- Sarah Jessica Parker reveals how she is addressing age-related blurry vision.
- The “And Just Like That…” and “Sex and the City” star is raising awareness of age-related near-vision blur and how she copes.
- Parker shares that she’s putting down her reading glasses and opting for prescription eye drops.
Iconic actress, producer, and fashion designer Sarah Jessica Parker was recently honored with the Carol Burnett Award from the Golden Globes.
The award stacks next to the six Golden Globes she won for her work on “Sex and the City.”
Aside from all her accolades, SJP is also known as an avid reader and lover of books.
In 2025, Parker read 153 books as a Booker Award judge, and the 2026 documentary she executive-produced, called “The Librarians,” has been shortlisted by BAFTA for Best Documentary.
Now, Parker is opening up about how her favorite hobby was affected by age-related near-vision blur, a loss of clear close-up vision that typically begins in your 40s.
Also known as presbyopia, the condition develops when the eye loses its ability to change focus, making it hard to see close-up objects and text.
Parker began noticing changes in her eyesight about 15 years ago.
“I was in Ireland, and I was reading, and it occurred to me that it wasn’t pleasant. And my guess is that it had been happening for a bit,” Parker told Healthline.
“[By] the time I stopped reading, I thought to myself, ‘Now, wait a minute, this is not the way it was.’ [My] eyes had been gently and politely trying to tell me for a little bit, hey, can you just help us out? We have been here for you for so long. Maybe you can now be here for us.”
Parker relied on reading glasses for a while, but found herself always misplacing them and having to think about putting them on.
“It’s just like a cliche. You think you’re above that. You think you’re better than that, but you’re not. And it just changes the way you can perform in a day. And some things are about pleasure, and some things are about necessity and need to be done,” she said.
In fact, Randy McLaughlin, OD, associate professor of clinical ophthalmology at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, said presbyopia is a normal, expected aging change.
While it’s not preventable, he said, “In a few cases, an individual may have ‘natural mono vision’ where one eye is clear at distance, and the other is nearsighted and clear at near.”
- difficulty viewing things up close
- having to hold reading materials farther away to focus on them
- eyestrain or tiredness
- headache
McLaughlin said presbyopia occurs when the crystalline lens, a variable-focusing ocular system, hardens over time with age.
“The crystalline lens is what could eventually develop into cataract formation as we age,” McLaughlin told Healthline. “The lens ‘hardens’ throughout our life and hardens enough approximately between age 40 to 45, resulting in loss of near focusing vision. We then hold reading material further away.”
Adults lose their ability to focus their vision starting around age 40, which may persist to around 60 years of age.
Reading glasses or multifocal spectacles are often the go-to for people experiencing age-related blurry near vision.
That worked for a time for Parker, until she sought another solution. Now she uses a prescription for Vizz, a once-daily eye drop that treats blurry near vision for up to 10 hours. The drops work by making the pupil smaller, which improves the ability to focus on nearby objects without affecting distance vision.
Parker heard about the drops but turned to her husband, Matthew Broderick, for his thoughts.
“I asked him about it because he tends to know more and I [wasn’t] surprised to learn he’s been reading about this prior to me ever asking this question — he’s been researching it on his own,” Parker said.
After their conversation, she visited her eye doctor to learn more.
“[He] was really excited coincidentally, because he, too, had been hearing about this product, hearing about Vizz,” she said. “He gave me all the proper tests and asked all the right questions, and then, said, ‘Yeah, you’re a really good candidate.’”
McLaughlin said drops like Vizz are best suited for people in the early stages of presbyopes.
“Age 45-50 would be the better candidates,” he said.
For Parker, the eye drop has made reading enjoyable. The longer she’s used them, the more her vision has improved, she said.
“You’re hyper vigilant the first day that you’re using it, you’re like constantly trying to find ways of challenging the product,” Parker said. “But the more you use it… in my experiences, is that your eye sort of adapts to this new relationship.”
She recommended visiting your eye doctor to see if it’s right for you.
To ensure healthy eyes as you age, McLaughlin said, have your eyes examined at least once a year to test the refractive state of your vision and ocular health, “ensuring there is no medical cause of any decrease in vision at distance or near.”
