Revelation: This is why Dame Judi Dench can’t go out alone

The veteran Hollywood actor, who first revealed in 2012 she is suffering from macular degeneration in her eyes, has now given an update on her condition on the new episode of Trinny Woodall's 'Fearless' podcast

Los Angeles: Veteran Hollywood star Judi Dench has opened up about her long-running health battle with her eyes, and said that her vision loss is now so advanced that she needs someone when she leaves her house.

The 90-year-old actor, first revealed in 2012 she is suffering from macular degeneration in her eyes, which can cause permanent and rapid central vision loss and is the number one cause of vision loss in people over 50, reports ‘femalefirst.co.uk’.

---

She has now given a bleak update on her condition on the new episode of Trinny Woodall’s ‘Fearless’ podcast. Dench said: “Somebody will always be with me. 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. (sic)”

During a 2021 event for the London-based Vision Foundation, Dench talked about how she has been battling to read scripts due to her rapidly fading vision.

She said: “You find a way of just getting about and getting over the things that you find very difficult. I’ve had to find another way of learning lines and things, which is having great friends of mine repeat them to me over and over and over again… So I have to learn through repetition, and I just hope that people won’t notice too much if all the lines are completely hopeless! (sic)

Dench also told ‘The Graham Norton Show’ about how she battles to memorise lines as she used to rely on her photographic memory. She added: “I need to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines but also tells me where they appear on the page. I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole of ‘Twelfth Night’ right now.”