Judi Dench’s vision loss means she can’t go outside on her own anymore

Acting legend Dame Judi Dench has revealed recently that she can no longer go outside on her own, due to the deterioration of her eyesight.

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The Oscar winner, 90, spoke on Trinny Woodall’s Fearless podcast about living with macular degeneration, a condition which has seen her vision worsen over recent years. She first discussed the condition in 2012, saying that she was “battling blindness”, adding: “I can’t read scripts any more because of the trouble with my eyes. And so somebody comes in and reads them to me, like telling me a story.”

During her appearance on the podcast, she 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”. She also spoke about the anxiety of the condition, confessing: “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”. She then joked: “Fortunately, I don’t have to now because I pretend to have no eyesight”.

She has spoken on the difficulties her sight loss has had on her career in the past, revealing during a talk for The Vision Foundation: “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”.

Dench has had a historic acting career, appearing in films such as Shakespeare In Love, Belfast, and playing M in the James Bond franchise from 1995-2015. She was lifelong friends with the late Dame Maggie Smith, and recently got emotional when she spoke about the star’s death last year. She also revealed she has “memorial trees” for friends who have passed on, including Alan Rickman and Helen McCrory.

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