Dame Judi Dench is still feisty in her old age and says she’d love to die in a theater dressing room after a performance.
When asked whether she liked being called a “national treasure,” the legendary actress snapped back.
“Loathe it,” Dench, 91, exclaimed in an interview with The Times. “Makes me sound like a dusty old relic that’s been stuffed away in the back of the cupboard, along with some dinosaur fossils and a broken Roman shield.”
The Oscar winner could only think of one benefit that comes with aging.
“They give you a dressing room nearer the stage. Otherwise, forget it,” she noted. “And you have to contend with people asking, ‘When are you going to retire?’ or, ‘Isn’t it about time you put your feet up?’ No, it bloody well isn’t.”
Dench added she’d like to “banish” words like “retire,” “vintage” and “old.”
“I want to be like Newton Blick, who died in his dressing room after a performance,” the “Shakespeare in Love” actress shared. “I want to be one of those women who throw themselves out of planes when they’re 100.”
Dench has continued working despite having the same eye condition as her mother, macular degeneration, which causes vision loss.
The “Belfast” star explained that she copes by “relying on other people” and often pretending that she can see properly.
“I’m quite good at acting as if I can see,” she explained. “But then people think I’m cutting them dead when I don’t smile or recognize them.”
Dench, who much prefers stage acting to appearing on film, did enjoy playing M in eight James Bond movies over 20 years.
“I loved playing M because it was great to be able to tell all those men where to get off; put them in their place,” she revealed. “You’re a sexist, misogynist dinosaur,” she says to Pierce Brosnan at their first meeting.
“I was drunk with power. I also got to wear some very nice suits and pretend I knew what I was talking about and to muck about with gadgets when, in real life, I can’t even work the ironing board.”
Dench shut down reports that she wept upon hearing she would be replaced in the franchise.
“Of course I didn’t cry,” she exclaimed. “Why on earth would I cry after 20 glorious years and eight Bond films? Which, by the way, is one more than Roger Moore, the longest-running 007 to date.”
Her only quibble was that her character had to “suffer the indignity of being sacked by Ralph Fiennes” before being shot.
Dench has a memoir, “Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?” coming out in November.
