In a recent interview with the Sunday Times magazine, Dame Judi Dench hit back at suggestions she may be retiring due to her health struggles. The octogenarian actress shared in 2012 that she was diagnosed with macular degeneration, a condition which has affected her ability to see.
However, she insisted that she will always find a way to make it work and continue with her acting career. “Slowing down? How dare you! How dare you. I’m slowing down only in that I can’t see to read. But I will find a way.”
Going on to speak about the success of her career – which has seen her earn 10 Baftas and an Oscar – Dench says she doesn’t take it for granted. “No, no. You can do something that is a success and then for the next thing you could go a*** over t**. You can’t ever take it for granted and it’s right that we shouldn’t.”
She went on to reveal that early on in her career, a director told her she would “never” make it from the stage to the big screen.
“He was perfectly nice. But at the end he said, ‘You’ll never make a film. You have the wrong face.’ And I said that is fine, I don’t like film anyway. I want to go back to the theatre.”
Dench most recently starred in Kenneth Branagh’s semi autobiographical film, Belfast, playing a young Branagh’s grandmother, which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
