Joanna Lumley shared she smokes 40 cigarettes a day (Image: Getty)

Dame Joanna Lumley said “I haven’t got much time left” as she reflected on her mortality in a recent interview, revealing that several of her friends are “beginning to leave” her. The actress, 78, shared her “time is coming quite soon” after suffering health setbacks over the years, including neurological disorder prosopagnosia, also known as “face blindness”.

Speaking about the illness, she said on BBC Radio 2 to Vernon Kay: “I’ve got this weird thing with faces, I’ve got a face blindness. 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. 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.”

Joanna is set to turn 79 on Thursday. (Image: Getty)

The star also admitted she is a chain smoker thanks to playing cigarette-lover Patsy Stone for years habit and will never quit. While filming, she regularly snuck off for cigarette breaks, with director Mika Simmons finding her out in the streets of London’s Paddington, enjoying a smoke during rush hour.

However, Joanna credits a vegetarian diet with keeping her fit for the most part over the years. She previously shared her initial struggles with becoming a vegetarian, describing the early days as “awful” due to the lack of understanding in social settings.

The 78-year-old actress opened up about her dietary transition on the Waitrose Dish podcast with Radio DJ Nick Grimshaw and chef Angela Hartnett.

She recounted her challenges when dining out or attending dinner parties, where hosts would panic and serve unappetising options. Joanne remarked: “It was awful to begin with, going out to restaurants and dinner parties, because people didn’t know what to do.”

As she now approaches 80, Joanna is determined to live life to the full and has imparted words of wisdom to those struggling with ageing.

“As you near the top of the hill, you suddenly think, ‘Gosh, there’s not all that amount of time left.’ My time must be coming quite soon, and I don’t want to have wasted a minute of being on this beautiful planet. I used to panic when I was young, but as I’ve got older, I’ve started 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, I longed to be 50. We mustn’t be led into thinking getting old is bad. Growing old is good.”