Dame Judi Dench has revealed that she can no longer read scripts or see on film sets – but don’t expect her to quit acting any time soon.
The 88-year-old actress was diagnosed with advanced macular degeneration (AMD) in 2012, but still refuses to let that be a reason for her to retire.
Dench revealed this week that her plan is to work “as much as I can”, which is made possible by her photographic memory.
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The James Bond star says that she has friends help her read lines, which she then memorises.
“It’s difficult for me 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,” she told Notebook magazine.
Earlier this year, Dench opened up on the Graham Norton Show about just how bad her eyesight had become, saying that being able to read scripts was now “impossible”.
Even just eating dinner is hard. She can’t see the food on her plate, so her partner has to help. “He cut it up and handed something to me on a fork and that’s the way I ate it,” she explained to Louis Theroux last year.
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According to the Macular Disease Foundation Australia, age-related macular degeneration, is a painless but debilitating disease of the macula, an area at the very centre of the retina, at the back of the eye. The illness causes “progressive loss of central vision”, though leaves peripheral vision intact.
“This loss of central vision affects the ability to read, watch TV, and recognise faces. But, by itself, AMD doesn’t lead to total vision loss,” the foundation explains.
However, Dame Dench refuses to let this get in the way of her career, and is resolute in finding a way to continue acting.
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She told Theroux: ”I’ll teach myself a way, I know I will. So long as I don’t trip over doing it.”
Though the veteran actress is very private about her personal life, she shared a little in this new interview about her current partner David Mills. They met after her husband Michael Williams died in 2001 from lung cancer.
“I never expected, not for a minute, that there would be anybody else in my life after Michael died”, she said.
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“I’ve had many, many good friends, but it’s been very unexpected to have somebody new who is as caring as my partner, David.
“Someone to be able to share things with… I feel very lucky indeed. And to laugh with somebody is terribly important! Laughing is the most important thing. We laugh about everything.”
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