Judi Dench breaks down in tears when asked about friend Maggie Smith

Dame Judi Dench choked up on stage today at the Cheltenham Literature Festival after she was asked about her late friends Maggie Smith and Barbara Leigh-Hunt.

Dench, who shared personal anecdotes during her presentation at the literature festival, got emotional after interviewer Brendan O'Hea brought up her beloved friends who both passed away in the last month. 

'I know I probably shouldn't bring this up, I know the last week has been tricky for you because you lost your great friends Maggie Smith and Barbara Leigh-Hunt', he asked.

He also asked her what she meant when she had once compared grief to petrol when speaking about her husband, Michael Williams', who died from lung cancer in 2001.

'I suppose the energy that's created by grief...' she said, before breaking down in tears. 

It comes as her close friend actress Dame Maggie Smith died last week aged 89. 

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Her death sparked an outpouring of grief from fellow thespians and Harry Potter fans around the world, with Huge Bonneville leading tributes to a 'true legend of her generation'.

The beloved star, who was known for her roles in the Harry Potter movies and her incredible 70-year acting career, had been friends with Dench, since the 1950s. 

Their tight-knit friendship began when they were both young actresses after meeting backstage at the Old Vic theatre in London.

Speaking at a tribute event for Dench back in 2002, Smith said : 'What I remember mostly about that time, it was the beginning of a friendship, and I remember laughter more than anything in the world.

'Judi's the most tremendous friend. She's been a huge support and hugely loyal.' 

The pair had appeared on stage and on screen together several times, including the 1985 film A Room with a View, the 2004 drama 'Ladies in Lavender' and the 2011 comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Speaking about Smith and Dench's friendship, Ol Parker - who wrote The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, said: 'Maggie and Judi would swim in their Victorian swimsuits. And every day we would all laugh and laugh and laugh.'

Dench and Smith also took part in the 2018 Netflix documentary 'Nothing Like a Dame', which documents conversations between the two actresses and fellow performers Eileen Atkins and Joan Plowright (all of who are Dames Commander of the British Empire). 

Meanwhile, actress Barbara Leigh-Hunt and close friend to Dench also died last month at the age of 88. 

The English star, who is known for playing ill-fated Brenda in Alfred Hitchcock's epic film Frenzy was close friends with Dench, and was even the godmother to her daughter Finty Williams.

She had appeared alongside Dencg ub the 1992 BBC sitcom 'As Time Goes By'. 

While Dench did not share any words about Smith or Leigh-Hunt at the festival, she told the audience that the trees she plants in her surrey home were in memory of her loved ones who have passed. 

The actress has been open about her experiences with grief after tragically losing her husband, who was also an actor, more than 20 years ago.

The pair married in 1971 after co-starring in a theatre production of The Duchess of Malfi, and had a daughter, Finty. 

After losing Williams to lung cancer, Dench admitted that she forced herself to work as it 'helped me cope with the pain'. 

 'Sometimes you have to do a play and it is really painful. That said, I've also found it unbelievably cathartic,' she once said in an interview with The Times.

'You fortify yourself and use what you are going through as energy. Like petrol. It has helped me cope with the pain.'

 Dench has been with her partner wildlife conservationist David Mills since 2010. She said in an interview with The Times that she never expected to find love again after her husband's death. 

'I wasn't even prepared to be ready for it. It was very, very gradual and grown up. It's just wonderful'. 

But after meeting David , she gushed to GoodHousekeeping in 2015: ‘It’s wonderful to be in love. That state when you’re glad to see somebody and they make you laugh and you just like being with them.’

The couple met when Dench officiated the opening of a new squirrel enclosure at the British Wildlife Centre in Surrey. 

Mills once joked that 'she fell in love with my squirrels not me'.