Dame Judi Dench is telling her story in her own words — and pulling no punches. The 91-year-old acting legend's new memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?, written with her friend and collaborator Brendan O'Hea, published in the U.K. on October 22, 2026, with the U.S. release following on November 3, according to Penguin Books' official listing.
The book reflects on Dench's life and career across stage and screen: the Shakespearean triumphs, the musical roles, and her beloved turn as M in the James Bond films. It follows her earlier collaboration with O'Hea, Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent (2024), and promises behind-the-scenes stories from a career that has made her one of Britain's most treasured performers.
Early excerpts making the rounds include a characteristically frank verdict on the 2019 film Cats, in which Dench appeared. Her reflections revisit a high-profile adaptation that struggled with critics — and give readers Dench's own perspective on the experience of making it, the kind of honesty that has always been her trademark in interviews.
At 91, with an Academy Award, multiple BAFTAs and a place in the cultural firmament secured decades ago, Dench has nothing left to prove and every reason to be candid. Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? — the title itself a wink at a life lived at full tilt — looks like the memoir only she could write: funny, unsparing, and entirely her own.
Dench's late-career renaissance has been one of British culture's great second winds — from Skyfall to Belfast, she has worked steadily into her nineties despite serious vision loss. A memoir from an actor who has seen everything, and remembers it all, is an event. The U.K. got it first on October 22, with American readers waiting until November 3.
Photo: Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons