Speaking to journalists at the San Sebastian film festival, where she received a lifetime achievement award, Dench said Spacey was "a good friend" and had been an "inestimable comfort" and "kept me going" while they worked together on The Shipping News after the death of her husband Michael Williams in 2001.
Dench said: "I can’t approve, in any way, of the fact that ‐ whatever he has done ‐ that you then start to cut him out of the films ... Are we to do that throughout history? Are we to go back throughout history and anyone who has misbehaved in any way, or who has broken the law, or who has committed some kind of offence, are they always going to be cut out? Are we going to extrude them from our history?"