Judi Dench says she can no longer see on film sets

Beloved actress Judi Dench told the Sunday Mirror that due to poor eyesight, she can no longer see on film sets.

She detailed having friends assist her in learning her lines after her macular degeneration rendered her unable to see enough to read scripts.

"It’s difficult if I have any length of a part," said the actress in the interview. "I haven’t yet found a way. Because I have so many friends who will teach me the script. But I have a photographic memory.”

She has spoken about her eyesight many times before, detailing the need to memorise her lines orally before going onto set. However, that process hasn't slowed her down one bit- in fact, she's been busy in the past few years.

Dench collected an Oscar nomination for Belfast, Kenneth Branaugh's 2021 film about the Troubles. She also recently appeared in Richard Eyre's film Allelujah, an adaptation of the Alan Bennett play.

She's had a long and very successful career, spanning from film to television to the stage. She played M in eight James Bond films and won an Oscar for her performance in Shakespeare in Love, as well as a Tony and eight Olivier awards for her stage career. In June, she received the IFTA Lifetime Achievement Award for her work.

Despite her health, she has no plans to stop working and cites her desire to keep going as "an irrational fear of boredom." She said that fear is why she "now [has] this tattoo that says carpe diem. That’s what we should live by."