Casting your eye over the leading ladies who have shared the screen with Johnny Depp over the years reveals a cavalcade of captivating, talented women. From Winona Ryder to Angelina Jolie, from Penelope Cruz to Marion Cotillard, and from Kate Winslet to Juliette Binoche, the star has been lucky enough to share the screen with Hollywood’s A-list ladies over the past three decades. Interestingly, though, the actor Depp has called his one true love isn’t any of these women. Instead, it’s someone very different, but no less incredible, who inspires a truly euphoric level of devotion from Depp.
Depp first crossed paths with the actor in question in the 2000 romance Chocolat and then reunited with her ten years later in 2010’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Here, she cameoed in the fourth instalment of his hugely successful franchise as a noblewoman who finds herself being ravished – and robbed – by Captain Jack Sparrow in her horse-drawn carriage.
Who is the star who made such a huge impression on him in the two small scenes they shared, though? Of course, none other than the wildly acclaimed Dame Judi Dench.
When Depp was asked by Indie London to talk about the fun cameo, he smiled: “It’s the second time I’ve been lucky enough to work with Dame Judi Dench: very briefly on Chocolat and very briefly on this one. She’s such a major force: fun, smart, elegant, an angel.” He then chuckled about the strange things he’s wound up doing in his two scenes with Dench – dancing with her in Chocolat and nibbling on her ear in Pirates. He beamed, “What’s next?”
It transpired that Depp would only have to wait another seven years for his third go-around with Dench. As two parts of an extensive ensemble cast in Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, Depp and Dench resumed their metaphorical dance on-screen. In an interview with AP News, he gushed, “I worship Judi Dench and have done for a long time. It’s an honour to be in the same proximity as someone as filled with gifts and talent and everything. Stardust, man. She’s stardust.”
At the movie’s premiere in 2017, Depp strutted down the red carpet with his co-stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Willem Dafoe, and Dench. While waxing lyrical about the talents of the stacked cast during a Build interview with Lorraine Kelly, though, he couldn’t help lavishing special praise on Dench.
Indeed, the Edward Scissorhands actor gave Dench his most effusive declaration of devotion, yet when he said, “Judi Dench is my one true love. She levitates.”
For her part, Dench has reciprocated Depp’s admiration in her own hilarious way. While playing a game called “Would you rather?” on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Dench was asked which of the leading men she had worked with was the sexiest. While DeGeneres reeled off a list that included heavyweight heartthrobs like Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, and Depp, a twinkle came to her eye, and she said, “Johnny Depp”. The host seemed surprised and replied, “The sexiest? Really?” to which Dench gave her an enthusiastic, “Yep.”
Maybe he really did melt her heart all those years ago in Chocolat, after all.
