Enough of old ladies, I want to play a villain, says Dame Judi

SHE won an Oscar for her portrayal of Elizabeth I and has played Queen Victoria for a second time, but Dame Judi Dench says it is time she played a villain instead of an ageing monarch.

The actress said she feared being typecast after a string of roles as “grand and crotchety old ladies”.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to promote her latest film, Victoria and Abdul, Dame Judi, 82, was asked by John Humphrys, 74, if she had any plans to retire.

“How dare you! What is this word ‘retire’?” she joked.

“I hope to do a film before the end of the year and I hope to do another one next year too. I just always hope I’m going to be employed, and hopefully nobody like Queen Victoria next. I want to play a villain.”

She spoke of the 2006 film Notes On A Scandal, in which she played a bitter schoolteacher who destroys the life of a colleague. “I absolutely adored it. Adored it,” she said.

In the past 20 years, she has played M in the Bond films, a widow in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Lady Catherine de Bourg in Pride and Prejudice, 80-year-old Armande Voizin in Chocolat and Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest.

Her role in Victoria and Abdul is widely tipped to earn her an eighth Oscar nomination. Twenty years ago, she played Victoria in Mrs Brown opposite Billy Connolly, and a year later won an Oscar for her role as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare In Love.