Dame Judi Dench has provided an update on her deteriorating eyesight, saying she is unable to attend events alone and requires someone to “always be with me”.
In 2012, Dench first revealed that she had been diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a degenerative eye condition which is the biggest cause of sight loss in the UK, affecting more than 700,000 people, according to the Macular Society. While the condition does not cause total blindness, it can make everyday activities quite difficult.
Dench, who turned 90 last year, revealed during a podcast appearance that she was never a fan of doing red carpet events alone, and now has to do it with someone with her.
“Somebody will always be with me. I have to now because I can’t see and I will walk into something or fall over,” she told Trinny Woodall on her Fearless podcast.
“I’m always nervous before going to something. I have no idea why…I’m not good at that at all. Not at all. Nor would I be now. And fortunately, I don’t have to be now because I pretend to have no eyesight.”
In 2019, Dench said she had had to give up driving because of her eyesight, calling it “one of the most traumatic moments” of her life.
“It was absolutely appalling,” she said at the time. “But I just know I’ll kill somebody if I get behind the wheel of a car now.”
The Oscar winner later talked about how her condition had impacted her career, and how it made learning her lines difficult.
“I can’t see on a film set anymore,” she said in 2023, adding: “And I can’t see to read. But you just deal with it.
“It’s difficult if I have any length of a part. I haven’t yet found a way. Because I have so many friends who will teach me the script. But I have a photographic memory.”
During an appearance on The Graham Norton Show earlier in the same year, the Spirited star said it had “become impossible” for her to read scripts.
“Because I have a photographic memory, I need to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines but also tells me where they appear on the page,” she said. “I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole of Twelfth Night right now.”
