Judi Dench is not ready to retire anytime soon — in fact, she hopes to keep on performing until her last breath.
“I want to be like Newton Blick, who died in his dressing room after a performance,” the Skyfall star, 91, told The Times in a new interview. “I want to be one of those women who throw themselves out of planes when they’re 100.”
When asked how she feels about being called a “national treasure,” Dench said she “loathes” the term.
“Makes me sound like a dusty old relic that’s been stuffed away in the back of the cupboard, along with some dinosaur fossils and a broken Roman shield,” she added.
Dench said she’d like to “banish” words like “retire,” “vintage” and “old,” although she admitted that one benefit of aging is, “They give you a dressing room nearer the stage. Otherwise, forget it.”
“And you have to contend with people asking, ‘When are you going to retire?’ or, ‘Isn’t it about time you put your feet up?’ No, it bloody well isn’t,” she insisted.
Dench has amassed nearly 150 film and TV acting credits and more than 100 stage roles since 1957, including famous roles as Queen Elizabeth in 1998’s Shakespeare in Love and as M, head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, in eight James Bond movies. She’s shown no signs of slowing down, most recently taking on a voice acting role in The Magic Faraway Tree this year.
Amid her busy career, Dench has battled macular degeneration, a common eye disease that damages the central part of the retina and causes vision loss. Her late mother, Eleanora Olave Dench, also suffered from the condition.
Dench told The Times that she often pretends she can see clearly.
“I’m quite good at acting as if I can see,” she quipped. “But then people think I’m cutting them dead when I don’t smile or recognize them.”
Dench previously shared in November 2025 that she could no longer identify people as her condition progressed.
“I can see your outline and I know you so well,” she told former Macbeth costar Ian McKellan in a joint ITV News interview. “But I can’t recognize anybody now. I can’t see the television, [and I] can’t see to read.”
Dench revealed her diagnosis in 2012.
“In response to the numerous articles in the media concerning my eye condition – macular degeneration – I do not wish for this to be overblown,” she shared at the time “This condition is something that thousands and thousands of people all over the world are having to contend with. It’s something that I have learnt to cope with and adapt to – and it will not lead to blindness.”
