Why We Want To Grow Up To Be Dame Judi Dench

Dame Judi Dench is the woman not even James Bond dared to mess with, the octogenarian who spends her off screen time embroidering rude cushions with NSFW phrases for her equally-as-famous friends. Well, at least she used to.

“I used to do that a lot,” she told the New Yorker recently, “but my eyesight doesn’t let me anymore. I found someone to make the cushions for me.”

Dench once did an interview with USA Today while – just casually – toying with a fidget spinner. “My grandson gave it to me,” she told the journalist who was so surprised he just about broke Twitter with his reaction.

She tends to have that way with people. To floor them, utterly and completely. To do what no one – in a million years – would have ever expected of her.  She sent another reporter in the the direction of a ‘naughty knicker shop’ but warned her to go easy as she was headed there shortly to pick up some treats for herself.

Her character – the steely-eyed M – might have died in Bond’s arms, but her legend lives on. For her 81st birthday, she went for ink, a gift from her daughter. ‘Carpe Diem’ across her wrist, as if she needed any reminder. “That’s my motto,” Dench told one journo, “to seize the day.”

So, who is the REAL Dame Dench? When asked what’s the closest to the National Treasure IRL, she points journalists to this clip, thanks to Tracey Ullman: