GERMANY: Dame Judi Dench promotes her latest film "Notes on a Scandal" at the Berlin Film Festival /Says surgery will force her to miss this years Oscars ceremony

Record ID: 731063

  • Title: GERMANY: Dame Judi Dench promotes her latest film "Notes on a Scandal" at the Berlin Film Festival /Says surgery will force her to miss this years Oscars ceremony
  • Date: 13th February 2007
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS DAME JUDI DENCH SAYING: "The thing about the Oscars, it's just that this year it's strange that you say to break a leg, because in fact I can't go to the Oscars because I'm going to have a knee operation, so break a leg for me, is actually quite apt. I'm going to have it broken and put back together again and I'll be much taller so I'm absolutely going to be fine but I shall watch and cheer."
  • Embargoed: 28th February 2007 12:00
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  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVA9W1ZTWU81KMGML4VG9JF6IPOK
  • Story Text: Dame Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett and Andrew Simpson brought 'Notes on a Scandal' to the Berlin Film Festival, hosting a good-humoured news conference before stepping on the red carpet.
    Dame Judi Dench, in Berlin for the Berlinale on Monday (February 12), said she would not be seen at this year's Academy awards, and joked that not even the superstitious theatrical saying "Break a leg!" could bring her good luck as her leg would be in a cast.
    The veteran British actress, who won best supporting actress for "Shakespeare in Love" in 1998 and was nominated for four other movies in the past decade, said surgery meant that she would not be at the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles on February 25.
    "The thing about the Oscars, it's just that this year it's strange that you say to break a leg, because in fact I can't go to the Oscars because I'm going to have a knee operation, so break a leg for me, is actually quite apt. I'm going to have it broken and put back together again and I'll be much taller so I'm absolutely going to be fine but I shall watch and cheer," Dench said at a good-humoured news conference at the Berlin Film Festival when asked about the chances of winning best actress Oscar for her role in the acclaimed film "Notes On A Scandal".
    The film about a school sex scandal in a working class London neighbourhood won cheers from critics and four Oscar nominations, including her best actress nomination for a manipulative spinster, and the adulterous Cate Blanchett for best supporting actress.
    Dench, Blanchett and young actor Andrew Simpson, with whom Blanchett's character in the film has an affair, attended a news conference before taking to the red carpet at the Berlinale Palace.
    "Well, I was scared I think because these women are at the top of their craft and for one of my first roles to do this was unbelievable. But sort of from the very first day when I came into the room everyone just sort of welcomed me into the gang and that helped a lot and everyone was really friendly and like a big family and by the end of it it wasn't Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench the best actresses around, it was just Cate and Judi, good friends," Simpson said, when asked about working with the two Oscar-winning actresses.
    Dench, 72, got one of the longest applauses of the Berlinale news conferences so far, and kept the reporters entertained with her humorous comments.
    "I don't know what the moral or the message is. Perhaps look out for people who are extremely lonely, don't ask them round for tea, I would say," she joked when asked about the deeper meanings of the film and her twisted character Barbara.
    But Dench was more serious as she appeared on the red carpet later, taking time to greet fans and sign autographs despite the rainy weather.
    "It's just lovely and I've never been before, I've always wanted to come to Berlin and it's very frustrating to be here just for a night, unbelievably frustrating but I'm here and I might come back," she told Reuters.
    "It's especially hard for me because I've just finished a ten-week run in the theatre Saturday night so I couldn't go to the Golden Globes because I was in the theatre and then suddenly I get BAFTA one day and I get Berlin the next, I get very lucky," Dench added.
    'Notes on a Scandal' is screening out of the competition at the Berlin Film Festival.
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