The sci-fi movie seemed a bizarre move for the iconic British star, who doesn’t usually make appearances in the genre.
However it seems an enormous bouquet of flowers from Vin Diesel was all she needed to be persuaded.
“I was doing a play at the Haymarket Theatre in London and I didn’t know that Vin Diesel, the one and only, was there,” she told Entertainment Weekly.
“Vin sent me a bouquet of flowers that were so big they couldn’t fit up the stairs to my dressing room. They could not get them into the corridor.
“Then he asked if I would be in his film. And of course I said yes. Why ever not?”
Dench, 82, starred in the film back in 2004, but is now promoting Victoria & Abdul, in which she reprises the title role of one of the country’s most famous ever monarchs.
Later this year she’ll also be in Muder on the Orient Express.
On her decision to play Victoria again, she recently said: “So I never expected to play her later on but I must say this particular story of Queen Victoria four years after John Brown died seemed to me to be a kind of continuance, because I’d done the homework, and the screenplay I think is wonderful.
“It tells a great, great story – so that and working with Stephen [Frears] again, I found an irresistible proposition.”
The film has split critics so far, and holds a 50% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Victoria and Abdul is out now.
Daily Express :: Entertainment Feed
