Miriam Margolyes, known to U.S. audiences for her role as Professor Sprout in the “Harry Potter” movies, has some regrets about her health.
The actor told the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine that at 84, she feels as though she’s “let my body down.”
“I haven’t taken care of it. I have to walk with a walker now. I wish I’d done exercise,” she said. “It’s the most ghastly waste of time, except that it keeps you going. So, I’m foolish.”
Asked if she would ever consider Ozempic for some of her health problems, Margolyes answered, “Absolutely not.”
“That’s for diabetics. You shouldn’t take medicine meant for people who are really sick,” she said, adding, “What I do think is we should not have food advertising on television.”
She also got candid about exploring the idea of “assistance in dying,” as the Mail put it.
“I don’t want to go through a slowly diminishing period of pain and embarrassment,” she said. “If a stroke meant I couldn’t speak, or I was doubly incontinent, or I lost my mind completely, I would ask to be put down. That’s because I want to be who I am. I don’t want to be less than I can be.”
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Margolyes has spoken about how her health has affected her ability to perform, something fellow U.K. actor Dame Judi Dench has also been open about.
Dench was diagnosed with an age-related eye condition, called macular degeneration, in 2012.
“I mean, I can’t see on a film set anymore,” the Oscar-winning actor said of her condition in an interview with The Daily Mirror’s Notebook publication in 2023.
“And I can’t see to read. So I can’t see much,” Dench said. “But you know, you just deal with it. Get on. It’s difficult for me if I have any length of a part. I haven’t yet found a way.”