Judi’s new act as scene-stealer

AS ONE one of the finest actresses of her generation one might assume that Dame Judi Dench had already won a Best Actress Oscar.

But despite being nominated five times she’s scooped only one Academy Award. “I was nominated for an Oscar but only won as Best Supporting Actress,” she says, [playing Queen Elizabeth in 1998’s Shakespeare In Love].

However she remains happy with her lot. “It does not irritate me at all I have not won Best Actress. I don’t know why it has escaped me,” the 82-year-old tells Day & Night.

She was tipped to win the coveted gong for her role in the movie Philomena as a mother searching for her long-lost son. But she adds of the 2013 drama: “I don’t think I should have won one for Philomena. I don’t look at it that way.”

Meanwhile, having not long ago been parodied as a shoplifter by comedian Tracey Ullman in her BBC One show, Dame Judi insists she’s now being looked at as a different kind of scene-stealer when she really does go out shopping.

“It does make it rather tricky for me when I go round my local farm shop with a bag on my shoulder. I mean, I do pick things up innocently and naturally put them in my bag and people go ‘Aye, aye’.

“Tracey must answer for that if it keeps happening to me! I am going to make her pay for it! But I do think she is brilliant.”