Legendary Bond and Shakespeare actress Dame Judi Dench has opened up about the degenerative eye condition that is causing her to have difficulty seeing. The 87-year-old Oscar-winner, famous for playing 'M' in the spy franchise and Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, revealed that she has a condition called Age-related Macular Degeneration - AMD for short - which is a common condition that "affects the middle part of your vision," as stated by the NHS website.
While it does not cause total blindness, it makes everyday activities, such as reading, difficult - although Dame Judi has found a few nifty tricks to work around it and is adamant she won't be stepping away from acting any time soon.
Speaking to Louis Theroux on an upcoming epsiode of his new BBC2 inteview series Louis Theroux Interviews... Dame Judi said "I don't want to retire. I'm not doing much at the moment because I can't see."
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She added: "It’s bad. Bad enough in that you’re quite fuzzy. I’ve got to teach myself a new way of learning. I have a photographic memory so a person saying to me, “This is your line”- I can do that. And I have many people who can help me. Nevertheless, I realise that I need to know where it is on the page. I’ll teach myself a way, I know I will. So long as I don’t trip over doing it."
She also revealed that, as a result of this condition, the iconic Belfast actress's partner, David Mills, recently needed to cut her food up for her because her vision had become "so dark".
She said: "I went to a dinner a few weeks ago, a rather important dinner. It was so dark that I said to David, who was next to me: 'Have I anything on my plate?' He said: 'Yes'. I said: 'Does it need cutting up?' So he said, 'Yes' and I said, 'Would you do it?' He cut it up and handed something to me on a fork and that’s the way I ate it."
This isn't the acting star's first health scare as earlier in the year Dame Judi - who recently accused the Netflix television show The Crown of ‘crude sensationalism’ - had a "frightful fall" and admitted that keeping her independence intact is becoming increasingly difficult. Although she isn't yet turning to a panic alarm and only lives a short distance from her partner and daughter Finty Williams, who she had with husband Michael Williams, who died back in 2001.
Dame Judi, who lives alone, told Saga Magazine: "I had a frightful fall not long ago. I tripped over the carpet, and there was nobody in the house and I was lying on the ground unable to get up for half an hour." Although unable to get up for thirty minutes, she kept her quick wit and humour and described the comforting words her "wonderful" pet parrot used.
"I have a wonderful parrot who kept saying, 'What are you doing? What are you doing?' This is when you need a very convenient parrot who would phone somebody – but she didn't."
Louis Theroux Interviews... returns to BBC2 next Tuesday.
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