Miriam Margolyes has admitted she worries about not having enough money to pay her future care bills.
The Harry Potter actress, 83, underwent major heart surgery to replace her aortic valve last year.
She also suffers from a condition called spinal stenosis, which occurs when the spinal canal or neural foramen narrows, putting pressure on the spinal cord and nerve roots.
Speaking to the Radio Times, she explained: "I’m worried that I won’t have enough money for carers when I finally get paralysed or whatever it is that’s going to happen to me.”
Despite the physical constraints of her age and ill health, which she finds "limiting and depressing", she said she refuses to slow her pace.
She added: “I’m saving up cash so that I can pay people to look after me and my partner. We don’t have children, so I need to make sure I’m going to be looked after in the way that I’ve become accustomed.”
The star most recently appeared in My Happy Ending, Pored tebe, Doctor Who, Hilda and Mog's Christmas.
She will next head to the Edinburgh Fringe festival with a new stage act revolving around author Charles Dickens.
The enterprising star claims that since the Covid pandemic, she has earned £365,000 on Cameo, a platform for celebrities to record personalised messages for fans.
She says another nice little earner was her recent memoir, This Much is True, which saw her pocket £250,000.
Death is another subject that seems to play on her mind a lot, and she believes she will die in the next few years.
Speaking to The Telegraph, she said: "When you know that you haven't got long to live and I'm probably going to die within the next five or six years, if not before, I'm loath to leave behind performing. It's such a joy."
