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 Dench, who won an Oscar for her role in
"Shakespeare in Love" and was nominated for Academy Awards six
other times, said unlike in theater, where you can adjust with
each performance, in films you get only one chance.
"It’s always challenging, I am always frightened, always
frightened," the 82-year-old actress told Reuters in an
interview. "I get more frightened the older I get.
"It’s like having a huge bank of buttons and you chose to press
so many in order to do what the writer and director wants you to
do, and then when you see it, you think 'oh no, I could have
done that better!'."
Dench began her career in theater, followed by numerous TV
roles, but still recalls how during a film audition she was told
she would never make a movie "because you have everything wrong
with your face".
But the turning-point came in 1997 when she was cast as Queen
Victoria in "Mrs Brown", the first time she played the late
British monarch. She stepped back into the queen's shoes for
"Victoria & Abdul", which screened in the out-of-competition
section in Venice.
"It's like coming back to meet an old friend," she said.
While "Mrs Brown" explored Queen Victoria's relationship with
her servant John Brown, Stephen Frears' new comedy drama is
based on her subsequent unlikely friendship with Indian clerk
Abdul Kazim who was sent to England to present her with a gold
coin.
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Kazim was only due to visit Britain briefly but Victoria took a
shine to him and asked him to stay on and be her teacher. In the end
Kazim served Victoria until the end of her reign.
Coming to London to shoot the film was the first time Indian actor
Ali Fazal, who stars as Kazim, visited the British capital, and the
first time he met Dench, "who is pretty much royalty amongst
actors", the 30-year-old actor said.
"It was a sort of parallel, going along with the film: I like to
think I gained a wonderful friend," he said.
Asked whether she would ever want to be royalty, Dench shook her
head.
"No, certainly not, I can’t think of anything worse," she said,
although she added that the royal family was doing a "phenomenal
job", especially given it was not something they had chosen, but
"just the job you're born with".
The festival ends on Sept. 9.
(Writing by Agnieszka Flak, editing by Ed Osmond)
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