page_title: Judi Dench
section_title: 2006–2010
hierarchical_section_title: Judi Dench / Career / 2006–2010
caption_attribution_description: English: Dame Judi Dench, arrival for the premiere of "Notes on a scandal", Berlinale palace, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin in 2007
context_page_description: Dame Judith Olivia Dench CH DBE FRSA is an English actress, artist, and author. Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years, she performed in several of Shakespeare's plays, in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Although most of her work during this period was in theatre, she also branched into film work and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer. She drew rave reviews for her leading role in the musical Cabaret in 1968.
  Over the next two decades, Dench established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She received critical acclaim for her work on television during this period, in the series A Fine Romance and As Time Goes By, in both of which she held starring roles. Her film appearances were infrequent, and included supporting roles in major films, such as A Room with a View, before she rose to international fame as M in GoldenEye, a role she continued to play in James Bond films until Spectre.
context_section_description: Dench, in her role as "M", was the only cast member carried through from the Brosnan films to appear in Casino Royale (2006), Martin Campbell's reboot of the James Bond film series, starring Daniel Craig in his debut performance as the fictional MI6 agent. The thriller received largely positive critical response, with reviewers highlighting Craig's performance and the reinvention of the character of Bond. It earned over US$594 million worldwide, ranking it among the highest-grossing James Bond films ever released. Also in April 2006, Dench returned to the West End stage in Hay Fever alongside Peter Bowles and Belinda Lang. She finished off 2006 with the role of Mistress Quickly in the RSC's new musical The Merry Wives, a version of The Merry Wives of Windsor.
  Dench appeared opposite Cate Blanchett as a London teacher with a dedicated fondness for vulnerable women in Richard Eyre's 2006 drama film Notes on a Scandal, an adaption from the 2003 novel of the same name by Zoë Heller. A fan of Heller's book, Dench "was thrilled to be asked to ... play that woman, to try to find a humanity in that dreadful person". The specialty film opened to generally positive reviews and commercial success, grossing US$50 million worldwide, exceeding its £15 million budget. In his review for Chicago Sun-Times, film critic Roger Ebert declared the main actresses "perhaps the most impressive acting duo in any film of 2006. Dench and Blanchett are magnificent." The following year, Dench earned her sixth Academy nomination and went on to win a BIFA Award and an Evening Standard Award. Dench, as Miss Matty Jenkyns, co-starred with Eileen Atkins, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton, and Francesca Annis in the BBC One five-part series Cranford. The first season of the series began transmission in November 2007.
  Dench became the voice for the narration for the updated Walt Disney World Epcot attraction Spaceship Earth in February 2008. The same month, she was named as the first official patron of the York Youth Mysteries 2008, a project to allow young people to explore the York Mystery Plays through dance, film-making and circus. Her only film of 2008 was Marc Forster's Quantum of Solace, the twenty-second Eon-produced James Bond film, in which she reprised her role as M along with Daniel Craig. A direct sequel to the 2006 film Casino Royale, Forster felt Dench was underused in the previous films, and wanted to make her part bigger, having her interact with Bond more. The project gathered generally mixed reviews by critics, who mainly felt that Quantum of Solace was not as impressive as the predecessor Casino Royale, but became another hit for the franchise with a worldwide gross of US$591 million. For her performance, Dench was nominated for a Saturn Award the following year.
  Dench returned to the West End in mid-2009, playing Madame de Montreuil in Yukio Mishima's play Madame de Sade, directed by Michael Grandage as part of the Donmar season at Wyndham's Theatre. The same year, she appeared in Sally Potter's experimental film Rage, a project that featured 14 actors playing fictional figures in and around the fashion world, giving monologues before a plain backdrop. Attracted to the fact that it was unlike anything she had done before, Dench welcomed the opportunity to work with Potter. "I like to do something that's not expected, or predictable. I had to learn to smoke a joint, and I set my trousers alight", she said about filming. Her next film was Rob Marshall's musical film Nine, based on Arthur Kopit's book for the 1982 musical of the same name, itself suggested by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½. Also starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, and Sophia Loren, she played Lilli La Fleur, an eccentric but motherly French costume designer, who performs the song "Folies Bergères" in the film. Despite mixed to negative reviews, Nine was nominated for four Academy Awards, and awarded both the Satellite Award for Best Film and Best Cast.
  Also in 2009, Dench reprised the role of Matilda Jenkyns in Return to Cranford, th
caption: Dench at the premiere of Notes on a Scandal in Berlin in 2007
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