Insecurities that drove Dame Judi’s girl to drink
Her mother is the finest actress of her generation, while she herself is an accomplished performer.
But now Finty Williams — only daughter of Dame Judi Dench and the late Michael Williams — has disclosed how, as a young drama student, she was riddled with self-loathing and body image problems. It was this she believes that triggered her downward spiral into alcoholism which nearly killed her.
‘I was 18 and had an inverted light bulb moment where I thought that nothing I could do or say or how I looked was ever going to be good enough,’ says Finty, now 46, explaining that she felt physically and intellectually inadequate by comparison with her peers at drama school.
‘I was surrounded by very beautiful people — they still are very beautiful people,’ explains Finty , who was a student at the Central School of Speech and Drama, following in her mother’s footsteps. ‘At that point, I thought: “If they’re really drunk, then they won’t notice that I’m really, really boring and short and round — and don’t look like a dancer and all of those things.
‘ “These are extraordinary people who are all really talented and really funny and really clever and I don’t belong here. And I’m none of the above.” ’
Her solution, she adds, was straightforward.
‘The way I got through thinking that I was very boring and very unsparkly was by being the first person in the bar and being the person that bought the drinks for everyone.’
Williams makes her confession in a podcast hosted by Dr Christian Jessen addressing the causes of addiction.
even when established as an actress in her own right, earning parts in films like The Mystery Of edwin Drood, Mrs Brown and Gosford Park, Finty used alcohol to neutralise her feelings of inadequacy. ‘After my father died [in 2001] it just all went horribly wrong,’ says Finty, whose second conviction for drink-driving saw her banned from the road for five years. ‘My mother very bravely put me into rehab two weeks after my father died.’
realising she would kill herself if she continued, Finty never drank again.