Judi Dench Celebrates Her 88th Birthday, and Here Are 5 Facts We Didn’t Know About Her

Judi Dench is one of the UK’s most popular and celebrated actors, and even after more than 65 active years in the industry, she doesn’t seem to be slowing down. To commemorate Dench’s birthday when she turns 88, we decided to discover some things about her that we didn’t know.

She can no longer read or write due to age-related macular degeneration.

AMD is a degenerative eye condition that, in time, can lead to total blindness. Dench’s condition worsens daily, but she doesn’t want that to stop her from acting. She revealed that in the future, she is going to learn the lines with the help of her photographic memory.

Dench has never had plastic surgery, nor does she plan to.

As it turns out, Dench prefers to see out her senior years naturally and gracefully. In one interview, she revealed that she once considered plastic surgery but thinks it’s too late now, as she is “too old.” The actress explained, “I wonder if there is some process where it could all be sucked out, and I could be out of there in time for dinner, but I’m frightened it would all drop off under the anesthetic.”

Her first acting role was portraying a snail.

At age 5, Dench was cast to play a snail in a school play. All she had to do was crawl across the stage under an enormous shell her father had made for her. Even though it was simple, she actually didn’t manage to do it right. When her parents came to the stage, she stood up and revealed herself under the costume, which made the audience remind her to continue crawling.

Dench’s success came later in life.

When Dench was in her early fifties, in an interview, she was asked why she didn’t act in many films, and she revealed that it was because she wasn’t asked to do many because “it’s not what they want to look at.” She explained further, “Sometimes, about films, if you don’t go in looking like the person you are meant to look like in the film, people don’t cast you in that part. Whereas in the theater, you can fill a lot of people a lot of the time.”

Later, she got many more movie roles and received all 7 of her Academy Award nominations after the age of 60.

She regrets not having more children.

In an interview, Dench revealed that she wanted to have at least 6 children, but that didn’t happen for her. “I wanted a house full of them. I would have loved to have had that. But it didn’t happen. I didn’t get married until I was 36, so I left it a bit late,” she revealed.

She and her husband also considered adopting, but the adoption agencies didn’t let them because they were over 40. However, Dench is happy to have her daughter, Finty, and her grandson, Sam.

Do you know other lesser-known facts about Judi Dench?