Judi Dench defends 'good friend' Kevin Spacey

Judi Dench has said that she is standing by her ‘good friend’ Kevin Spacey, despite the allegations of sexual assault and harassment which have been brought against him.

She starred with Spacey in the 2001 movie The Shipping News, which was made shortly after the death of Dench’s husband Michael Williams.

Speaking at the San Sebastian Film Festival, she said that making the movie with Spacey was one of the most memorable of her career.

“Kevin was an inestimable comfort and never mentioned he knew I was in a bad way,” she said. “He cheered me up and kept me going.”

When asked her views on the multiple allegations against him, she explained that she did not think the way he has been treated has been fair.

Spacey was fired from his starring role in the Netflix drama House of Cards, and was cut out and replaced by Christopher Plummer in Ridley Scott’s movie All The Money In The World.

It followed claims that he had sexually harassed dozens of men over his career, the first to come forward being Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp, who said Spacey tried to assault him at a party when he was 14.

“I can’t approve, in any way, of the fact that – whatever he has done – that you then start to cut him out of the films,” she said.

“Are we to do what happened when he was replaced with Christopher Plummer? Are we to do that throughout history? Are we to go back throughout history and anyone who has misbehaved in any way, or who has broken the law, or who has committed some kind of offence, are they always going to be cut out? Are we going to extrude them from our history? I don’t know.

“I don’t know about the conditions of it, but nevertheless he is, and was, a most wonderful actor. I can’t imagine what he is doing now.”

According to Variety, she then ‘firmly’ added that Spacey remains ‘a good friend’.

Speaking about the #MeToo movement, she went on to call it ‘an extraordinary moment of change’.

“And there are many more parts for women, which is very good indeed, and long may that go on,” she added.

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