Dame Judi Dench has said that pursuing a healthy sex life should not be neglected by her fellow octogenarians.

The 82-year-old actor is once again taking on the role of Queen Victoria in her latest film Victoria and Abdul, which explores the relationship the monarch struck up with an Indian clerk, Abdul Karim, in the latter years of her life.

Speaking to the Radio Times, Dench said Victoria’s infatuation with the clerk was an interesting exploration of how romance and intimacy was not just the domain of the young.

Speaking of her own experiences, the Oscar-winning actor said. “Well, of course, you still feel desire. Does that ever go? To the older reader, I would say: ‘Don’t give up.’”

The film, directed by Stephen Frears, traces how Victoria, then 68, became besotted with Karim, 24, who taught her Urdu and became her close friend and confidante, much to the anger of her children and servants who felt she was betraying the strict social hierarchies of the time. After her death, most correspondence between the pair was destroyed, and Karim was sent back to India.

While there is no evidence their relationship was sexual, the surviving letters between the pair and her diaries, some of which are written in Urdu, reveal they discussed intimate details of their lives, including sexual positions to help Karim’s wife get pregnant.

Dame Judi Dench and co-star Ali Fazal walk the red carpet before the Victoria and Abdul screening at the Venice film festival on Sunday. Photograph: Getty

The film is based on a book written by Shrabani Basu, who spent months uncovering 13 volumes of Victoria’s journals and the journals of Karim. Basu said of the relationship: “Queen Victoria liked tall men by her side. I don’t think it was sexual in any sense although there is an intimacy.”

Dench’s romantic life was recently revived by a new relationship with conservationist David Mills, 73. Her husband of 30 years, Michael Williams, died from cancer in 2001, and she has spoken recently of how her relationship with Mills had given her a renewed lust for life.

She told Good Housekeeping: “One hot night during the summer we swam and had a glass of champagne in the garden and I said: ‘This is so fantastic’. I get overexcited about things. I love having a laugh.”

Dench ruled out the idea of getting married again. She said: “He’s not going to propose. No, no, no. Let’s just pull ourselves together and be our age. I have a jolly nice friend. I don’t know what the word is because I don’t like the word partner. Chap? Will chap do?”

Dench’s advocating for older generations to keep their sexual desire alive was echoed in a recent report by Manchester University’s school of social sciences, which found that the emotional side of sex appeared more fulfilling for people over 80.

Another study found that 74% of women and 72% of men between 75 and 85 said satisfactory sex was essential to maintaining a relationship.