The last few years have been hard for Judi Dench. The legendary British actress who gave us memorable roles such as M in ‘Skyfall’ or Cecily in ‘The Hollow Crown’ has long been telling us how her quality of life has deteriorated, to the point that she is forced to retire from the work she once loved. Unfortunately, it does not seem to have improved since then: her vision has worsened so much that she is even unable to read.
She stated this with a heartbreaking testimony in an interview granted to a BBC radio programme. “I can’t be on stage. I can’t act anymore. I can’t even read at this point,” she told the interviewer. Three years ago she already revealed that she was starting to find it difficult to read the scripts she was handed, but it appears she has reached a point of no return that makes it very hard for her to come to terms with it.
Aging is garbage
The interview delves into her vision problems and how they are severely impacting her life, not only her professional career. She says that sometimes she can barely recognize people and that, on more than one occasion, she has mistaken one person for another and that has led to uncomfortable situations in which she embraced someone with total confidence, thinking it was another acquaintance.
That said, she does not let any of this sink her completely into misery. When her interviewer asks about her age, which now reaches 91, she is direct and answers with the sarcastic tone we have already seen in her performances. “Aging? Garbage. There is nothing to talk about regarding that, nothing at all. She keeps moving forward without dwelling on it and continues trying, I don’t know, to attempt skating or something, anything. And if you can’t see the way I do, well, that is another matter.”
Macular degeneration
Unfortunately, Dench’s situation has been ongoing for several years. In 2012 she was diagnosed with macular degeneration due to age, which began to affect her vision. Nevertheless, the actress managed to fight against it for more than a decade, until in 2024 she was forced to retire definitively.
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