Judi Dench.Photo:Karwai Tang/WireImage
Karwai Tang/WireImage
Judi Denchis telling ghost stories.
In a new interview with theSunday Times, the Oscar-winning actress, 88, revealed that she once saw a ghost at London’s historic Haymarket Theatre while attending a memorial service for actor Michael Denison, who died in 1998.
“It was in the afternoon! I saw somebody wearing top hat and tails running down the stairs and I thought, ‘What a funny getup!’ " she recalled of the apparent sighting.
Actor Brendan O’Hea — with whom she co-wrote her upcoming bookShakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rentabout her experiences doing theater—backedup her supernatural tale, saying he knows someone else who also claims to have seen the infamous “Haymarket Ghost.”
He explained to the outlet that an actress told him about a man who kept entering through a theater door — only, as someone pointed out, “There is no door.”
Upon reflection, Dench acknowledged that perhaps she had not seen an apparition. “It may not have been a ghost,” she told the outlet. “But I like the thought of them. Why on earth shouldn’t it happen?”
Dench also shared memories and anecdotes from her many star turns on the stage, portraying Shakespeare’s iconic characters including Juliet fromRomeo and Juliet.
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She recalled a time when her corset was laced so tightly that she fainted in the heat and another memorable performance in London when she dropped a cheeky note into the lap of a man seated in the audience who she thought was a friend of hers.
“I suppose a f—’s out of the question?” the note said. As it turned out, the man was a complete stranger.
Judi Dench attends the 2022 British Academy Film Awards Gala Dinner.Mike Marsland/WireImage
Mike Marsland/WireImage
Earlier this year, Dench opened up about a degenerative eye condition that is impacting her sight and making it difficult for her to read scripts and memorize her lines for acting roles.
“It has become impossible and because I have a photographic memory, I need to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines but also tells me where they appear on the page,” theBelfaststar said during a February appearance onThe Graham Norton Show.
“I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole ofTwelfth Nightright now.”
“You find a way of just getting about and getting over the things that you find very difficult,” Dench said at a 2021 event to benefit the Vision Foundation,The Guardianreported at the time. “I’ve had to find another way of learning lines and things, which is having great friends of mine repeat them to me over and over and over again. So I have to learn through repetition, and I just hope that people won’t notice too much if all the lines are completely hopeless!”
In light of her eyesight difficulties, Dench told theSunday Timesshe feels particularly grateful to have been able to finish a book — with O’Hea’s help. “How lucky I am,” she said of the tome, which is slated for U.S. publication in April 2024.
“I can’t see, but I have a book coming out, thanks to Brendan’s eyes and idea.”
source: people.com
