Judi Dench Dench commented that the project launched her Hollywood career and joked that "it was thanks to Harvey, whose name I have had tattooed on my bum". Dench's other film of 1997 was Roger Spottiswoode's "Tomorrow Never Dies", her second film in the "James Bond" series. The same year, Dench reteamed with director John Madden to film "Shakespeare in Love" (1998), a romantic comedy-drama that depicts a love affair involving playwright William Shakespeare, played by Joseph Fiennes, while he was writing the play "Romeo and Juliet". On her performance as Queen Elizabeth I, "The New York Times" commented that "Dench's shrewd,
Judi Dench Harold Pinter from the Aidan Higgins novel, directed by David Jones, in which she played one of three spinster sisters living in a fading Irish mansion in the Waterford countryside. Dench made her debut as a director in 1988 with the Renaissance Theatre Company's touring season, "Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road", co-produced with the Birmingham Rep, and ending with a three-month repertory programme at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Dench's contribution was a staging of "Much Ado About Nothing", set in the Napoleonic era, which starred Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson as Benedick and Beatrice. She has made numerous appearances