Judi Dench Will Not Attend the Academy Awards Ceremony
Dame Judi will watch the Academy Award ceremony from her bed, with a broken leg and rooting for Dame Helen Mirren.

The renowned actress was in Berlin during the city’s Film Festival when she announced that she would not be present at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony.

Instead, she said, she would be lying in her bed, with her surgically fixed leg, waiting for Helen Mirren to receive her award.

“Don't put any money on me because you'll lose,” she said during a news conference at the Berlin Film Festival when asked about the chances of winning best actress Oscar for her role in the acclaimed film “Notes On A Scandal.”

“The thing about the Oscars, it's strange because in the theater you would say ‘Break a leg’,” the actress said. “I can't because I'm to have a knee operation. I can't go to the awards. I'm going to have my leg broken and put back together. I will watch and cheer from my bed.”

The veteran British actress already has a precious statuette of her own, for her performance in 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love” (best supporting actress). She has been nominated four other times in the past decade.

Dench and Dame Helen Mirren, 61, for “The Queen,” are seen by bookmakers as front-runners in the best actress Academy Award. Other contenders include Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz and Meryl Streep.

Also during the Berlin news conference, the 72-year-old actress said she felt honored to be named Dame Judi Dench at home in Britain but added the title posed problems abroad.

“It's a wonderful honor to be made a Dame but it makes it difficult for you when you go to America because there it is something different to be a dame,” she quipped.

“So no one knows what to call you there. It's better to be just called Judi. So I don't mind that. I don't think that's altered me in any way or anyone's attitude toward me.”