The 1985 movie masterpiece Judi Dench couldn’t be bothered watching: “I always am irritated”
Most actors have at least some familiarity with the movies ranked among the greatest ever made, but even though she was in it, Judi Dench never bothered to watch one of the finest British films of all time.
You can understand why she would have avoided it at first; she’d hardly be the first thespian who needs a bit of distance from their own work to sit back and enjoy it as an audience member, and with the amount of acclaim and accolades it was showered with, she’d have probably enjoyed it, too.
And yet, Dench has established herself as the anti-Samuel L Jackson. Obviously, those two don’t have a whole lot in common, other than their eternal fondness for turning the air blue, but whereas he loves catching a glimpse of himself on the big screen, she can’t bring herself to do it.
The Academy Award-winning veteran admitted that she’d been waiting on a call from Clint Eastwood her entire life, and when she finally got the chance to work with the Hollywood icon on J Edgar, the culmination of a 75-year journey, she didn’t even take the time to watch the finished article.
She’s always been that way, though, even when it comes to her finest work. To this day, it remains the best-reviewed feature of her entire career, which says something when her first film was released in 1964 and her most recent premiered in 2026, but even that’s not enough to change her mind.
“I don’t see myself on film,” she declared. “When I do, I’m terribly conscious of what I chose to do and not to do in a moment, and I always am irritated. I like to watch it quite a long time afterwards, when I have forgotten all the questions I had to ask myself in the moment, so I can look at it more dispassionately. I’ve never even seen A Room with a View.”
The definitive Merchant Ivory movie, A Room with a View boasts a high-calibre roster of Britain’s finest thespians, with Dench being joined by her lifelong friend Maggie Smith, as well as Helena Bonham Carter, Daniel Day-Lewis, Rupert Graves, and Simon Callow in one of those bespoke British period dramas that became so ubiquitous in the ’80s and ’90s they almost veered into self-parody.
This one didn’t, with the film winning Oscars for its screenplay, art direction, and costume design, not to mention an additional five nominations, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’. As far as big-screen period pieces go, it’s one of the finest examples you’ll ever see, not that Dench has ever seen it, despite having more than 40 years to get around to it.
The dame is happy to acknowledge that it takes a long time for her to bear the thought of watching anything from her back catalogue, but she’s missing out by avoiding A Room with a View, because it’s comfortably one of her best.
