Dustin Hoffman is so taken with his latest co-star Dame Judi Dench that he wants to make a romantic blockbuster with her.

Dame Judi Dench and Dustin Hoffman in Roald Dahl's Esio Trot
(BBC)

The double Oscar winner has teamed up with the actress for a BBC One adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot which will be shown this Christmas.

Hoffman plays retired bachelor Mr Hoppy, who is secretly in love with his neighbour, Mrs Silver, played by Dame Judi, who lavishes all her affection on her pet tortoise Alfie in the one-off adaptation by Richard Curtis.

The US actor, whose career includes classic films such as The Graduate and All The President’s Men, described Dame Judi as “a scrumptious looking woman”.

Dame Judi Dench in Roald Dahl's Esio Trot
(BBC)

Speaking at a screening of the Dahl adaptation in London, he said: “I want to do a movie and I don’t know if I told these guys but I want to do a movie with all the CGI and stuff that can happen today.”

Dame Judi Dench and Dustin Hoffman
(Grant Pollard/Invision/AP)

He said he had watched some of her earliest performances online, saying: “I said to Judi ‘If I met you then, I wouldn’t have let you get away’ and I must say there must be a way to do a love story where we meet in our twenties but yet we’re acting as we are now.”

Curtis, whose hits include Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill, said he thought the pair of elderly lovers in the story were the “couple most likely to stay together” out of all the characters in his films.