Judi Dench suffered from phobia of cinema as a teen

Hollywood star Dame Judi Dench missed out on a string of cinematic treats in her youth as she had a phobia of dark theatres.

The 79-year-old Oscar-winner reveals she went through a kind of claustrophobic phase in her early teens, said the The Hollywood Reporter.

"(It was) a ghastly thing... And so I didn't go to the cinema, actually, for a very long time, and the consequence is that it's left me with a huge amount of films that I've never seen," Dench said.

"Now, with DVDs and things like that, you can actually see

it (film) on a screen and not be in a long black tunnel and I'm better about it. So I've got a lot of catching up to do," she added.