Dame Judi has opened up about her health (Picture: WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock)
Dame Judi Dench has revealed she can no longer read her own scripts to learn her lines, due to advanced macular degeneration, and wants to find a machine that can help her.
The Skyfall actress revealed last year that she had been finding ways to work around her loss of sight due to the condition, which affects the middle part of the vision and can start affecting people in their 50s and 60s.
It doesn’t cause complete blindness but can make activities like reading and recognising faces harder.
However, Dame Judi has said that reading has now ‘become impossible’.
Speaking on Friday’s The Graham Norton Show, the 88-year-old says: ‘It has become impossible and because I have a photographic memory, I need to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines but also tells me where they appear on the page.
Dame Judi said learning lines has become ‘impossible’ (Picture: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
‘I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole of Twelfth Night right now.’
Her comments come ahead of her new heart-warming film Allelujah, which she called a ‘big cheer for the NHS’.
Dame Judi continued: ‘We have to be reminded of that, I think. It has come out at a very good time. The cast is wonderful, and it was heaven to do.’
In October, Dame Judi opened up about her AMD, telling Louis Theroux: ‘I don’t want to retire. I’m not doing anything much at the moment because I can’t see.
‘It’s bad, bad enough. Bad enough in that you’re quite fuzzy.’
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She went on: ‘I’ve got to teach myself a new way of learning. I have a photographic memory so a person saying to me, “This is your line”- I can do that. And I have many people who can help me.
‘Nevertheless, I realise that I need to know where it is on the page. I’ll teach myself a way, I know I will. So long as I don’t trip over doing it.’
The Graham Norton Show airs tonight, Friday February 17th at 10.40pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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Dame Judi is suffering from a loss of sight due to advanced macular degeneration.
