Judi Dench Gets Candid About Her Vision Problem

Dame Judi Dench revealed in 2012 that she was diagnosed with a condition that affects her vision.

The 80-year-old actress may go blind one day due to the condition known as macular degeneration. She opened up about her impaired eyesight in the new issue of People.

“My eyes only affect me if I’m somewhere dark and there are steps and I don’t see very well,” she explained to the magazine. “I couldn’t go on the [London] Underground now without somebody because I couldn’t work a machine. I can’t see to do it. But fortunately, I get somebody to come with me – ask any of my friends or family. I’m not going to make it something that’s going to stop me.”

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When studying movie scripts, Judi is able to read enlarged print. She joked that her thicker script may lead her co-stars to believe she has more lines than anyone else.

“So, if six of us were coming in to read a sonnet they’d all have one piece of paper and I’d have two or three,” she said. “They’d think, ‘Why does she have a bigger part?’ when it’s all the same!”

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Judi’s mother also battled macular degeneration, so she is encouraging her own daughter, actress Finty Williams – who she had with late husband Michael Williams – to get her eyes examined as a precaution.

“I think she probably ought to go sooner rather than later to have her eyes checked out,” she said. “I don’t think you automatically have it.”

See Judi – along with Maggie Smith, Richard Gere, Dev Patel and more – in “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” which is now playing in theaters.

— Paige Feigenbaum