Dame Judi Dench Celebrates Her 90th Birthday And Reveals Her Biggest Regret

The legendary Oscar-winning actress Dame Judi Dench celebrated her 90th birthday on Monday. Days before, she opened up about how she really feels about this landmark birthday.

Dench Turns 90

Instead of thinking about turning 90, Dench chose to focus on turning 29!

“You get a bit nervous when everybody says 90,” Dench told The Times. “I don’t want to think of 90 much, I’m going to think about (turning) 29.”

“I think you’re lucky to be 90; my two great, great friends, Barbara Leigh-Hunt and (Dame) Maggie Smith, have just dropped off the bough in the last four weeks or so and that’s not good,” she continued. “I’m able to at least get from A to B and walk about and, golly, I’ve got a great deal to be grateful for.”

Leigh-Hunt and Smith were both actresses who died in September. Leigh-Hunt was 88 when she passed away, and Smith would have turned 90 later this month.

Full Story: Maggie Smith, Star Of ‘Harry Potter’ And ‘Downton Abbey,’ Dead At 89

Dench’s Birthday Plans

Dench went on to say that she planned to spend her birthday with her family. This includes her daughter Finty Williams, 52, and her grandson, Sam, 27, who were planning a surprise for her.

Barbara Broccoli, the James Bond film producer who worked with Dench on the seven films in which she played M, also planned to take the iconic actress to lunch at a famous London restaurant called The Ivy. Dench described this as “a great and wonderful treat.”

Acting has been a part of Dench’s life since she was a small child. She recently recalled her first role in prep school.

“I played a snail at my prep school,” Dench told the BBC. “I had an enormous shell I was under and, when our parents came, I stood up – that was not part of the play….I can remember this teacher at the side, she said, ‘Get down, Judith!’ – my first notes: I was not behaving properly.”

As for her future, Dench is hoping to make it to her 100th birthday.

“Am I going to be 100? Well, I hope so,” she stated. “That would be nice. I’ll try and make 100.”

Though she’s now in her 90s, Dench still has some exciting acting projects in the works. When she’s not working, she enjoys playing the Bananagram game.

Related: Clint Eastwood Praised By Judi Dench – ‘Most Laidback Man I Have Ever Met’

Dench’s One Regret

While Dench has enjoyed her life, she does have one major regret. She wishes she’d had more children with her late husband Michael Williams, who she was married to from 1971 until he died in 2001.

“Michael and I said, ‘We’re going to have six children’,” she recalled. “We had one, beautiful Finty, and we didn’t have the other five, it just didn’t happen. I worked a lot. I suppose you don’t stop to consider, really.”

Despite this, Dench is still enjoying her life. As she heads into her 90s, she’s doing so with laughter. Indeed, she has a habit of bursting out laughing at surprising times, even in sad moments.

“I’ve got in terrible trouble for laughing,” she admitted. “I’m not excusing it in the slightest, but it is something to do with the tension you feel. You wind and wind yourself so, if something slightly [funny] happens, you unravel. Usually in tragedies.”

Dench is a true legend, and there will never be another one like her. We’d like to wish her a very happy birthday, and many more to come!