Judi Dench stands by 'good friend' Kevin Spacey in the wake of his sexual assault scandal
Kevin Spacey has one famous face still in his corner: Dame Judi Dench.
The 83-year-old Oscar-winning actress spoke fondly of her former co-star at the San Sebastian International Film Festival when she was asked if there were any particularly memorable moments in her career that she looked back on fondly. According to Variety, Dench mentioned shooting the 2001 film The Shipping News with Spacey, shortly after her husband died.
“Kevin was an inestimable comfort and never mentioned he knew I was in a bad way,” she told reporters. “He cheered me up and kept me going.”
Naturally, the topic of conversation shifted to the multiple sexual assault allegations levied against Spacey. Dench explained that she doesn’t feel as if the career repercussions he’s faced have been fair.
“I can’t approve, in any way, of the fact that — whatever he has done — that you then start to cut him out of the films,” she stated. “Are we to do what happened when he was replaced with Christopher Plummer? Are we to do that throughout history? Are we to go back throughout history and anyone who has misbehaved in any way, or who has broken the law, or who has committed some kind of offense, are they always going to be cut out? Are we going to extrude them from our history? I don’t know…”
Shortly after misconduct allegations surfaced against Spacey, he was axed from the final version of All the Money in the World, with Plummer reshooting his key scenes.
Dench continued, “I don’t know about the conditions of it, but nevertheless he is, and was, a most wonderful actor. I can’t imagine what he is doing now.” According to Variety, she paused and then “firmly” added, “And a good friend.”
The Red Joan actress went on to call the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements “an extraordinary moment of change.” She added, “And there are many more parts for women, which is very good indeed, and long may that go on.”
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