Judi Dench can’t say no to a big bouquet of flowers, especially if they’re the size of a kayak and from Vin Diesel.
“He came up to me at the Haymarket Theater to ask if I would be in ‘The Chronicles of Riddick,’” Dench wrote in his new memoir, “Is It Too Late to Run Away?” “Before he arrived, he sent me a huge bouquet of flowers. They couldn’t get them up the stairs to my dressing room, so they had to leave them at the stage door. They were easily the length of a kayak. And also wide.”
“You can’t say no to a man like that, can you?” » she joked, adding: “I’m cheap. Much too easily wooed.”
Convinced by this gesture, Dench went on to play Aereon in the 2004 film, the elemental ambassador who guides Riddick (Diesel) on his tumultuous journeys to save his former allies and confront the leader of the Necromonger empire.
This wasn’t the first time gifts lured the 91-year-old actress into a role. She also revealed that Kenneth Branagh gave her “the most beautiful embroidered handkerchief when he asked me to be in ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ – with the character’s initials on it.”
“He must have known that would make me say yes; he’s so sneaky. But then I’d do anything for Ken. If he said, ‘Will you play tag on the floor in Three Sisters?’ I said, “When should I start?” “, she said. “Then of course, little by little, I discovered who else was involved in ‘Orient Express’: Olivia Colman, Penélope Cruz, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi… How could I resist?”
Dench played Princess Natalia Dragomiroff in the 2017 mystery drama, but said she had mixed feelings about the character.
“Don’t ask me anything about her. She was an old woman sitting with a lot of jewelry and a few Shih Tzus – one black, one white,” Dench said.
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