Judi Dench has become British Vogue's oldest cover star, securing her first front page for the style arbiter at the age of 85.
The Oscar-winning actor was photographed just before lockdown for the magazine’s June issue, but the accompanying interview explores her experiences self-isolating at home in Surrey, south of London.
“I am sure I feel like everyone else, such unprecedented times are quite hard to comprehend,” she says. “What is a good thing is that it has made people aware of the predicament of others who are completely alone. If a great deal of kindness comes out of this, then that will be a plus.”
Message from Ma... pic.twitter.com/3ExqvA5tvY
— Finty williams (@finty_williams) March 18, 2020
Dench has become an unlikely social-media star during the Covid-19 crisis, appearing in videos posted by family members, despite not using social-media personally.
Last month her daughter, Finty Williams, posted a Twitter video of Dench, wearing a novelty dog hat with pop-up ears, saying: "Just keep laughing. That's all we can do." It has now been watched 5.4 million times.
Earlier this month Dench and her grandson Sam Williams did a TikTok dance to the song Cheryl by the US rapper Yung Gravy. The same week a video of her washing her hands with Gyles Brandreth while reciting The Owl and the Pussy-cat went viral.
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The Vogue interview describes Dench as “a kind of cultural tea cosy to be popped soothingly over the nation’s beleaguered identity in times of crisis.”
Dench is photographed in a pink, floral silk organza Dolce & Gabbana trench coat for the magazine, which is out on Thursday. In further images she wears a cream silk Armani Prive tunic. Much less stylish, she says, was the costume of the much-maligned Cats film. "The cloak I was made to wear! Like five foxes f**king on my back!" she said. "A battered, mangy old cat… A great big orange bruiser. What's that about?" – Guardian