Judi Dench tells ghost stories.
In a new interview for Sunday TimesThe Oscar-winning actress, 88, revealed she once saw a ghost at London’s historic Haymarket Theater while attending a memorial service for actor Michael Denison, who died in 1998.
“It was in the afternoon! I saw someone in a top hat and tails running down the stairs and I thought, ‘What a ridiculous dress-up!’ ” she recalled the obvious sighting.
Actor Brendan O’Hea — with whom she wrote her upcoming book Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent about his experiences in the theater — supported told his supernatural story, saying he knows someone who also claims to have seen the infamous “Haymarket Ghost”.
He explained to the paper that an actress had told him about a man who kept coming through the doors of the theater — only, as someone pointed out, “There’s no door.”
Dame Judi Dench turns 88! Celebrate with these glamorous throwback photos
On reflection, Dench admitted that she might not have seen the apparition. “Maybe it wasn’t a ghost,” she told the newspaper. “But I like the thought of them. Why on earth wouldn’t that happen?”
Dench also shared memories and anecdotes from her many stars on stage, portraying Shakespeare’s iconic characters, including Juliet from Romeo and Juliet.
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She recalled the time her corset was laced so tightly that she passed out in the heat and another memorable performance in London when she dropped a cheeky message into the lap of a man sitting in the audience who she thought was her friend.
“I suppose p— is 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.
Mike Marsland/WireImage
Judi Dench says it ‘became impossible’ to act amid vision loss: ‘I have a photographic memory’
Earlier this year, Dench opened up about a degenerative eye condition that affects her vision and makes it difficult for her to read scripts and remember her lines for acting roles.
“It became impossible, and since I have a photographic memory, I have to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines, but tells me where they appear on the page,” Belfast the star said during a February appearance on The Graham Norton Show.
“I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do anything Twelfth night now.”
She previously spoke about her eye condition, which is caused by age-related macular degeneration, in 2021, saying she had to adapt and find new ways of doing things.
“You find a way to just get by and get over things that you find very difficult,” Dench said at the 2021 event to benefit the Vision Foundation, Guard reported at the time. “I had to find another way to learn lines and stuff, which is to have my good friends repeat it to me over and over again. So I have to learn through repetition and I just hope people don’t notice too much if all the lines are completely hopeless!”
In light of her vision difficulties, Dench said Sunday Times she feels especially grateful that she was able to finish the book – with O’Hea’s help. “I’m just so lucky,” she said of the book, which is slated for an April 2024 release in the US.
“I can’t see, but I have a book coming out, thanks to Brendan’s eyes and idea.”
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Source: HIS Education