With her starring role in the June 2020 issue, Judi Dench has become the oldest person ever to grace the cover of Vogue at 85. The photoshoot took place in February, before social distancing measures were enforced in the UK, and Judi was later interviewed for the Vogue feature whilst at home. At the age of 85 years, 150 days (as of 7 May 2020), Dame Judi has surpassed the record formerly held by Jane Fonda, who appeared on the cover of British Vogue’s September 2019 edition, at the age of 81. I ask her to tell me something that she enjoys about being 85. Read more: Judi Dench Covers The June Issue Of British Vogue, Dench is sticking by her motto, although she is a touch less sanguine. The insecurity stuck. Ghastly. She holds Guinness World Records titles for the most Laurence Olivier Award nominations by an individual with nine, across the categories for Best Actress (6), Best Supporting Role (1), Best Supporting Actress (1) and Best Actress in a Musical (1). WHAT MAKES A GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS TITLE? “I don’t do social media at all,” Judi Dench tells me on the telephone, chuckling at the memory. “But treasure her we do. A Quaker since her teens, she may be divinely potty-mouthed, but she is also meditative and kind to the core. “Yes, a text, from Ben Whishaw [the actor], who just doted on it. “It was only because I had been given the ears by my daughter, Fint. This doesn't include her win for Best Actress in a Supporting Role as Paulina in The Winter's Tale (2016). I don’t think about it. But let’s be truthful. It’s terrible to be so dependent on people.” According to Finty, 47, Dench’s daughter with the late, great actor Michael Williams, her mother is actually the one who people depend on, not least herself and her son Sam, 22. Some weeks earlier – before terms such as “herd immunity” and “flattening the curve” had entered the daily lexicon – I am at said home (built in 1690 and with an unusually tiny front door) in deepest Surrey for an audience with the actor, one of the world’s foremost theatrical dames. “Do you want another cup of tea?” For a moment, a little sadness hangs in the air. "It might be cliche but age really is just a number, and seeing Judi on the front of this iconic magazine will be a refreshing tonic for a generation of people who may otherwise feel forgotten or neglected. “I don’t like it at all. There is an accepted myth that Dench has never had a bad review, though it is worth noting that the London critics, who were even more hierarchical than the theatre crew, did not instantly warm to her. And I think that is, you know, being responsible. Naturally, it is a case of first things first. Judi Dench is the oldest person to ever appear on the cover of British Vogue. So sweet. Not here. What makes a Guinness World Records title? “Like five foxes f**king on my back.” Filmed in green screen, and with her eyesight impaired, Dench has yet to see the film in full but was far from pleased at how her Old Deuteronomy turned out looking in the pictures she’s seen. “She cares hugely about everybody. In the forthcoming Blithe Spirit, a frothy art deco affair with Dan Stevens and Isla Fisher, she inherits the mantle from Margaret Rutherford’s lauded 1945 turn as the psychic widow who can raise the dead. “I should charge you.” At this, Dench – 5ft 1in and packed with poise – leads me through her beautifully cluttered, perilously low-ceilinged hallway into a sun-dappled sitting room. Multi award winning British actress, Dame Judi Dench, has added another Guinness World Records title to her name after officially becoming the oldest Vogue cover model in history, following the publication of British Vogue’s June 2020 issue. They often worked together, notably in the hit sitcom A Fine Romance, and had legendary rows – but mostly they laughed. Does that still stand? “She inspires warmth, kindness, naughtiness,” the fellow Oscar winner tells Vogue. Don’t use that word, Giles. (Naturally, she featured in the many slightly ghoulish millennial tweets about “people we must protect at all costs”. If people are hurting, they call her. “He used to cry when he laughed,” she recalls, smiling. “This age thing, I think, affects very much how she feels about herself and this gave her just that little boost of confidence to make her go, ‘Oh, maybe I’m still OK.’” Williams starts to laugh. By using this site, you agree that we may store and access cookies on your device. Registered Office: South Quay Building, 77 Marsh Wall, London E14 9SH United Kingdom. Then she died in front of many millions of viewers in Skyfall, and her status was set. Inevitably, conversation drifts to Cats, the widely panned film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that, for its sheer madness, has gained cult status as a wonderfully distracting comedy-watch in the current crisis. – winning an Oscar in 1999, aged 64, for playing Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love. The merest glance at her six-decade CV suggests why. The Oscar winner has … What’s that about?” I reassure her that irony-loving younger audiences can’t get enough of it, and she nods. “Well, yes. This extraordinary feat shows that there is another side to Dench. She also holds the records for the most Laurence Olivier awards won by an individual and the most Laurence Olivier Awards won by an actress, accumulating an impressive eight awards between 1977 and 2016. Oh god, he made me laugh.”. “We had better wait for a rainy day in Battersea,” she told him, so he did. Corporate Social Responsibility activities & fundraising ideas, Community engagement & tourism marketing activities, Best Actress in a Revival - Lady Macbeth (, Best Actress in a New Play - Barbara Jackson (, Best Actress in a Musical - Desirée Armfeldt (, Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Paulina (. “I am disciplining myself to learn all the sonnets. I ask how many marriage proposals she’s had in her life? At home on this crisp, clear morning in the Surrey wilds she is a soothing vision in beige athleisurewear; kettle on, supermarket pain au chocolat on a tray, and the luvvie-meter set to a hundred. Multi award winning British actress, Dame Judi Dench, has added another Guinness World Records title to her name after officially becoming the oldest Vogue cover model in history, following the publication of British Vogue’s June 2020 issue. In fact, her powers are such that, in a wider act of seduction, it is safe to say Dench now commands public affection on an industrial scale. For all her determined lack of flash, the star power is off the charts. “A great big orange bruiser. To wit: “Dame Judi to raise Britain’s spirits as Coward’s mystic madame”, declared The Observer, when it announced her casting as Madame Arcati in a new adaptation of Blithe Spirit – her 60th film, give or take – set for release later this year. “Oh honestly!” she snorts. “Ever modest, Judi Dench is not a fan of the term national treasure,” says British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful of his June 2020 cover star. Not in this house. Oh how they smiled. Make of that what you will. “I am sure I feel like everyone else, such unprecedented times are quite hard to comprehend,” she explains from her home, with its tree-filled gardens, where she has lived for more than 35 years. With an acting career spanning six decades, Dame Judi was a record-breaking powerhouse far before her Vogue cover debut. “What is a good thing is that it has made people aware of the predicament of others who are completely alone,” she says, thoughtfully. But there is a keep-calm-and-carry-on spine of steel, too. She is friends with everyone from Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall to Taylor Swift, and if this morning is anything to go by, the phone rings constantly. “If a great deal of kindness comes out of this, then that will be a plus.”, Read more: Please Enjoy This Video Of Judi Dench Doing A Tik Tok Dance Challenge. My eyes are darting. Below, revisit 14 powerful quotes on ageing from some of the most fabulous over-50s ever to appear in the magazine’s pages. But how do you feel about retirement, I ask casually. “Pretty depressing. The message is clear, however: absolute heartbreaker. Yet soon she became indomitable, touring the country and the globe, gathering awards like others do fridge magnets. “Then of course after the photoshoot, she came back literally thinking she was Beyoncé.”. Cultural appropriation makes her uncomfortable, but otherwise she thinks anyone should play anyone. Think Beyoncé, if the Texan singer also bought her tracksuits from Sainsbury’s. Her life now bookended by a world war and a global pandemic, the dame is still going strong, still incredible, still a byword for excellence. Due to her eyesight, she is no longer able to act on stage, but she’s still got it. Bouncing from drama school to playing Ophelia at The Old Vic in the late 1950s, she ruled the National, West End and RSC for decades, chalking up bravura turns and delivering perhaps the most outstanding Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra of the late 20th century. On top of the nationwide lockdown, she – by dint of her age, if not her moxie, and like some 10 million others in Britain – has embarked on an even longer stretch of imposed self-isolation. the oldest person ever to grace the cover of, Judi Dench Covers The June Issue Of British Vogue, Kate Phelan On Styling Judi Dench’s Joyous Vogue Cover, Plus Her “Champagne & Hummus” Rider. On the one hand, I’m pleased to confirm that she is absolutely the comforting national treasure you imagine.