Judi Dench is narrating a ghost story.
The Oscar-winning actress, 88, confessed in a new interview with the Sunday Times that she once saw a ghost at London’s famous Haymarket Theatre while attending a memorial ceremony for actor Michael Denison, who died in 1998.
“It was mid-afternoon!” “I saw someone running down the stairs wearing a top hat and tails, and I thought, ‘What a funny getup!'” she remembered of the possible sighting.
Brendan O’Hea, who co-wrote her upcoming book Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent on her theater experiences, backed up her ghostly story, adding he knows someone else who claims to have seen the fabled “Haymarket Ghost.”
He informed the source that an actress told him about a man who repeatedly entered the theater through a door, but, as someone pointed out, “there is no door.”
Dench realized, after some thought, that she might not have seen a ghost. “It may not have been a ghost,” she told the publication. “But I like the idea of them.” “Why should it not happen?”
Dench also recounted memories and tales from her many theater appearances as Shakespeare’s legendary characters, including Juliet from Romeo and Juliet.
She remembered a performance in London in which she slipped a cheeky note into the lap of a man sitting in the audience who she mistook for a friend.
“I suppose an f—‘s out of the question?” stated the message. The man turned out to be a complete stranger.
Dench revealed earlier this year that she has a degenerative eye ailment that affects her vision and makes it difficult for her to read scripts and learn lines for acting roles.
“It has become impossible, and because I have a photographic memory, I need to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines but also tells me where they appear on the page,” the Belfast star revealed on The Graham Norton Show in February.
“I used to find it quite simple to learn and recall lines. I could perform Twelfth Night right now.”
She previously discussed her age-related macular degeneration-caused eye issue in 2021, claiming she’s had to adjust and find new methods of doing things.
Dench remarked at a 2021 event to benefit the Vision Foundation, “You find a way of just getting around and getting over the things that you find very difficult.” “I’ve had to find another way of learning lines and things, which is to have great friends repeat them to me over and over again. “So I’ll have to learn by repetition, and I’m hoping no one notices if all the lines are absolutely worthless!”
In view of her vision issues, Dench told the Sunday Times that she is especially delighted to have finished a book—with O’Hea’s assistance. “How lucky I am,” she remarked of the book, which will be published in the United States in April 2024.
“I can’t see, but I have a book coming out, thanks to Brendan’s eyes and idea.”