Academy and Tony Award-winning actress Judi Dench detailed the realities of her eye condition, which has led to a loss of sight and her stepping back from the stage and screen.
“No, you don’t [see me on camera], because I can’t see anymore,” she told an ITV News reporter in a recent joint interview with longtime collaborator and friend Ian McKellen, with whom she starred in Macbeth in 1979.
When McKellen joked that they could see her, the veteran star responded, “Yes, and I can see your outline and I know you so well, in your Macbeth scarf. But I can’t recognize anybody now.”
The Notes on a Scandal star continued, “I can’t see the television, I can’t see to read.”
The X-Men alum then jokingly asked Dench if she ever goes up to “total strangers [to] say, ‘Lovely to see you again,’” to which she laughed and answered, “Sometimes!”
Dench, who has led a storied career from her memorable appearance in Shakespeare in Love to her formidable portrayal as M in Daniel Craig’s run as James Bond, has been open about her diagnosis of age-related macular degeneration, a degenerative eye condition that affects the central part of the retina and results in central vision distortion or loss, since 2012.
She hinted at her retirement last year, and the year prior, said, “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.”
Her most recent credits include a cameo in the 2022 Apple TV+ Christmas musical comedy Spirited, starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. ITV noted that the Belfast star also appeared in a recent holiday-themed advert in the U.K. She and McKellen are currently backing an initiative to revitalize the William Shakespeare curriculum taught at English schools, using rehearsals as teaching tools to invigorate understanding of the Bard.
