Transcript of Interview

CHARLIE ROSE: Dame Judi Dench is here. She is one of England's greatest actresses. She has been called a national treasure. In a span of over 40 years, she has played everyone from Lady Macbeth to Sally Bowles. Americans know her from her recent films. In 1997 she earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown. Last year she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Shakespeare in Love. Her latest film is Tea With Mussolini.

Now, after a 40-year absence, she has returned to Broadway in David Hare's Amy's View. Last week she won the Tony Award for Best Actress.

CHARLIE ROSE: Joining me now, Dame Judi Dench.  Welcome.

JUDI DENCH, Actor: Thank you.

CHARLIE ROSE: This is the year of Dench.

JUDI DENCH: Yes, I'm rather reluctant to go into the-- the 20th century.

CHARLIE ROSE: That's right! [crosstalk] You're ending it with a bang--

JUDI DENCH: 21st Century ... Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: --as they say, not with a whimper, but with a bang.

JUDI DENCH: That's right!

CHARLIE ROSE: You're loving New York.

JUDI DENCH: Yes, I do love it, just love it.

CHARLIE ROSE: Then pray God, why did it take you so long to come back?

JUDI DENCH: Well, when I was here with the Old Vic in '58, '59 -- we came for a six-months tour -- I really-- we had the most incredible time, just incredible. And I-- I just thought, "It will never be ever quite like this again. It'll never be better than this.'' So all the times that I was asked to come back, I felt, "No, I don't think I want quite to do it.'' I kept putting it off and putting it off, thinking it will be less than it was before. So I'm glad I waited all this time to come back.

CHARLIE ROSE: You're glad because?

JUDI DENCH: Because I've fallen in love with this city all over again.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: And I've come back playing a leading part.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: And I got Oscar and Tony to go home with.

CHARLIE ROSE: You have been having a progression of very interesting roles, first in theater at the Old Vic, at the Royal Academy, then in film, then back on stage, then in film. Is it best when it comes the way it's come for you, in a sense--

JUDI DENCH: I think--

CHARLIE ROSE: --kind of evolution, then exploding?

JUDI DENCH: Yes. I think it is. I mean, I've never chosen what to do, and I've often been asked what I would like to play, and I never know the answer because I'm a very bad chooser.  So I've always waited for somebody to come to me and say, "Why don't you try this?'' Then I get them to tell me the story, and I read the script. And then if something catches me, I say yes. And it's always, if possible, as being my plan, if you could say such a thing -- you can't, really, in this business -- to take-- the next thing that I take is something as different from the last thing as possible, and more frightening.  I was just before I came out here asked by Trevor Nunn to go to the National and do a play, and I wrote back to him and I said, "Please ask me-- please ask me to come back to the National. I would like to. But please ask me to do something more frightening than that.''

CHARLIE ROSE: What's "more frightening''? More frightening for you as a challenge?

JUDI DENCH: Yes. Absolutely that. Something that I feel I haven't tackled before, something that's going to put me to the very edge of-- of fear, perhaps.

CHARLIE ROSE: Fear?

JUDI DENCH: Yes. For instance, I think in September, I have to learn to play the saxophone.

CHARLIE ROSE: So the role at the National will require you playing a saxophone?

JUDI DENCH: No, it's not at the National at all.

CHARLIE ROSE: Oh.

JUDI DENCH: That's for something else.

CHARLIE ROSE: Okay. But if you look at Shakespeare in Love, if you look at Mrs. Brown--

JUDI DENCH: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: --if you look at Amy's View, if you look at Tea With Mussolini, all of those had some element of--

JUDI DENCH: Fear.

CHARLIE ROSE: Fear?

JUDI DENCH: Yes, all, or I did them for different reasons.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: I did Shakespeare in Love because I'd done Mrs. Brown, and the thing that caught me for Mrs. Brown was Billy Connolly, not playing Victoria, but the fact that Billy Connolly, who I'm a huge fan of, was going to play John Brown. So that arrested my attention there.

CHARLIE ROSE: To play next to this actor--

JUDI DENCH: Yes. Absolutely. And get to know him.

CHARLIE ROSE: Boy, he says great things about you.

JUDI DENCH: Well, he couldn't say better things than I would say about him. I just think he's the works.

CHARLIE ROSE: That was a wonderful movie.

JUDI DENCH: It as-- we did it in 30 days.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. What was it? Was it the story? Was it just simply to get to know the queen and see her through-- look into your eyes and get a sense of this woman, with all this, coming off of this extraordinary love affair, which she'd lost, with her husband, and all of a sudden--

JUDI DENCH: I think it was--

CHARLIE ROSE: --she finds something.

JUDI DENCH: Yes, I think it was the fact that we've always speculated about this. Certainly in Britain we have. And it's very unknown here, so many people, when I came over to do the press-- you know, the-- talk to the press about it, didn't know about John Brown. He's kept very quiet. And so perhaps it's because it's a bit of a mystery about them that it was so fascinating. And also I'm passionate about Scotland, and we were shooting it up there.

CHARLIE ROSE: I am, too. Does he have the same-- did the real John Brown have the same sense of strength?

JUDI DENCH: I think he did, yes. I think he did.

CHARLIE ROSE: Power?

JUDI DENCH: And I've no doubt that there was an affair between them. None at all.

CHARLIE ROSE: How do you--

JUDI DENCH: No doubt at all.

CHARLIE ROSE: You--

JUDI DENCH: Well, as Billy used to say, there's only so many picnics you can go on. And oh, I have no idea. She was a widow.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: She was very, very susceptible.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: He was an unmarried man. She was mourning the loss of Albert, who she passionately loved.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: I'm not meaning to in any way--

CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, she was distraught.

JUDI DENCH: She was distraught, and this man somehow made her face up to what she was failing to do.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. But Connolly made him interesting, strong, attractive-- all that.

JUDI DENCH: I'm sure that he was like that.

CHARLIE ROSE: Because you could imagine that happening--

JUDI DENCH: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: --from the way you two--

JUDI DENCH: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: And why was he attracted to her?

JUDI DENCH: Because I think he felt initially, perhaps, protective of her. He had been Albert's gilley, so he'd known her when Albert was alive. I just think it was a chemistry between two people of very, very-- I mean, totally opposite. I mean, he was able to address her as "Woman,'' and you know, he-- apparently, they had marvelous nicknames for each other. Unheard of.

CHARLIE ROSE: He called her?

JUDI DENCH: I don't know what he called her.

CHARLIE ROSE: She called him?

JUDI DENCH: Don't know.

CHARLIE ROSE: So nobody knows, there's just--

JUDI DENCH: No, but I think--

CHARLIE ROSE: --that they did have nicknames.

JUDI DENCH: I think they had nicknames for each other, and I think they began to rely on each other for two very different things.

CHARLIE ROSE: Shakespeare in Love-- why did you do that?

JUDI DENCH: Because of John Madden.

CHARLIE ROSE: The director.

JUDI DENCH: Because after working -- yes -- with John, I wrote to him and said, "If you have anything -- anything -- any old part, I'll do it.''

CHARLIE ROSE: Now, can you--

JUDI DENCH: And he knows this. He knows me well enough to know that I mean it.

CHARLIE ROSE: How many people do you feel that way about?

JUDI DENCH: Quite a lot.

CHARLIE ROSE: "If you have something for Dame Judi Dench, I'm there for you.''

JUDI DENCH: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: Anything.

JUDI DENCH: Peter Hare --

CHARLIE ROSE: Peter Hare--

JUDI DENCH: --Trevor Nunn--

CHARLIE ROSE: --Trevor Nunn--

JUDI DENCH: --Frank Hauser, Sam Mendes--

CHARLIE ROSE: Richard Eyres.

JUDI DENCH: --Richard Eyres, Howard Davies--

CHARLIE ROSE: Howard Davies.

JUDI DENCH: --Franco Zeffirelli-- I've missed out a lot of people.

CHARLIE ROSE: Okay. Obviously, you're missing some. So whoever she missed, she meant to include you. Having said that, what is it they have in common that makes you want to work with them? Is there one quality that those directors have? Is it they understand--

JUDI DENCH: Because I know that they're going to steer me through perhaps a rough sea. I know that they're going to-- I know that-- the only way I can explain it is that you're on a great liner.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: And you know with all those people that the person on the bridge is going to get you through it.

CHARLIE ROSE: Do you need that?

JUDI DENCH: I absolutely, passionately need it! Passionately I do.

CHARLIE ROSE: As good as you are?

JUDI DENCH: Oh, no. I need it--

CHARLIE ROSE: And with all--

JUDI DENCH: --more now.

CHARLIE ROSE: --the talent you have-- more?

JUDI DENCH: Oh, much more. Much more because I'm much more unsure now, in a way, because more is expected of you.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Yeah, we expect-- we expect the performance from you that's going to be unequaled. Do you find that-- that you're willing to take more risks today, or less risks, because-- obviously, you have more talent. You have more experience.

JUDI DENCH: I'm willing to take much more risk now--

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: --because I don't want to bore the pants off everybody--

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: --including myself. That's why I want to do something that nobody's seen me do. Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: Do you know what it is you love about this thing called acting?

JUDI DENCH: I do know what it is.

CHARLIE ROSE: What is it?

JUDI DENCH: It's-- when I'm asked to make a speech -- ever, anywhere -- I am so afraid. I'm so frightened. And people constantly say, "But you're an actress.'' That has nothing to do with making a speech as me. Being an actress isn't-- that's not what it's about. Being an actress is trying to tell an author's story to an audience, and the director and the actors are the sieve through which it goes. Therefore, you're not-- you're not yourself. You're trying to portray another person entirely that has nothing to do with you. And I, as a person, am very, very bad about-- if you were to have a party, I find it very, very difficult to walk into a party on my own. I have the same fear as I do about making a speech. So therefore I'm not good at communicating with people unless it's a one-to-one, or it's a question-and-answer thing where you-- or you're having a conversation.

CHARLIE ROSE: Where the burden is on me.

JUDI DENCH: Yes! I'm the one just sitting here.

CHARLIE ROSE: You just sit here and be smart!

JUDI DENCH: Being smart.

CHARLIE ROSE: But the idea is, is that you--

JUDI DENCH: It's to do with communication.

CHARLIE ROSE: You're more comfortable-- what you love is being able to hide in a character?

JUDI DENCH: No, not necessarily hide.

CHARLIE ROSE: Hide-- "hide'' is a bad word because--

JUDI DENCH: I think that's the wrong--

CHARLIE ROSE: --it suggests you've got something you don't want people--

JUDI DENCH: --word.

CHARLIE ROSE: --to see.

JUDI DENCH: I don't think it's a question of hiding. I'm better at telling a story--

CHARLIE ROSE: Ah.

JUDI DENCH: --to a group of people and making them either laugh or cry or be angry or be stimulated in some kind of way. That's what I do it for.

CHARLIE ROSE: I know this is stupid, but bear with me. What is it that-- what is-- what are the skills that you learn? How to use your voice-- how do you-- what are the skills that you have learned with these great assignments you've had, way back to playing opposite to Ian McKellen in Lady Macbeth, with all the kinds of different roles that you've had that are extraordinary? What is it?

JUDI DENCH: The thing I've learnt lately, after 41 years--

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes?

JUDI DENCH: --is economy, that the least you do, the better it is. And I've learnt a bit more about filming in the last few years, which I knew nothing about, really, at all.

CHARLIE ROSE: And were scared to death of it. 

JUDI DENCH:  Yes. I still am scared.

CHARLIE ROSE: Why?

JUDI DENCH: Because I'm not very-- I just am not confident.

CHARLIE ROSE: But you like it more.

JUDI DENCH: I like it more now because of people like John Madden and Michael Apted, who has just done the Bond-- the latest Bond film.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. You're "M'' again, aren't you.

JUDI DENCH: Yes. And therefore I ultimately think-- I just would never watch myself on rushes. I couldn't do that. But I ultimately can look at them and think, "Oh, I think it's going-- I think it's all right. I think what I've done is all right,'' because I-- you know-- whereas-- well, in Tea With Mussolini, for instance, I'm hardly there now.

CHARLIE ROSE: And you don't like that at all.

JUDI DENCH: Well, I have no control over it.

CHARLIE ROSE: Not because of ego but because--

JUDI DENCH: I have no control over it. I see that nice-- I don't see a complete person, and therefore what I do tonight on stage in Amy's View, whatever happens, I know I'll keep going till the end, even if somebody-- oh, well, I won't even say that!

CHARLIE ROSE: Even if what? Say it.

JUDI DENCH: Even if somebody got up and said, "Would you stop this?'' I'd say "No.'' I'd probably go on, actually.

CHARLIE ROSE: "I've got to finish this!''

JUDI DENCH: "Finish this story!''

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes. "Leave, but I'm finishing.''

JUDI DENCH: "Yes, do, by all means, while I finish.'' So I have a control over it, whatever might happen.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: Whereas in films, you do it, and then the next day you always think, "Oh, I know how I should have played that scene yesterday. Much too late now.'' And then there it is, in formaldehyde for the rest of time.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes. And-- but if you bring to the character you had in Tea With Mussolini, you-- you construct a character. And if they only show part of that, then they're only capturing half of what you did, and it might be a distorted thing that they-- that the audience sees? Is that it?

JUDI DENCH: Yes. I mean, I don't think you know about that woman. And originally, you did know about her. She was a dancer. I mean, she's an amateur--

CHARLIE ROSE: Right.

JUDI DENCH: --a rank amateur, but nevertheless, she did it with enormous panache. She was a dancer, and she was-- she thought she could sing, and she thought she could paint. I mean, there she is, touching up frescoes in San Gimignano, the Duomo there. And there's a-- there was a long scene there. That's gone. I mean, there's so many scenes that I did have gone that I only see the shadow of a person.

CHARLIE ROSE: And if you'd know they were going to edit it that way, you would not have appeared in that film.

JUDI DENCH: Oh, I would have done it--

CHARLIE ROSE: You would?

JUDI DENCH: --because of Franco--

CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, because--

JUDI DENCH: --because I worked with him in 1960-- I played Juliet for him in Romeo and Juliet at the Old Vic, which was his first Shakespeare he ever did. And so I love him and so I would have-- of course I would have done it.

CHARLIE ROSE: Have you had a conversation with him about--

JUDI DENCH: How much is cut?

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes.

JUDI DENCH: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: And he says?

JUDI DENCH: He said, "I'm sorry there isn't more of you in this film.'' I said, ``Well, it's a pity that the stuff that there was wasn't anymore of that.'' And he went [mumbles] I don't know what he said, something in Italian. I didn't understand it. But I adore him.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: I adore him. So-- sorry.  (hits her microphone)

CHARLIE ROSE: Such is the plight of an actress.

JUDI DENCH: Such is the plight of an actress on film.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes. But you're doing more and more.

JUDI DENCH: I'm getting more and more offers.

CHARLIE ROSE: You've been getting offers ever since Mrs. Brown. They pour in.

JUDI DENCH: They poured in more since Shakespeare in Love.

CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly. And so are you being more selective? And how are you going about choosing them, since you've already said you're not a good chooser?

JUDI DENCH: I just go by the story.

CHARLIE ROSE: You go by the story.

JUDI DENCH: And by the director.

CHARLIE ROSE: "Tell me the story, and I'll see if I like the story.''

JUDI DENCH: Absolutely.

CHARLIE ROSE: Now, why did you play-- why are you in Bond?

JUDI DENCH: Oh, now, Charlie, if you'd been asked to be in Bond, you'd have done it! Because it's so glamorous!

CHARLIE ROSE: That's true! I would!

JUDI DENCH: And because my husband and my daughter would never have forgiven me if I hadn't been.

CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, that's great.

JUDI DENCH: I mean, to be a Bond woman -- you have to say ``woman'' now--

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes!

JUDI DENCH: --that's politically correct-- it's terribly exciting, and also to be his boss is very exciting.

CHARLIE ROSE: Ah! Yes. This is Pierce Brosnan? Is he the--

JUDI DENCH: It's Pierce.

CHARLIE ROSE: --Bond? Yes. So you are his boss in the--

JUDI DENCH: And I get--

CHARLIE ROSE: --2000 Bond.

JUDI DENCH: --quite rude to him.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: But she's secretly quite fond of him.

CHARLIE ROSE: Just that?

JUDI DENCH: Oh, yes, just that, in that case. Yes. There's no picnics for them. Well, not yet, anyway.

CHARLIE ROSE: Well, we could have him smitten with her or something--

JUDI DENCH: Quite. Quite.

CHARLIE ROSE: Right?

JUDI DENCH: Well, perhaps you should suggest that.

CHARLIE ROSE: That's okay with you?

JUDI DENCH: It'd be fine by me.

CHARLIE ROSE: See, I love the fact that you would not turn that down, that somehow doing all of the things that you have done that are serious, that are powerful, here comes something that's fun, and also--

JUDI DENCH: And difficult.

CHARLIE ROSE: And difficult?

JUDI DENCH: Oh, it's difficult because--

CHARLIE ROSE: Why is it difficult?

JUDI DENCH: Well, because there again, it's film, and-- you know, I'm-- I'm on uneasy ground, on uncertain ground.

CHARLIE ROSE: Uncertain--

JUDI DENCH: But it's getting more sure, the ground, because I'm learning more about filming now.

CHARLIE ROSE: You--

JUDI DENCH: A long time ago, somebody said to me-- I went up about a film when I was at the Old Vic, and they said to me, "You have every single thing wrong with your face,'' they said. And it was something I never really got over, and I know it's true. But I've-- I've settled for it now.

CHARLIE ROSE: They said something's wrong with your face, and it just--

JUDI DENCH: They said everything is wrong with it.

CHARLIE ROSE: Everything!

JUDI DENCH: That's tricky for a girl ... 

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, I would imagine!

JUDI DENCH: Even if you know it, it's quite tricky when somebody says it on the air, you know, out into the air.

CHARLIE ROSE: And what impact did it have? It made you--

JUDI DENCH: Well, it just made me never, ever want to do films, and I wasn't asked. I was asked to do about two or three, but-- just stick to the theater where you can fool a lot of people a lot of the time. Sometimes when I come out of the theater now, they say, "Oh! I thought you were much taller.'' You know, that's thrilling. That's just thrilling. The play I want to do now is a play where the furniture's very, very small, and I have to bend to come in through a door, and a lot of smaller actors. That's what I'd like. When Maggie Smith did Three Tall Women, I wrote to her and I said, "Couldn't it be called Two Tall Women and One Rather Not So Tall Woman?'' They weren't having any of that.

CHARLIE ROSE: So you would like to be taller?

JUDI DENCH: Oh, you bet! But I feel-- [crosstalk]

CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, you're five-four or something, aren't you?

JUDI DENCH: No, five-one and three quarters.

CHARLIE ROSE: Five-one and three quarters? Okay. Oh, you are short! They were right!

JUDI DENCH: That's right.

CHARLIE ROSE: So you've gone around since you were a teenager thinking "I'm small.''

JUDI DENCH: No, thinking "I'm tall.''

CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, "I'm tall. I can do anything.''

JUDI DENCH: Tall and--

CHARLIE ROSE: Until somebody told you you have a face that's all wrong.

JUDI DENCH: Yes. That was hard--

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: --to bite the bullet.

CHARLIE ROSE: Why did you-- did you want to be an actress because of all--

JUDI DENCH: No, I wanted to be a designer, a theater designer.

CHARLIE ROSE: So what happened?

JUDI DENCH: So I didn't-- I didn't-- well, my brother, Jeffrey, only ever wanted to be an actor, and he became an actor, and he's a very, very good actor. And I kind of caught it from him.  And I went to Stratford on Avon and saw a production of King Lear, where there was the most incredible set I've ever seen, and I knew in one go that I hadn't the imagination to design like that. I'll never forget it. It was a great, big-- like this table, a huge kind of saucer on the stage, which just moved. And in the middle was a throne and a cave and everything. It became a rock. And it was just breathtaking.

CHARLIE ROSE: And you said, "I don't have the imagination to be''--

JUDI DENCH: Something in me went--

CHARLIE ROSE: --"that good.''

JUDI DENCH: -- "I'm not going to be good at this.'' And so I thought, "Well, I'll just try out for the Central School,'' and there were-- and I went very half-heartedly. But then it all changed, and I got to like it.

CHARLIE ROSE: And were you good early on?

JUDI DENCH: No, I think I was a bit half-hearted. But I got to be better.

CHARLIE ROSE: Because of hard work or because you had some--

JUDI DENCH: Because I had some encouragement from the head of the drama section, who was called Walter Hunt, an actor, and he gave me some wonderful encouragement after I'd done a mime, where I-- we were to prepare these mimes, and they said, "Don't forget you've got to do this. Prepare it in your mind. You'll have six weeks to do it.'' Straight out of my head.  And the morning came. We sat there, and they said, "This is the morning of the mime.''  "The mime?'' I thought. "Oh, God! I haven't thought of the mime!'' So I did something extremely minimalistic, and I got the most incredible notices. I thought, "Hello. This-- maybe I'm doing the right thing.''

Video Clip begins ...

CHARLIE ROSE: You know that there are people watching you in this extraordinary several years that you've had building on a great career, and saying, "I'm not sure I can ever be that good, so why am I doing this?'' They are. Looking at you, saying, "I could never be that good, so why am I doing this?''

JUDI DENCH: Well, you've just got to-- if it's the only thing you want to do, if acting is the only thing you want to do, that's what you've got to do, and have a kind of belief to do it. And it's very easy for people who get work and can work.

CHARLIE ROSE: How much of acting -- before we look at some of these roles with you-- how much of acting is your interpretation of the character, and how much of it is the sheer skills that come from the craft?

JUDI DENCH: The skills that come from the craft are what is-- are the-- are the ingredients, in a way. I mean, I think that you should first look at the author, and the direct will an interpretation of that, of the way he wants to do the play. And then somehow it comes together because of the amalgam of other people.  It's why I can never do a one-woman show. I've been asked many times. I couldn't do it. I'd bore myself silly, and I couldn't do it without the stimulus of other people. So therefore it's a kind of amalgam of everything, being true to the author and telling a story at the end.  And part of it-- I mean, it has to go through you because you're this kind of sieve. It has to go through you, but you're not that character. What you're trying to be is convince people that you are that person. Just because you say something with enormous conviction on the stage doesn't mean to say that you believe it yourself. But if that person believes it, then you have to believe it for that moment.

CHARLIE ROSE: In order for the audience to believe, you have to believe at that moment that you're trying to convince them.

CHARLIE ROSE: It's brought you huge joy.

JUDI DENCH: Huge. Absolutely. Yes, I love it. I said I would give it up when my daughter was born, and Michael said, "No, I think you would-- you'd not want to do that, ultimately.'' And I think he was right, though my family come first.

CHARLIE ROSE: You've been away from them longer than you have ever been away in your life.

JUDI DENCH: I have. In 29 years of marriage, I've never been away from Michael for 16 weeks. He's been over a couple of times, but-- I was in Bangkok for eight weeks. My daughter's been over, and she's here now, so that's lovely.

CHARLIE ROSE: And you said to me you'll never probably ever do it again, be away so long.

JUDI DENCH: Not without some kind of arrangement that they were with me.

CHARLIE ROSE: And he still sends a rose every Friday.

JUDI DENCH: Friday. He does. I doubt he's probably canceled it at home. I expect it arrives and-- [crosstalk]

CHARLIE ROSE: --somebody please go by your flat and see if those roses are there, right?

JUDI DENCH: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: All right, take a look at this, from Amy's View. This-- the appeal of this play for you, written by David Hare, brilliant English playwright, about the conflict over interpretation and value of theater from an amateur film critic--

JUDI DENCH: Partly about that.

CHARLIE ROSE: --and partly about a relationship between a mother and a daughter.

JUDI DENCH: Partly about--

CHARLIE ROSE: The daughter being Amy.

JUDI DENCH: --the changes that love takes and--

CHARLIE ROSE: Right.

JUDI DENCH: --what is real and what is not real and coming to terms with yourself.

CHARLIE ROSE: That's what it's really about, isn't it.

JUDI DENCH: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: Not what I said!

JUDI DENCH: It's about all those things.

CHARLIE ROSE: Roll tape. This is from Amy's View. Here it is. (clip is shown)

CHARLIE ROSE: Did what you just said on stage ring true for you at all? Is that you at all? That somehow, at some point--

JUDI DENCH: I think it's right--

CHARLIE ROSE: --it's a young person's game, and later it's just lines, and you say "Where am I?'' I don't think that's you, is it?

JUDI DENCH: That's not me, no.

CHARLIE ROSE: No.

JUDI DENCH: I think it's right to say "Don't come to the theater because you feel it's -- A -- the right thing to do, or -- B -- because you've been forced to, or -- C -- because you think it's going to do you good."  I don't think that's right. I think come to the theater to be-- something-ed.

CHARLIE ROSE: Engaged.

JUDI DENCH: Engaged.

CHARLIE ROSE: About--

JUDI DENCH: That's a good word.

CHARLIE ROSE: --people--

JUDI DENCH: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: --ideas--

JUDI DENCH: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: --emotions--

JUDI DENCH: Made to think something.

CHARLIE ROSE: --fears, hopes--

JUDI DENCH: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: --character.

JUDI DENCH: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: Why did you do -- I know the answer, I think -- Tea With Mussolini? Because it was Franco?

JUDI DENCH: Because it was Franco. And because--

CHARLIE ROSE: Franco Zeffirelli's different--

JUDI DENCH: --it was Maggie, who is an old friend of mine.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: Joan, who I knew and had never worked with before, and--

CHARLIE ROSE: You worked with her husband.

JUDI DENCH: Sir Lawrence?

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes.

JUDI DENCH: Never.

CHARLIE ROSE: Never?

JUDI DENCH: Well, once on stage at Drury Lane.

CHARLIE ROSE: Tea With Mussolini-- here it is. Roll tape.  (clip is shown)

CHARLIE ROSE: Of all the arts, is theater the one you love the most?

JUDI DENCH: It is.

CHARLIE ROSE: More than painting, more than music, more than--

JUDI DENCH: Oh! Yes. Sorry. I-- as much as.

CHARLIE ROSE: As much as.

JUDI DENCH: As much as.

CHARLIE ROSE: What would be close? What would be competitive?

JUDI DENCH: Painting.

CHARLIE ROSE: Painting? So when you come here, do you go to the-- have time to--

JUDI DENCH: Oh, you bet! Oh, yes. I mean, there's something so-- I remember being taken-- when I was about to take my advanced exams in art, my father and mother -- the boys had gone away by then -- took me to Florence. And my father said, "Instead of reading up about it, I'll take you to Florence to see it.''

CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, wow.

JUDI DENCH: And he took me into the Uffizi, and I saw ``Venus Rising From the Sea'' and the ``Primavera'' and ``The Annunciation,'' Fra Angelico, and I was-- I've never had an experience like that before. I was absolutely sickened, completely overcome to see the actual thing. And when we were filming, we were in the Uffizi, and Franco took me into that room, and it was Monday when it was all closed, so we just stood in the middle of the room on our own, just [gasps] and a great [gasps] crucifix was in the room that we were just sitting in.

CHARLIE ROSE: Art.

JUDI DENCH: Oh, just completely. And music, too. I mean, I don't know why I should-- music, as well. Music, as well. I mean, I'm completely-- I can cry just completely unrelentingly if I hear great music, great conducting.

CHARLIE ROSE: Like, what piece would make you cry?

JUDI DENCH: Mozart's ``Requiem.''

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

JUDI DENCH: Probably any Mozart. I mean, I only have to hear that wonderful trio in Cosi, and then I'm completely reduced to tears. In Rosenkavalier-- I mean, I cry from the beginning-- at the end-- at the end of those-- you know, that trio and then the duet and then the--

CHARLIE ROSE: Let me take a look at Mrs. Brown, Billy Connolly and you. Here it is.  (clip is shown)

JUDI DENCH: Seventeen takes it took to get me off the horse.

CHARLIE ROSE: But you were watching that.

JUDI DENCH: I was watching it.

CHARLIE ROSE: As if you were reliving the experience of doing it.

JUDI DENCH: I was-- yes, I was watching that very, very rare for me to be able to do that. I couldn't watch Amy's View or anything. But I co8uld-- I could watch that.

CHARLIE ROSE: Why?

JUDI DENCH: Because I've seen that several times, and because we had such a wonderful time doing it that-- that somehow I don't mind that now.

CHARLIE ROSE: Finally, Shakespeare in Love. Here you are.  (clip is shown)

CHARLIE ROSE: Amy's View is playing until July 18th at the Barrymore Theater. Then you go back to England?

JUDI DENCH: I do, the next day.

CHARLIE ROSE: Our loss. Thank you so much.

JUDI DENCH: Thank you.

CHARLIE ROSE: A pleasure, as always. Dame Judi Dench.