Dame Joanna Lumley says she "doesn't have much time left" and at 79 has "started to live day-to-day"

From Bond girl to drunken party girl, via superhero, Dame Joanna Lumley has been a constant on UK screens for decades. Now the star says she "doesn't have much time left" after turning 79 this month.

However Joanna, who celebrated her birthday on May 1, shows no signs of slowing down just yet, and is set to star in the upcoming second series of the Netflix blockbuster, Wednesday. During an interview BBC Radio 2 host Vernon Kay, the iconic actor opened up about a number of topics, including her career, and her mortality, saying: "As you nearly the top of the hill, you suddenly think, 'Gosh, there's not all that much 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."

The Absolutely Fabulous star also spoke of living with prosopagnosia, a disorder that makes you unable to recognise faces you've seen before, including friends and family. "I've got this weird thing with faces, I've got a face blindness, it's called Prosopagnosia," she explained.

"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', but it's not to do with that, it's completely different.

"It's followed me and I never knew what it was. 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."

Another challenge to her health is her admitted 'love' of smoking, which sees her puff between one and 40 cigarettes a day - but it is something the New Avengers legend jokes contributes to her fitness. "I am unbelievably fit. Despite, or probably because of smoking, I am never ill. I have these extraordinary procedures," she added.

Whatever her health routines, the former teenage model has lived through some major overhauls of British culture, from being turned away from drama school in her teens, becoming a model in London during the Swinging Sixties, to a role as a Bond girl in 007 movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. From there, she became a household name through her portrayal of Purdey in The New Avengers.

Last month, she told the SANDS International Film Festival she has no plans to step away from stage and screen. "When I was 16 and told the careers officer at my convent school that I wanted to go into acting, he told me that the only jobs open to me in film would be as a continuity or make-up girl," she said.

"In the past women like me would have been sidelined at 38 but now there are lead parts for people in their 50s and big parts for those in their 70s."