Dame Judi Denchis considered one of the greatest actors of a generation, but her time in front of camera has become increasingly difficult due to her macular degeneration preventing her from learning lines. The actress has been open in the past about her eye condition and the battle she has had with it for the last decade. She candidly spoke about the worsening of the condition while appearing onThe Graham Norton Show, when she said it was “impossible” learning her lines. She told Norton:
“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. I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole of Twelfth Night right now.”
Dench spoke about the way she was continuing to work around the condition in an interview last year, and the 88 year old certainly hasn’t let it get in her way. She previously said:
“You find a way of just getting about and getting over the things that you find very difficult. 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!”
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To prove just how much of a “regular person” Dench is, she even got on board with her Razzies nomination for appearing in the heavily criticized live-action movie ofCats. While she admitted at the time to not having seen the movie, or her role in it other than a still shot that reminder her of a cat she used to own, she reacted to the news of her Razzie nomination by saying, “Oh, am I? That would be good! As far as I know, that’s a first!”
Despite her worsening sight, it seems that Dench has given no indication that she will be giving up acting just yet. As long as there are roles for her to play, it seems that she will be happy to find a way to learn her lines with the help of others, or, when she finds one, a machine.
