"but not yourself," Mary Colbert writes.
Most female screen actors of a certain age bemoan their diminishing work opportunities. Even the great Meryl Streep has said she's offered fewer interesting roles now that she is no longer "long and dewy-eyed". Evidently nobody has told Dame Judi Dench, whose career defies the trend.
With a brilliant classical stage career behind her, and after a handful of sporadic film support roles over the years, she burst on the movie scene in her first lead role, playing Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown, at the age of 62. She picked up an Oscar nomination for the role and then scored three more in quick succession for Chocolat, Iris and the statuette itself for Shakespeare in Love, ending the century with a double bang, by also nabbing her first Tony (in 1999) to add to a plethora of other accolades - Golden Globes, Baftas, Oliviers, honorary degrees and critics' awards.
But proof of her stature, extends well beyond trophy cabinets. In the UK, "Dencholatry" has gripped the nation, and a recent poll declared her the country's most respected celebrity, ahead of the monarch herself.
At 70, Dench has an adoring fan base defying national, social and age demographics. In a feminist (and anti-ageist) coup, she's a 007 heroine, not as a James Bond girl but his boss. She was innundated with flowers by one of Hollywood's most hip young action heroes,Vin Diesel, in a successful attempt to woo her as his co-star, the inter-galactic ambassador in The Chronicles of Riddick.
"He's charming and quite a hunk," giggles Dench. "I liked Pitch Black, the first film, so I thought I'd have a go at that."
She's relishing having a go at just about everything. Working with younger male co-stars? "Great fun, " she laughs." Bring them on!" Animation? Why not? She says of her role in Disney's Home on the Range, in which Dench is the voice of a cow, Mrs Calloway: "I love cows and she has such a British stiff upper lip about her and wears a charming hat, so who could resist that?"
Irresistible to her are not only lead roles such as Ursula Widdington, the elderly spinster yearning for romance in her latest release, Ladies in Lavender, but also many cameo and support parts such as Juliet's nurse in Gnomes and Juliet, Elton John's upcoming musical adaptation of the Shakespeare classic. Dench is on a roll, and she's having the time of her life.
In a narcissistic industry, Dench's craft-related practices are highly unorthodox. She doesn't watch the dailies - "I just wouldn't go back the next day" - or read scripts to select projects. For decades her husband, actor Michael Williams, was her advisor but since his death from cancer in 2001, her choices are guided by gut instinct.
"It pushes me to a kind of dangerous edge and there is something in me that needs that," she explains. "You have to elasticise yourself. I always try to make the next thing I do different from the last - and more frightening. I like variety, risk - and unsuitability."
Her penchant for plunging into new waters is offset by a safety valve in her choice of directors. So what have John Madden, Lasse Hallstrom, Richard Eyre, Franco Zeffirelli, Sam Mendes, Trevor Nunn, Howard Davies and now Charles Dance, have in common?
"I know they're going to steer me through perhaps a rough sea," she replies. "With them, I know that the person on the bridge is going to get through it. I absolutely and passionately need that."
Just as important is a sense of humour. "I don't want to work with anyone who can't laugh at themselves," is Dench's creed. "Taking the job seriously is important, but not yourself."
Ladies in Lavender is the directing debut of Dance (also its scriptwriter) and stars Dench's good friend Maggie Smith. As Dance explains, the story's appeal was "that it's about two women of a certain age exploring emotions that mainstream film-makers tend to assume are experienced only by 15 to 21-year-olds".
The film is based on William J Locke's short story, and Dench describes it as "a kind of adult fairy story" about two "dotty" elderly sisters, a spinster and widow, whose lives are turned upside down when they find an injured young Polish castaway washed up on the shore of their Cornwall village house.
Dench plays the unmarried Ursula Widdington, whose infatuation with the young man is romantically unrequited. "When it comes to men, my poor old character is completely clueless; she hasn't seen the light of day."
As for retirement, forget it. The future is crammed with projects, including another Bond film, a part as Catherine de Bourgh in a film version of Pride and Prejudice as well as co-starring with Liam Neeson and Miranda Richardson in The Assumption.
"Didn't Johnny Depp say this is a child's job?", Dench said recently. "I've never ceased to be grateful for the fact that I'm able to do a job I really love and run to do every time. But it would be nice to do a film with Jack Nicholson - before it's too late."
This interview appeared on the Stuff web site (New Zealand) on May 23, 2005.