Dame Judi Dench is opening up about a medical condition that has greatly impacted the way she works.
For over ten years, Dench, 88, has been suffering from age-related macular degeneration, a condition that causes one’s eyesight to worsen over time. Now, she’s revealing that it’s gotten so bad that she can no longer read scripts or memorize lines for acting jobs.
“It has become impossible,” she said on Friday’s episode of “The Graham Norton Show.”
“And because I have a photographic memory,” she continued, “I need to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines but also tells me where they appear on the page.”
Judi Dench’s eyesight has been deteriorating for several years. (John Phillips)
She said that she “used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole of ‘Twelfth Night’ right now.”
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In a 2014 statement, the “James Bond” actress said she didn’t want her condition to be “overblown” in the media, and that “It’s something that I have learnt to cope with and adapt to – and it will not lead to blindness.”
However, macular degeneration does affect the central vision, which can make everyday tasks extremely difficult or, as she said in her recent interview, impossible.
Judi Dench can no longer read scripts because of her condition. (Photo by Getty Images For Orange)
By 2016, her sight had deteriorated enough that she became unable to travel alone.
“These days, I can’t really travel on my own, because I need someone to say, ‘Look out, there’s a step here!’” she explained. “Or else I fall all over the place like a mad, drunk lady.”
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Dench began her professional acting career in 1957 at the historical Royal Court Theatre, where she played the role of Ophelia in “Hamlet.”
Judi Dench got her start in a production of “Hamlet” in 1957. (Bob Haswell)
She continued working in theater on some of the UK’s most prominent stages and then made her film debut in 1964.
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Since then, she’s acted in film and on stage, earning an Academy Award in 1988 for her role in “Shakespeare in Love” as well as a Tony Award in 1999 for starring in the play “Amy’s View.”
