During an appearance on ITV on Nov. 25, Dame Judi Dench revealed her age-related advanced macular degeneration (AMD) has reached a point where she “can’t recognize anybody anymore.”
Dench, who will turn 91 in December, also said she can no longer watch TV or read. “You don’t [see me on camera anymore] because I can’t see,” she explained. “I’ve got, you know, that thing.”
@itvnews Judi tells ITV News she cannot attend events alone because of her age-related macular degeneration (AMD) which affects her eye sight. #itvnews #judidench #ianmckellen #shakepeare #amd ♬ original sound – itvnews
Advanced macular degeneration is an eye condition that damages the part of the retina responsible for sharp, central vision. This is the vision used for activities like reading, driving, recognizing faces and seeing fine details.
The actress turned to Ian McKellen who was standing next to her and added, “Yes, and I can see your outline and I know you so well. But I can’t recognize anybody anymore.”
McKellen made a lighthearted joke about it saying, “But do you go up to total strangers and say, ‘Lovely to see you again?’” The actress responded with a laugh saying that yes, in fact, she did.
Dench first shared her diagnosis in a 2012 interview with the Daily Mirror. “I can’t read scripts any more,” she told the outlet at the time.
She continued: “Somebody comes and reads them to me, like telling me a story. 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. I’ve got what my ma had, macular degeneration, which you get when you get old.”
Dench also previously discussed the condition during a 2023 interview on “The Graham Norton Show” and admitted that reading scripts had become “impossible.”
“It has become impossible and because I have a photographic memory,” she said. “I need to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines but also tells me where they appear on the page.”
With her memory, lines used to be easy to memorize. “I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them,” she said. “I could do the whole of ‘Twelfth Night’ right now.”
You can watch Dench’s ITV interview in the video above.
