Joanna Lumley says she doesn't have 'all that time left' as she opens up
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Actress and comedian Joanna Lumley, 79, has shared her candid thoughts on ageing, revealing that her awareness of time passing only fuels her vitality.
The esteemed star also confessed to frequently pondering her own mortality, stating in a My Weekly interview: "As you near the top of the hill you suddenly think, 'Gosh, there's not all that amount of time left'," and adding, "All kinds of my beloved friends are beginning to leave."
This acute awareness of life's fleeting nature drives Joanna to make the most of her time on this planet. With her contagious enthusiasm, she remains active in the entertainment industry, recently impressing audiences in the BBC comedy series Amandaland and gracing Netflix drama Fool Me Once in 2024.
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In addition, her new ITV travel series follows her epic 1,770-mile journey along the majestic River Danube.
Despite her remarkable career, Joanna has long navigated the challenges of prosopagnosia, a condition hindering facial recognition, which she once disclosed to Vernon Kay on BBC 2: "I've got this weird thing with faces, I've got a face blindness," and further clarified on the Tracks of My Years podcast, "It's called prosopagnosia.
"I have to know who people are, I have to know in advance. I always say, 'Please tell me who's going to be there', then I can match the name to the thing. I mean, lots of people say, 'Oh, but you meet so many people', it's not to do with that, it's completely different from that.", reports Surrey Live.
"It's followed me and I never knew what it was. And I'd try a test. I'd look at somebody and then I would shut my eyes and see if I could see their face in my head. And I couldn't."
The NHS describes prosopagnosia as an often more complex condition than simply not recognising faces – it can extend to difficulty discerning gender, age, and even recognising other objects like cars or animals. Sadly, no cure exists, but becoming attuned to unique attributes can help individuals cope with it.
The NHS advises, "You'll still see the parts of a face normally, but all faces may look the same to you," adding that "It affects people differently. Some people may not be able to tell the difference between strangers or people they do not know well. Others may not recognise the faces of friends and family, or even their own face."
Despite the challenges of prosopagnosia, Joanna hasn't let this define her. At 79, she has adorned our screens with her talent, marking an illustrious career with memorable roles across television series like The New Avengers and Sapphire and Steel to beloved shows such as Absolutely Fabulous, Finding Alice, and Motherland.
In the 1960s, she was famously one of Ken Barlow's initial love interests in Coronation Street. She also had a stint on the silver screen, working with none other than Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Outside her acting career, Joanna is wed to Stephen Barlow, a conductor aged 70. She relishes a fulfilling family life as the doting mother of Jamie, who is 57, and a grandmother to Alice, 22, and Emily, 21.
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