Oscar-winning actress Dame Judi Dench has retired from the stage and screen due to her diminishing vision, as per UK media reports.
“No, you don’t [see me on camera], because I can’t see anymore,” she told during a recent joint ITV interview with longtime collaborator and friend Ian McKellen, with whom she starred in Macbeth in 1979.
“Yes, and I can see your outline and I know you so well, in your Macbeth scarf. But I can’t recognize anybody now,” the veteran star added when McKellen quipped that they can see her. “I can’t see the television, I can’t see to read,” she added.
Dench jokingly said that she sometimes goes up to “total strangers” to say “Lovely to see you again” after McKellen asked her if she ever does that.
Since 2012, Dench has always been open about her diagnosis of age-related macular degeneration, an eye disease that blurs central vision, caused by damage to the macula, the part of the retina that controls sharp, straight-ahead vision.
Last year, Dench hinted at her retirement during an interview. The year before that, she said, “It’s difficult for me if I have any length of a part. 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.”
Dench last appeared in a cameo role in the 2022 Apple TV+ Christmas musical comedy Spirited, starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. She also recently featured in an advertisement for the upcoming holiday season in the UK.
According to Deadline, Dench and McKellen are currently backing an initiative to revitalise the William Shakespeare curriculum taught at English schools, using rehearsals as teaching tools to invigorate understanding of the Bard.