Actress Judi Dench Says She's Battling Blindness Actress Judi Dench is battling to save her sight. The James Bond star said in an interview published Saturday that she had been diagnosed with macular degeneration, an eye condition which can cause blindness, and that her eyesight was already so bad that she couldn't even read her own scripts. The 77-year-old told the Daily Mirror that she was relying on friends and family to keep her up to speed with her lines. FILE - A Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012 photo from files showing British actress, Judi Dench, arriving for 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' world premiere at a central London venue. Actress Judi Dench says she's battling to save her sight. The James Bond star told the Daily Mirror newspaper that she had been diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition that can cause blindness. In an interview published Saturday Feb. 18, 2012, she said that her sight was already so bad she couldn't read her scripts and even had difficultly distinguishing the people she was dining with. (AP Photo/Jonathan Short, File) Close "It's usually my daughter or my agent or a friend and actually I like that, because I sit there and imagine the story in my mind," she told the newspaper during an interview at a London hotel. The most distressing thing is in a restaurant in the evening I can't see the person I'm having dinner with. The Mirror didn't say exactly where or when the interview took place. Messages left for Dench's agent were not immediately returned Saturday. Dench made her Shakespearean debut in 1957 at London's Old Vic and has since taken on a vast number of theater, film and television roles. She won an Academy Award for her role as Queen Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare in Love" and is best known to international audiences as intelligence boss M in the James Bond series. The Daily Mirror interview: http://bit.ly/A8zCKy