Judi Dench's memoir "Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?" reveals the actor's reflections on a long career shaped largely by theatre, despite her later success in film. In conversations with theatre director Brendan O'Hea, Dench recalls being told by a Hollywood producer in the late 1950s that she would never make movies because of her face. The rejection led her to focus on stage work at the Old Vic, where she was about to debut as Ophelia in Hamlet at age 23.
Dench did not become a major film star until the 1990s, when she played M in the Bond films and won an Oscar for her role as Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare in Love." She describes acting as something divorced from glamour. "Acting for me is not about looking glamorous," she says. "It's whatever's needed for the story."
Now 91, Dench emphasises that she feels safest performing onstage and would not consider herself primarily a film actor. The memoir also captures her irreverent humour. While playing Mother Courage at the Barbican in London, she replaced the stage drinks her character served to soldiers with cider vinegar and described watching them drink it as "a joy."