Judi Dench is opening up about her current feelings towards Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein.
Both men played a notable role in the 91-year-old’s life and career before their respective #MeToo allegations. Spacey, who starred in the 2001 film The Shipping News with Dench, also supported her following the death of her husband, Michael Williams, that same year.
“Kevin has been exonerated and I hear from Kevin, we text,” she recently told The Radio Times of Spacey, who was acquitted of sexual assault charges in a U.K. criminal trial in 2023. The actor was also found not liable in a civil case brought in New York in 2022. However, he is set to face more claims of sexual assault in London civil court next year.
As for Weinstein, who is currently serving a prison sentence after being convicted of rape and sexual assault in Los Angeles in 2023, his former company Miramax worked on several of Dench’s films, from distribution to producing, including Mrs. Brown (1997), Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Philomena (2013), among others.
“I saw a bit of film of Harvey walking with two sticks and you think, ‘Well…’ ‘I knew Harvey and I knew him well and worked with him, and I had none of that experience — very fortunately for me,’” Dench said to The Radio Times. Though she has empathy for his victims, the actress added, “I imagine he’s done his time… I don’t know, to me it’s personal — forgiveness.”
While the Skyfall star previously called the allegations against the disgraced producer “horrifying,” she has also expressed her concerns in the past that Spacey and Weinstein’s “work may be forgotten.”
In response to Dench, Weinstein wrote in a statement, shared by his rep, “I have always been fond of Judi Dench. She is an extraordinary person who played an important role in my career. I’ve now spent more than six and a half years incarcerated, including a year and a half in Rikers, which counts as double time. I am here for something I did not do, and many of the claims that have been written about me are gradually being shown to be untrue or unsupported.”
He added, “I am grateful for the kind words that have been expressed, and all I want is the chance to return to my family and children.”
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