Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? by Judi Dench review – whatever you do, don’t call her a ‘national treasure’

The actor waxes lyrical on directors, dildos on why she hates being referred to as though she’s a dusty old relic

In the late 1950s, Judi Dench was invited to meet a major Hollywood producer about a possible career in the film business. The producer looked at her for a long time and said: “Very nice to meet you but you’ll never make a movie because you have every single thing wrong with your face.” As she left his office, Dench – who was 23 and about to make her professional debut as Ophelia in Hamlet at the Old Vic – breathed a sigh of relief and resolved to concentrate on theatre. Though she dabbled in film and TV, it wasn’t until the 1990s that she became a bona fide movie star, playing M in the Bond films and winning an Oscar for her portrayal of Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love. Yet, she notes: “Being onstage is where I feel safest. Yes, I’ve appeared in films, but I’d never consider myself a film actor.”

Dench’s reflections on her working life form the backbone of Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?, a memoir built around her conversations with the actor and theatre director Brendan O’Hea, Dench’s friend with whom she also collaborated on 2023’s Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent. This book confirms much of what is already known about Dench: that she is impishly funny, swears like a sailor, and that, despite that film producer’s unkind comments, she has “no hang-ups about what I look like on camera … Acting for me is not about looking glamorous. It’s whatever’s needed for the story.” We also learn that Dench, who is 91, can’t resist a prank: while playing Brecht’s Mother Courage at the Barbican in London, she replaced the drinks her character serves to two soldiers with cider vinegar – “It was a joy watching them knock it back, made even more glorious by the fact they had to ask for a top-up.”

In keeping with her previous book, this one is delivered in a question-and‑answer format. The chapters are thematic and cover faith, animals, directors and directing, comedy, choosing a part, which means the chronology is all over the place. While the book starts quite reasonably with Dench’s early life in York as the daughter of a GP, it ends, oddly, with a chapter called Starting Out, in which we learn what she did after her A-levels. And while she has an easy chemistry with O’Hea, there are times when his line of questioning gets tediously granular, as in: “What’s your favourite dressing room?” Such are the perils of having an actor interview an actor.

But despite the shoptalk and the haphazard structure, there are enough witty anecdotes and oddball facts to keep it clipping along. We learn that Dench has a waste-collection truck named after her: “Dame Foodie Dench”; that she had a cat called Bernard the Duck Fucker (though O’Hea neglects to ask how he earned his name); and that, on the opening night of Madame de Sade, Dench’s co-star Frances Barber gave her a double-ended, bendy dildo which she wore as a scarf when the company gathered for director’s notes. Elsewhere, Dench pays touching tribute to departed friends including the late Maggie Smith, whom she says was “a very complex person – intensely private, and I suspect quite lonely at times; she’d occasionally erect an electric fence around herself”.

The whole project is kept afloat by Dench’s rare humour and warmth which long ago elevated her to national treasure status (an appellation she loathes as it makes her sound “like a dusty old relic”). Her eyesight is now poor, but her memories are pin-sharp, relayed through a prism of amused self-deprecation and passion for her job. The book’s title references Dench’s professional nerves, which lead her to keep her bag by the rehearsal room door in case she is compelled to do a runner. Learning lines may have become more difficult, but she has no intention of stopping work. “Take the keys out of the ignition and the car will conk out,” she cautions. “Don’t retire, do not go gentle, and don’t even think about going quietly.”