Christine Drews Sieger
Sight loss from age-related macular degeneration has forced 91-year-old Dame Judi Dench to end her acting career.
Dame Judi Dench has spoken about adjusting to life with severe vision loss, which has effectively ended her acting career.
Daily tasks now present significant challenges for the 91-year-old Oscar winner.
Sight loss has been an evolving reality for the actor since her 2012 diagnosis of age-related macular degeneration, a progressive condition that now makes recognizing faces difficult.
“I can’t be on stage. I can’t do a play anymore. I can’t do a film anymore. I can’t read anymore,” she said during an interview with Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
She admitted that her failing sight occasionally leads to confusing encounters in public, explaining that she sometimes approaches strangers thinking they are acquaintances.
When asked about aging, she offered a direct response: “There’s nothing to say for it at all. [I] don’t think about it too much.”
Dench noted that she relies increasingly on audio, stating that “the radio has always been important to me.”
A lifelong passion
During the broadcast, she also shared anecdotes from her life, including a lunch meeting with former MI6 chief Sir David Spedding.
The intelligence head insisted on sending a driver, who delayed her arrival by getting lost on the way to her home.
However, when asked who should play the next James Bond, she simply replied “no.”
Dench also reflected on her lifelong passion for William Shakespeare, which began at age nine after watching her brother perform in a school production of Macbeth.
She noted a particular affection for his poetry, admitting to being “besotted” by his sonnets: “It’s the rhythm of it. It’s the rhythm of your heart,” she added, the BBC reports.
Background and honours
- Born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, Dench trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and went on to perform with prestigious companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and the Old Vic Theatre.
- Known for frequently playing dignified, strong-willed women in positions of authority, she has earned ten BAFTA awards, two Laurence Olivier Awards, and an Academy Award for her supporting role as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998).
- She made film history as the first woman to portray “M” in the James Bond series, debuting in GoldenEye (1995).
- Her contributions to the arts have been recognized with numerous honours, including being appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1988 and a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2005, according to IMDB.
