Joanna Lumley has admitted her ‘time must be coming quite soon’ after several of her friends died.
The actress and presenter is best known for playing Patsy Stone in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous from 1992 until 2012, a role that also saw her win two Baftas.
Other notable projects include James and the Giant Peach, Ella Enchanted and The Wolf of Wall Street.
However, the 78-year-old has now spoken about her mortality.
In a new interview Joanna revealed that several of her ‘beloved friends are beginning to leave’.
‘As you near the top of the hill you suddenly think, “Gosh, there’s not all that amount of time left”,’ she said.
Eddie Wing/ Rex/ Shutterstock)
‘My time must be coming quite soon, and I don’t want to have wasted a minute of being on this beautiful planet.’
Speaking to My Weekly she also urged young people to worry less, adding: ‘I used to panic when I was young, but as I’ve got older I’ve started literally to live day to day.
‘With age, you work out what matters. I always knew that good stuff would come along when I was older. When I was 18, I longed to be 30. When I was 30, longed to be 50. We mustn’t be led into thinking getting old is bad. Growing old is good.’
She also shared a ‘big message’ to younger generations about the impact of social media and said people ‘need time in your head’, before saying she was ‘so afraid we’re going to breed a generation who don’t know the world and don’t know how to talk’.
Joanna’s most recent screen roles have been in Fool Me Once, Amandaland, the upcoming third season of Wednesday and the travel series Joanna Lumley’s Danube.
Speaking to Metro in 2022, she spoke about delaying retirement.
‘I will slow down when my body slows down and the jobs slow down — when everybody says, “Can we have this show but without Joanna Lumley in it?” Then there’ll be more books to read and a bit more pottering in the garden,’ she said.
‘But you mustn’t ever see these things as a setback. You have to see it as a new opportunity.’
Away from the screen, Joanna is married to conductor Stephen Barlow, 70 and is mother to son Jamie, 57.
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