DAME JUDI ON NAKED SWIMS
ACTING royalty Dame Judi Dench is more than happy to bare her soul – and quite a bit more, it seems.
In a revealing new chat, the 86-year-old star of stage and screen says she loves nothing more than stripping off and swimming in the buff.
Judi has a pool at her Surrey home and takes the plunge whenever she can.
She tells how she first enjoyed naked dips when she starred opposite Jeremy Irons in the 1978 adaptation of Aidan Higgins’ novel Langrishe, Go Down – where Jeremy licked cream off her chest.
When asked if she is a nudist, Judi says: “Well I do know the feeling of taking all your clothes off is just heaven isn’t it?
“I had to do it in a film in a passionate scene with Jeremy Irons where she puts cream on her nipples and he licks it off and after we did the scene, we came out and it was teatime and the caterers had made meringues.
“That was very, very nice for us. Swimming naked is very good.
“I do that because we are lucky as we have a pool and you can quite happily do it sometimes if somebody isn’t going to come around suddenly.
“I don’t want to be caught at it.”
SURPRISED
But then Judi – who also talks about her vision of the afterlife – has been partial to nudity during her career.
In 2016, stills emerged which showed there were two Bottoms in the 1968 film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Shakespeare’s character Nick and Judi’s bare backside!
The actress was playing Titania, alongside House of Cards star Ian Richardson as Oberon, Diana Rigg as Helena and Helen Mirren as Hermia.
Then in 2017 Judi told how she was “quite surprised” to find herself standing naked from the waist down in front of Sir Kenneth Branagh – following a backstage wardrobe mishap.
The pair were performing in the West End in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and Branagh went to Judi’s dressing room to talk about their new film Murder on the Orient Express.
They continued the chat as they headed to the stage.
But Judi had forgotten something...
Branagh recalled: “We are still chatting in the wings and with 30 seconds to go she throws off her dressing gown and there is nothing on below the waist!
“I had the briefest of looks, but I can confirm, like the song, ‘there is nothing like a dame’!”
Judi made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. She established herself as a leading performer with the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
TV fame followed with hit sitcoms A Fine Romance – opposite her late husband Michael Williams – and As Time Goes By, with Geoffrey Palmer.
A seven-time Academy Award nominee, Judi won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998). Her other Oscar-nominated roles included the 1997 movie Mrs Brown, in which she plays
Queen Victoria, with Billy Connolly as trusted servant John Brown, and the 2001 movie Iris, about author Iris Murdoch and her Alzheimer’s.
Despite her success, Judi admits acting is never easy. She continues: “It can be gloriously good fun or fiendishly difficult.
“And on stage, it’s never ever the same. There’s no such thing of saying, ‘this is a terrible audience’ – you are probably giving a terrible performance. When I played Cleopatra at the National there was a line that was meant to be a laugh and I tried, tried and tried and on the 100th performance, which was our last performance I got the laugh and I thought, ‘oh well thank goodness I can have a lie down now’.”
Judi says playing 007’s boss M in GoldenEye was a “huge responsibility” for both her and then James Bond star Pierce Brosnan.
She explains: “It was very exciting and we had good fun doing it. What a great part to be asked to play.”
Bond fans still mourn her passing after seven appearances as M – ending when she was bumped off in Skyfall.
Not that she would be short of future acting roles, of course. All’s Well That Ends Well on that front – and after a magical 64-year career there isn’t much left on Dame Judi’s bucket list.
But she admits she is looking forward to having fun in the afterlife.
Speaking on Esther Ranzen’s podcast, she says: “I hope it’s busy and full of people I know. Perhaps they all have drinks and are laughing and talking and do they have theatre? I would take my address book [to the afterlife] and then I can say, ‘hey we are having a ball, don’t be frightened, don’t be afraid’.”
I hope the afterlife is busy, full of folk I know with drinks and laughs JUDI DENCH REVEALING HER HOPES FOR PARADISE