Judi Dench says failing eyesight means she can no longer act or read

Dame Judi Dench has said her deteriorating eyesight means she can no longer be on stage, perform in a play or film, or read. She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday, 22 October 2026, according to The Guardian.

Dench, who was 91 when she was interviewed, was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration in 2012. The condition damages the central part of the eye, which is used for close, detailed sight. In 2012 she told the Daily Mirror she struggled to read scripts and recognise faces, as the BBC reported at the time.

In the new interview she said her worsening eyesight means she can no longer read or recognise faces. Today is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs programme on Radio 4, the UK's main speech radio station, and the interview was given ahead of the publication of her memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?. The book was written with the theatre director Brendan O'Hea.

Dench is one of Britain's best-known stage and screen actors. She won an Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, and she appeared as M, the head of MI6, in eight James Bond films. She said she is besotted by Shakespeare's sonnets, the 154 poems by William Shakespeare that she has long performed and admired.

Her public association with sight loss predates the new interview. In 2024 she was made patron of an eyesight loss fund, as the BBC reported.