Dame Judi Dench has said she is nowhere near as brave as her Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel character because she could never start a new life abroad.

The Skyfall actress returns as widow Evelyn in the sequel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which sees a community of older people trying to make a new life in India.

She said: “Evelyn has much more courage than I would have. I wouldn’t go off to India if my husband had just died. I wouldn’t have had that courage to go to a foreign country, where I didn’t know anything about it. I might, perhaps, go as far as Scotland or Cornwall…

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Dame Judi Dench and Bill Nighy star in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Twentieth Century Fox)

“I understand that thing of saying to your children, ‘I don’t want to be a burden, I don’t want to hang around and for you to have to look after me’. But that wouldn’t be me, I’m not brave like that.”

Dame Judi also talked about how much she likes to play practical jokes at work: “I have a reputation for behaving quite badly.

“I don’t do it so much now, but I used to. I have played jokes on people, you know, very, very subtly so the audience can’t see. I find it irresistible.”

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Dame Judi and her Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel co-stars (Twentieth Century Fox)

The 80-year-old admitted that it was one of the things that made her enjoy her work so much: “I wouldn’t do it if I really didn’t think I was going to have a lovely time, meet new people, make new friends, and play a few games and a few tricks,” she said.

“That’s the vital thing, isn’t it?”

:: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is in cinemas now.