Judi Dench reveals how her degenerative eye condition is making acting harder

Judi Dench is opening up about the challenges brought on by her degenerative eye condition, revealing it has made reading scripts harder.

According to People and Deadline, the legendary British actress, 88, said on "The Graham Norton Show" Friday that learning lines has become more difficult as her eyesight continues to worsen due to macular degeneration.

"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," she said. "I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole of (William Shakespeare's) 'Twelfth Night' right now."

Dench previously addressed her condition during a 2021 Vision Foundation benefit, according to The Guardian which reported her comments at the time.

“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!”

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One friend who's helped her out, she said, is Kenneth Branagh, with whom she starred in a stage production of William Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale" in 2015. She also received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her role in Branagh's 2021 film "Belfast."

“After we had been running for three weeks or so at the Garrick (Theatre in London) he said to me – I have a long speech at the end – he said: ‘Judi, if you were to say that speech about eight feet to your right, you’d be saying it to me and not to the (proscenium) arch," she said. "I rely on people to tell me!”

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Judi Dench reveals how eye condition is making acting, reading harder