Judi Dench’s vision loss prevents her from going out alone
Dame Judi Dench made a vulnerable admission about her deteriorating medical condition.
The 90-year-old legendary actress shared that she cannot go out alone due to her vision loss.
"Somebody will always be with me," she said on the "Fearless" podcast, hosted by Trinny Woodall. "I have to now because I can’t see, and I will walk into something or fall over."
"I’m always nervous before going to something. I have no idea why… I’m not good at being on my own at all, nor would I be now. And fortunately, I don’t have to now because I pretend to have no eyesight," she laughed in good spirits.
For more than a decade, Dench has been suffering from age-related macular degeneration, a condition that causes one's eyesight to worsen over time.
Age-related macular degeneration is the most common cause of severe loss of eyesight among people 50 and older, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Only the center of vision is affected by this disease and people rarely go blind from it, the medical source noted.
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The iconic James Bond actress’ comments come after she opened up about her medical condition last year and how it has greatly impacted her acting career.
In 2023, she revealed that her medical condition had gotten so bad that she could no longer read scripts or memorize lines for acting jobs.
"It has become impossible," she said on "The Graham Norton Show" at the time.
"And because I have a photographic memory," she continued, "I need to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines but also tells me where they appear on the page."
She said that she "used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole of ‘Twelfth Night’ right now."
In a 2014 statement, Dench said she didn't want her condition to be "overblown" in the media, and that "it's something that I have learnt to cope with and adapt to — and it will not lead to blindness."
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By 2016, her sight had deteriorated enough that she became unable to travel alone.
"These days, I can’t really travel on my own, because I need someone to say, ‘Look out, there’s a step here!’" she explained. "Or else I fall all over the place like a mad, drunk lady."
Dench began her professional acting career in 1957 at the historical Royal Court Theatre, where she played the role of Ophelia in "Hamlet."
She continued working in theater on some of the U.K.'s most prominent stages and then made her film debut in 1964.
Since then, she has acted in film and on stage, earning an Academy Award in 1988 for her role in "Shakespeare in Love" as well as a Tony Award in 1999 for starring in the play "Amy's View."
Fox News Digital's Emily Trainham contributed to this report.