Judi Dench’s declining eyesight is making it "impossible" to learn lines

Judi Dench has been open about her battle with macular degeneration over the last decade. It hasn’t slowed her down from appearing in high-level projects; she was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role in Belfast in 2022, and she’s currently promoting her latest film Allelujah. Nevertheless, declining vision would be a challenge for any performer, and it’s certainly thrown a wrench in Dench’s usual process.

“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 during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show (per People). “I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole of Twelfth Night right now.”

In 2021, Dench discussed the ways she’s adapted to working with her condition in a conversation with The Vision Foundation (via The Guardian). “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!”

Of course, work isn’t the only thing affected by Dench’s vision impairment. In 2017, she told the Santa Barbara International Film Festival that she has as much trouble watching movies as acting in them. “Because my eyesight is so bad now, I can’t actually see very much and so I do go but a friend of mine usually has to say: ‘He’s kissing her now’ or ‘He’s walking away,’” she shared (per The Guardian). “So a lot of things I miss—it’s not so much fun.”