The Scene Stealers

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That is the sound of Dench understatement in action. When she appears onscreen as the regal, nay, godlike, Elizabeth--with skeletally white skin, burning eyes and all aquiver in that bejeweled and befeathered costume like some sort of monstrous dragonfly--multiplex audiences have erupted in cheers. With barely 10 minutes onscreen, she makes her terrifyingly omniscient Elizabeth pivotal to the film, with players and viewers alike perched breathlessly on her every word. Dench attributes this potency not to her own skill but to the deference the film's other characters show her. John Madden, who directed her in both Mrs. Brown and Shakespeare, knows better. "She has this amazing accessibility," he says. "She could make Attila the Hun seem sympathetic."

After 41 years on the English stage, after receiving the female equivalent of a knighthood in 1987--"Oh, don't call me Dame," she says, burying her face in her hands--it appears that Dench's American moment has arrived. Last year she received an Oscar nomination for Mrs. Brown; her Golden Globe nomination this year for Shakespeare puts her back in the Oscar game; and in April, she will appear on Broadway for the first time in 40 years, starring in David Hare's Amy's View, a 1997 London hit. She has even gone mainstream--playing M in the James Bond movies.

Dench, 64, may be one of Britain's hardest-working actors. She is currently filming her third Bond movie and starring in London's West End in the Peter Hall-directed Filumena, and she often stars in British sitcoms. But amazingly, Dench confesses that she still suffers from stage fright. "It's anxiety and fear that create adrenaline, which for me is petrol," she explains. Worst of all, she says, is actually watching herself onscreen. She has never seen some of her movies, and only watched Shakespeare in Love to prepare for a U.S. press junket. "I'm very squeamish about it," she admits. "Once I see it, I regret what I've left undone. It's why I love the theater." Going to see the Bond films, though, is different. "Oh, yes!" she says, speaking in actressy italics, as she tends to do. "It's so thrilling! It's absolutely wonderful! It's terribly exciting!"

Much of her squeamishness stems from a fundamental--and misplaced--insecurity about her looks. When asked to play Cleopatra in 1987, Dench, only half-joking, called herself a "menopausal dwarf." "I'm not a face that people want to film," she insists. "I faced that very, very early on." Now Dench may have to face an even more frightening fact: the camera loves her.