By 2025, her vision loss had grown so severe that she had reached a stage of “no eyesight,” which required her to enlist a companion any time she ventures out. “I can’t see and I’ll walk into something or fall over,” she said then.
In an interview broadcast Thursday by BBC Radio 4, Dench provided an update on her condition. Speaking on the Today program, the Shakespeare in Love star said her career is essentially over. “I can’t be on stage. I can’t do a play anymore. I can’t do a film anymore. I can’t read anymore,” she told interviewer Emma Barnett.
However, the actor says she doesn’t let the general effects of aging hold her back. “There’s nothing to say for it at all,” she said when asked about getting older. “[I] don’t think about it too much.”
Judi Dench’s long career has spanned theater, television, and film. In 1999, she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, despite her relatively brief screen time. She also broke ground in t1995’s GoldenEye, as the first woman to portray “M,” the James Bond world’s fictional head of British intelligence. She continued in the role until 2012, when her character was killed off in the franchise’s 25th film, Skyfall.
