Judi Dench is opening up about her worsening eye condition and how she “can’t recognize anybody now.”
The Oscar winner previously shared that she was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration. According to the Mayo Clinic, the condition causes blurred vision or reduced central vision and is common among people over the age of 50.
When asked by ITV why she doesn’t appear onscreen much anymore, Dench replied, “I can’t see anymore. I’ve got, you know, that thing.”
When fellow actor Ian McKellen quipped that they could see her, the 90-year-old actress added, “Yes, and I can see your outline and I know you so well. But I can’t recognize anybody now…. I can’t see the television, I can’t see to read.”
McKellen later joked, “But do you go up to total strangers and say, ‘Lovely to see you again?’” Dench laughed in response, admitting, “Sometimes.”
In 2012, the actress told theDaily Mirror that she was already struggling to read her own scripts and had to rely on help from friends and family following her diagnosis.
“It’s usually my daughter or my agent or a friend and actually I like that, because I sit there and imagine the story in my mind,” she said at the time. “The most distressing thing is in a restaurant in the evening, I can’t see the person I’m having dinner with.”
Dench, considered one of Britain’s greatest actresses, is most known for her roles in the James Bond franchise and 1998’s Shakespeare in Love, among dozens of other projects.