Dame Judi Dench, who once said she owed her film career to Harvey Weinstein, is now seeking forgiveness for the disgraced Hollywood producer.
“I imagine he’s done his time,” the 90-year-old British actress told Radio Times magazine, speaking about Weinstein, 73, who is actually far from having “done his time” after he was sentenced to 39 years in prison on two separate sexual assault convictions in New York and Los Angeles.
“I don’t know, to me it’s personal—forgiveness,” Dench said. The actress, who has previously revealed that her “faith is everything” to her and that she is a member of the Quaker faith, trailed off without continuing on the topic.
The friendship between Weinstein and Dench has long been the subject of discussion, with the disgraced movie mogul recalling in a 2013 interview that he had “fallen more in love” with the actress over the years of them working together, and Dench claiming that it was “thanks to Harvey” that she “got a film career.”
Dench’s first major big-screen appearance came in 1997, when Weinstein’s former entertainment company, Miramax, acquired Mrs. Brown. The film earned her her first Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Queen Victoria.
Of Dench’s eight Oscar nominations, four were for films produced by Miramax, with Shakespeare in Love earning her a win.
“She said to me, ‘I can’t thank you enough,’” Weinstein recalled in 2013, before sharing an anecdote about Dench surprising him with a tattoo reading “JD loves JW” on her body. Dench later told The Hollywood Reporter that the tattoo was fake, applied by her makeup artist, and that it left the disgraced producer “embarrassed.”
In 2017, after dozens of women accused the producer of sexual harassment, Dench said in a statement to Newsweek that while there was “no doubt” Weinstein had “championed” her career, she was “completely unaware” of the “horrifying” offenses. She also expressed sympathy for those who suffered and spoke out against him.
Dench’s longtime friend and fellow Hollywood legend, Meryl Streep, who also worked with Weinstein and jokingly referred to him as “God,” told the Huffington Post that “not everybody knew” about the disgraced producer’s sexual abuse, despite rumors that his conduct was a widely known but unspoken fact in Hollywood.
“I knew Harvey, and I knew him well and worked with him, and I had none of that experience—very fortunately for me," Dench told Radio Times.
The outlet also asked the actress whether her forgiveness extends to Kevin Spacey, 66, who has faced multiple sexual abuse allegations but has denied the claims and was found not liable in both U.S. and U.K. cases against him.
“Kevin has been exonerated, and I hear from Kevin, we text,” the actress said. She has been friends with Spacey since their filming of The Shipping News in 2001, shortly after the death of Dench’s husband, a time when she said Spacey “was an inestimable comfort” to her.
“I can’t approve, in any way, of the fact—whatever he has done—that you then start to cut him out of films,” Dench said in 2018 about her friend, following sexual assault accusations made against him by multiple men.
In a November interview with The Telegraph, Spacey revealed that after losing roles in Hollywood amid the allegations, he has been living in Airbnbs and hotels and literally has “no home.”
The actor will face additional sexual assault claims in a civil court in London next year.
