Tattoo for Weinstein and the Fear of the Dark: Unexpected Facts About Actress Judi Dench

Not many people know that Dench has a tattoo associated with controversial producer Harvey Weinstein. It is the inscription “JD loves HW” (“DD loves HW”) and a tattooed heart on the buttocks! The tattoo was made in gratitude for the fact that he helped her become the star of many famous films – from “Chocolate” to “Shakespeare in Love” (for the latter she received an Oscar).

Dench remembers how she showed it to Vaishtein: “We went to dinner, there were still a few people… And I showed her the inscription! I have never seen a more surprised face than he had then.

After the scandal broke, Dench said, “I won’t deny that Harvey Weinstein helped me in my career, but I didn’t know anything about those sex scandals! It’s terrible, and I sympathize with all the victims and fully support anyone who hasn’t been afraid to speak up about it. She also said that Harvey had never assaulted her. Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Judi Dench has been married for 30 years – more than many famous actors. He and actor Michael Williams married in 1971, and in 2001 he died of cancer: “Everyone who lives in a happy marriage feels pretty much the same. I was very lucky: we have known each other for 39 years, and 30 of them are married. And now that he’s dead, I understand that without him it’s very bad.

Interestingly, Williams sent Judy a red rose every Friday, wherever his wife was at the time. Very romantic!

“All his life he was ‘Mister Judi Dench’, remembers the actress. – It’s hard for men to accept that, but he succeeded. He was a great actor.”

Dench has dealt with heartbreak, but her daughter Finty Williams has not. She started drinking heavily and two weeks after the funeral Judy sent her for compulsory treatment. Finty, who also became an actress, is forever grateful to her.

A few years after the death of her husband, in 2010, Dench met a new man – David Mills. It was a biologist who invited Judi Dench to his ornithological center, where they began to communicate.

But she never married him: “I immediately said – no proposals! Let’s meet and recognize our advanced age… He’s my close friend, I don’t like the word “partner”. A partner is for dancing.

Judi Dench has been afraid of worms since childhood: “As a child, I found a worm in my shoe and since then I can’t even look at them. I’m okay with snakes, but not with worms.” His phobia is so strong that Dench doesn’t even garden. It’s hard to believe that the Oscar-winning actor and one of the best interpreters of roles in Shakespeare’s plays almost never goes out in the garden!

Moreover, she is afraid of the dark and never goes to the cinema, because there she is seized with claustrophobia. Not very practical if you are an actress!

In 2012, the actress was diagnosed with macular degeneration, a progressive loss of vision. Here’s what she says about it: “It’s not blindness that comes in an instant. Everything happens gradually. And then people start asking sympathetically, “How are you?” “And I understand that the disease progresses.”

Dench no longer always recognizes acquaintances: “It’s terrible! I can walk past a well-known person and not notice them. Now the actress recognizes people at a distance of 15-20 centimeters: “I approach very close, very, in a handshake. We must seek the middle ground in everything.

Judy takes each role very seriously – like the last one. In 1976, she starred in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, and on the day of the premiere, the director found her sobbing. When asked what happened, Dench replied, “I’m afraid no one else is calling me to play!” This, of course, did not happen.

She likes to take on new roles. It may seem that the actress only chooses glamorous characters, but this is not the case. In 2009, she played in the action film Fury with Jude Law and Steve Buscemi: “I love doing something unexpected and unpredictable. On set, I had to learn to smoke weed and nearly set my clothes on fire! I have never smoked.”

In ordinary life, the 85-year-old actress is also learning new things: “I don’t like to sit still. I recently learned how to sculpt soap figures. I don’t know how to cook at all, so I taken a cooking class. It’s important to keep learning.”

Judi Dench recalls the start of her film career with mixed feelings: “I was told that I would never enter the cinema.” In those years she was playing in the theater, and a director said that her face was not suitable for the cinema: “He said, they say, thank you very much, but I don’t think I’ll see you in the screen .”

Lack of self-confidence haunted the actress for many years: “I knew something was wrong with me, I didn’t need confirmation. I wanted to be taller and have long legs.”

Recently, in an interview, Dench said that if someone had told her in 1968 that she would play dozens of interesting roles in movies, she simply wouldn’t have believed it! In addition, she always liked theater more: “You can play theater today and think that you can improve by acting tomorrow. The cinema does not offer such an opportunity.

One of Dench’s final film credits is an adaptation of the musical Cats. The actress has not seen the final version: “I only know what I look like there myself.” The costume reminded Judy of the cat she once had: “I really enjoyed playing adult cat, even though my character is originally a cat.”

The actress will not stop filming, despite her advanced age: “People ask me when I will retire. It is not accepted in our family. In retirement, people do what they have always wanted do, but for some reason they couldn’t. And I love my job. I don’t know what I’ll do without her.”

In 2020 Judy starred in the films Artemis Fowl and Six Minutes to Midnight, in 2021 in The Ex-Departed, the film Belfast is in the works for release and then a few more. She really never gets bored!