Never too late to make another run for a role: Judi Dench in book excerpt with Brendan O’Hea

A career without guarantees

She remembers advice from Mikey: “Always behave as if it’s the last job you’ll ever do,” Dench says. She contrasts that approach with actors who weigh billing, money and the role in that order, or reject a job because their character does not deliver the play’s final line.

Listening for the story

Dench says she has never enjoyed reading scripts and prefers to hear a story from its director. When she met Stephen Frears to discuss the television drama Going Gently, they walked through Holland Park as he told her about it.

She also pays attention to a director’s grasp of the material and how they plan to tell it. Dench recalls the saying, “You can make a good script bad, but you can never make a bad script good,” and says actors should notice concerns when first hearing a story.

Work shaped by collaboration

For Dench, the central question is whether a story is worth telling and compelling enough for an audience. She also wants to know who she will be working with.

After enjoying John Madden’s direction on Mrs. Brown, Dench wrote to him asking to be considered for any future role, however small. Madden offered a part that involved crossing the back of a shot, and Dench went on to play Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love.