Judi Dench Says Learning Lines Has Become ‘Impossible’ Amid Eyesight Loss

At the age of 88, Judi Dench is still working regularly and even has a new movie, Allelujah, arriving in theaters next month. But the storied actress has had to find new ways to practice her craft, especially as her degenerative eye condition has made it “impossible” to learn her lines from a script.

Dench discussed her condition — known as advanced macular degeneration — during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show Friday, Feb. 17 (via People). 

“It has become impossible, and because I have a photographic memory, I need to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines but also tells me where they appear on the page,” Dench said. “I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole of Twelfth Night right now.”

AMD does not cause blindness, though it does make facial recognition and reading especially difficult. Dench previously discussed how the condition has forced her to tweak the way she approaches acting during an online event for the London-based sight loss charity, the Vision Foundation, in 2021. 

“You find a way of just getting about and getting over the things that you find very difficult,” she said. “I’ve had to find another way of learning lines and things, which is having great friends of mine repeat them to me over and over and over again. So I have to learn through repetition, and I just hope that people won’t notice too much if all the lines are completely hopeless!”

From Rolling Stone US.