SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Yes, Judi Dench needs no introduction, but it's irresistible. She's won an Oscar, BAFTA Awards, Olivier Awards, Golden Globes. She's been declared a dame and had a waste-collection truck named after her - Dame Foodie Dench. She's made her debut as Ophelia in "Hamlet" with the Old Vic Company in 1957 and has since played Queen Victoria...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE")
JUDI DENCH: (As Queen Victoria) But I know something of a woman in a man's profession. Yes, by God, I do know about that.
SIMON: ...In "Shakespeare In Love" and sang of love lost in "A Little Night Music."
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC")
DENCH: (As Desiree Armfeldt, singing) Isn't it rich? Are we a pair? Me here at last on the ground. You in midair. Send in the clowns.
SIMON: Oh, that was so beautiful. Dame Judi has produced a memoir now in conversation with Brendan O'Hea of her great turns onstage and screen and pranks behind it - "Is It Too Late to Make A Run for It?" And both join us from Surrey in the U.K. Thank you so much for being with us.
BRENDAN O'HEA: Pleasure.
DENCH: Thank you.
SIMON: Dame Judi, you still seem a bit affronted by the fact that you weren't cast as the Virgin Mary in a grade school play.
DENCH: Yes, that's quite true. We were very young. My friend Angela Bedford (ph) got the part of the Virgin Mary, and they said to me, you, Judi, will be playing a fairy. And I thought, that's not a part in the nativity play. You know, I'd prefer to have been an angel. But it wasn't to happen.
SIMON: You're known for pulling pranks on set.
DENCH: No. Did I?
O'HEA: Wasn't there a bit in "Mother Courage," where two soldiers had to buy a drink of you, and they had to give you a coin? And on the last matinee, instead of saying, there's the money, they said, American Express. And without a pause, you said, thank you. That'll do nicely. And then to get your revenge in the evening, you put cider vinegar in their drinks. Well, I mean, this book is a hatchet job on Judi, as no doubt you've worked out, Scott.
SIMON: Oh, my. May I ask you about Mikey? You were married to Michael Williams, the British actor, for 30 years. And in this book, you say, I am who I am because of Mikey.
DENCH: Yes. If any of us can say that we've had a wonderfully happy marriage, I think we're so lucky. And we only had Fint, but we thought that can't get better than that. So we just had one daughter.
SIMON: Well, what was your relationship like? Can you bring us inside a bit? How did you help each other?
DENCH: We worked a lot together, which is very nice.
SIMON: They made you laugh onstage?
DENCH: Yes, I'm afraid we did (laughter). Well, we did "The Merchant Of Venice" at Stratford together, and Mikey played Bassanio and I played Portia. And we hadn't been long married. And one night, we got to this point in the play, and I got one of the lines wrong in my address to him. And the Stratford wind band was standing to the left waiting to play. And I said to Mikey, I speak too long, but 'tis to peize the time, to eke it, and to draw it out in length, to stay you from erection. And the line, of course, is...
O'HEA: ...Election. Election.
DENCH: How terrible that I forgot that. Election.
O'HEA: Oh, my.
DENCH: The wind band put their instruments down on the table on the stage and left. I can't believe there haven't been pages written about it.
SIMON: Tell us about playing M in the James Bond franchise. There's a story in the book about Daniel Craig driving you around London late at night in an Aston Martin when you were playing M.
DENCH: He did. And they made the lights...
SIMON: My gosh. What a...
DENCH: The lights turned green.
SIMON: So you never had to stop?
DENCH: No, 'cause the lights turned green as we got up to them. It was very - it was, like, 4 or 5 in the morning. But it was thrilling. And my birthday was the next day.
SIMON: What is it like to be onstage? Not just the center of attention, but the center of a kind of - you know how people view you kind of in a worshipful light.
DENCH: I don't think you're ever sure of that. Ian McKellen was walking by one day, and he heard two people go by, and they said, Judi Dench in a musical? No one will go to see that, dear. No one, he said (laughter). And I've always thought about it. You're only as good as you are that evening.
SIMON: What do you think theater can put into our lives today?
DENCH: I think you're very, very lucky if that's introduced to you when you're very young. I was brought up in a family that was - that's the kind of life that we had of always reciting things and learning things. And, you know, that's great preparation to be an actor. I can remember reams of Shakespeare, but not much else.
SIMON: Could we get you? I - this is a big ask, as they say. Could you favor us with some of your favorite lines from Shakespeare? I was thinking Sonnet 29 - fortune in men's eyes.
DENCH: Yes, I can do that. (Reciting) When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state. And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, and look upon myself and curse my fate. Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, featured like him, like him with friends possessed, desiring this man's art and that man's scope. With what I most enjoy contented least, yet in these thoughts myself almost despising. Haply, I think on thee, and then my state - like to the lark at break of day arising from sullen earth sings hymns at heaven's gate. For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, that then I scorn to change my state with kings.
SIMON: Oh, my. I can't thank you enough. Dame Judi Dench, her new memoir, "Is It Too Late To Make A Run For It?" Dame Judi and Brendan, thank you so much for being with us.
DENCH: Thank you.
O'HEA: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
