Judi Dench reacts tearfully to Maggie Smith's death at Cheltenham Literary Festival

A week after Maggie Smith's death, best friend Dame Judi Dench is at a loss for words.

Asked about Smith's death at age 89, as well as the death of friend and collaborator Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Dench broke down in tears during a conversation Saturday at the Cheltenham Literary Festival.

“I think the strength created by grief…” Dench began before choking up, according to The TimesAfter being asked by interviewer Brendan O'Hea what she meant by comparing the 2001 death of late husband Michael Williams to petrol.

Smith “passed away peacefully” on Friday, September 27, his sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin announced in a joint statement.

He and Dench appeared together in films such as A room with a view (1985), Tea with Mussolini (1999) and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015), as well as numerous stage productions.

Robert Fox, who directed Smith and Dench in Peter Shaffer's stage production Lettuce and Lavage and David Hare breath of lifeRemembers the late actress as one of the “top tier” theater performers. “There's Judy, Ian [McKellen] And that's his,” Fox told Deadline.

“It's incredible that his career has extended like the last days of vaudeville,” he added. “It showed he could do anything. He could do tragedy, comedy, classics – everything.”

“I've never known anyone more dedicated,” Fox said. When he was at the theater, literally his whole day was that night, his performance with the company. There was nothing else in his life. He didn't whip it up at lunchtime. He worked, and his script was always on the dressing room table. It always was, and she was always studying it. It was incredible self-discipline combined with incredible talent.”