Judi Dench turns 80 next month, but when it comes to her acting career, she has no plans on taking things easy, and she would rather people didn’t tell her too either. “I don’t want to be told I’m too old to try something,” she said, adding, “I want to see for myself if I can’t do it rather than be told you might have a fall or you can’t learn your lines. Let me have a go. Let us all have a go.”
Speaking at a screening of the BBC’s Esio Trot, the Radio Times reported Dench saying that her age is no impediment to her continuing to make movies or starring on television: “Age is a number. It’s something imposed on you … It drives me absolutely spare when people say, ‘Are you going to retire? Isn’t it time you put your feet up?’ Or tell me [my] age,” said the seven-time Oscar nominee.
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The Philomena star has battled failing eyesight recently but said she only worried about age once in her life. “The only time I got really upset was when I was 40, for some reason. I got really upset when I was 40, and I was all right after that. It’s that old thing: You are only as old as you feel. It’s not to do with age; it’s something to do with inside. It’s the engine.”
Esio Trot is a 90-minute adaptation of Roald Dahl‘s much-loved children’s book that will screen on BBC1 this Christmas. The TV film also stars Dustin Hoffman and is written by Richard Curtis.
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