every bit the Shakespearean savant that she is. One peek at Dench’s trophy collection is enough to let anyone know that she’s one of the all-time greats, but she’s always found admiration and fawning a difficult thing to stomach.
That’s on-brand, though, since she’s also shown herself to be someone who takes no prisoners. As seriously as the Academy Award-winning veteran takes her work, she’s always had that mischievous twinkle in her eyes, whether she’s using it to terrorise her colleagues or stand her ground.
Not to sound too harsh, but since she’s old, small, and beloved, Dench was inevitably going to be elevated into the pantheon of actors that people inside and outside of the industry talk about in hushed whispers, with her decades-long career making her a diminutive deity in the eyes of the cinema and theatregoing public.
After all, it was statistically proven that whenever she’s caught swearing in a movie, people will genuinely lodge a complaint, because they don’t like hearing blue language coming out of her mouth, which makes you wonder how they would have felt if they’d been present when she accidentally asked a complete stranger if they fancied a shag.
Kate Winslet, herself a generational talent and one of the modern age’s most decorated performers, played different versions of the same character in 2001’s Iris, but for the chance to share even a single scene together, the Titanic alum said she “would work with Judi if I had to be a tea lady hovering in the back of frame.”
Ian McKellen, no stranger to Shakespeare and also a storied veteran of stage and screen, once remarked that “one of the great joys of being alive in England in the 21st century is being around when Judi Dench is.” More than that, he said that regardless of who she’s playing in whatever she’s starring in, audiences are instantly enamoured.
That didn’t sit too well with the dame, though, who utterly relished the chance to sink her teeth into a villainous character in Notes on a Scandal, to such an extent that she called the part “absolute bliss” and would love nothing more than to break bad again. Unfortunately, since she’s Judi Dench, those offers haven’t been forthcoming in the years since.
What did Dench make of McKellen’s comments describing her as the most unanimously adored thespian in the United Kingdom? “Crap!” she informed The Guardian. “Crap. He’s talking through a hole in his arse.” That settles it, then, and let it be a warning to anyone out there who plans on doing the same thing: if you suggest that everyone loves Judi Dench without fail, she’ll accuse you of literally talking shite.
