Judi Dench reveals eyesight loss has made it 'impossible' for her to learn lines

Judi Dench

In recent years, veteran British actor Judi Dench has been open with fans about her degenerative eye condition, which has made it increasingly difficult for her to learn lines. According to Variety, an American media company, in a new interview on 'The Graham Norton Show', the 88-year-old Oscar winner said it's now become "impossible" to learn lines because of her eyesight loss.

The actor has long been proud of her photographic memory for scripts, but she can no longer rely on it. "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.

She added, "I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole of 'Twelfth Night' right now," reported Variety. Dench revealed to the Vision Foundation, a London sight-loss charity, in 2021 that she asks her close friends to help her memorize new scripts by reading them aloud to her because the repetition of the dialogue helps her. At the time, Dench said, "You find a way of just getting about and getting over the things that you find very difficult."

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"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!" she continued, as per Variety. Dench was nominated for an Oscar in 2022 for her supporting role in Kenneth Branagh's 'Belfast'. She recently appeared in Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds' Christmas musical comedy 'Spirited', as well as in Richard Eyre's 2022 drama 'Allelujah', which is based on Alan Bennett's play of the same name.

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