Judi Dench is an English actress, artist, and author. Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years, she performed in several of Shakespeare's plays, in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Although most of her work during this period was in theatre, she also branched into film work and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer. She drew rave reviews for her leading role in the musical Cabaret in 1968. Over the next two decades, Dench established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She received critical acclaim for her work on television during this period, in the series A Fine Romance (1981–1984) and As Time Goes By (1992–2005), in both of which she held starring roles. Her film appearances were infrequent, and included supporting roles in major films, such as A Room with a View (1986), before she rose to international fame as M in GoldenEye (1995), a role she continued to play in James Bond films until Spectre (2015). A seven-time Academy Award nominee, Dench won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998); her other Oscar-nominated roles were in Mrs Brown (1997), Chocolat (2000), Iris (2001), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005), Notes on a Scandal (2006) and Philomena (2013). She has also received many other accolades for her acting in theatre, film, and television; her other competitive awards include six British Academy Film Awards, four BAFTA TV Awards, seven Olivier Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award. She has also received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2001, and the Special Olivier Award in 2004. In June 2011, she received a fellowship from the British Film Institute (BFI). Dench provided her voice for several smaller projects including Walt Disney's Home on the Range, alongside Roseanne Barr and Jennifer Tilly
Judy Dench
Erda
for Erda in The Ring of the Nibelung: The Rhinegold
Suggested by jvpirate
The Rhinegold (“Das Rheingold”) is the first of this series of four non-musical movies based on the epic four-opera cycle Der Ring Des Nibelungen by 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner (who based these four operas loosely on characters from ancient Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the Nibelungenlied). The Rhinegold concerns Alberich, a Nibelung dwarf, who steals a lump of magic gold from the three Rhinenmaidens, after renouncing love, and uses it to forge a magic ring that would give its wearer the power to rule the world. However, Wotan, the king of the gods, captures Alberich and forces him to give up the ring, a magic helmet called the Tarnhelm, and a hoard of gold. Upon being released, Alberich places a terrible curse on the ring: until it returns to Alberich, it will bring anguish and death to those who possess it, and everyone else will be consumed by envy. Wotan then intends to use the ring to pay two giants named Fasolt and Fafner in return for building a new castle for the gods, but is tempted to keep it for himself. However, Erda, the goddess of the Earth, wisdom, and fate, warns him to give up the ring and avoid its curse. So he gives the ring (along with the Tarnhelm and Alberich’s gold) to the giants. Fafner kills Fasolt and then leaves with the ring and the rest of Alberich’s treasure. Soon after, the gods enter their new castle, which Wotan names Valhalla, unaware of the catastrophes that the ring will bring upon the world.
