Dame Judi Dench is opening up about some of the highs and lows of playing M in the James Bond franchise.
The veteran actor played the MI5 boss in eight Bond films, starting with 1995’s GoldenEye alongside Pierce Brosnan and ending with her character’s death in 2012’s Skyfall with Daniel Craig (although she also made a small cameo via a pre-recorded video message in Spectre).
In Skyfall, M is fatally wounded during a gunfight, dying in Bond’s arms.
Dame Judi explains in her new memoir Is It Too Late To Make A Run For It?, with extracts published by Variety, that it was Daniel Craig himself who suggested her character’s demise – although she mostly blames herself for M’s death.
“Ever since Goldeneye, when the entire film unit went off to Monte Carlo and St. Petersburg and I only had three days in Watford, I’d been begging them to let me out from behind my desk,” the Shakespeare In Love star revealed.
“Well, they did finally let me out from behind my desk … and they shot me,” she then quipped, noting that “apparently, it was Daniel’s idea to have me killed”.
The role of M in Spectre was later taken on by Ralph Fiennes, whose character fired her on-screen in Skyfall.
“I had to suffer the indignity of being sacked by Ralph Fiennes. Arsehole,” Dame Judi also joked.
Elsewhere in the book, she set the record straight on stories in the press from around the time of her exit from the 007 series stating she had cried when she was told she would be leaving the role of M.
“Of course I didn’t cry,” she insisted. “Why on earth would I cry after 20 glorious years and eight Bond films – which, by the way, is one more than Roger Moore, the longest-running 007 to date.”
Reflecting on her time with Bond, Dame Judi said she “loved playing M because it was great to be able to tell all those men where to get off; put them in their place”.
Her favourite moment during her almost two decades in the role came during her first meeting with Pierce Brosnan’s Bond, when she got to call the character “a sexist, misogynist dinosaur”.
Dame Judi admitted that she loved telling “all those men where to get off,” and putting them in their place.
“I was drunk with power,” she claimed. “I also got to wear some very nice suits and pretend I knew what I was talking about; and to muck about with gadgets when, in real life, I can’t even work the ironing board.”
Although she was killed off in Skyfall, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel actor returned for a small cameo in Spectre.
“I had to appear on a television screen, which took me no more than an hour to shoot. But because they killed me off, I’m still sulking and so I’ve never seen the film,” she said.
Meanwhile, another film experience that the acting icon was less positive about in her book was Cats.
Reflecting on making the movie musical, she called it “a waste of all that goodwill and talent”, and admitted to having never fully sat through it.
In a different passage, she also opened up about her career ambitions before becoming an actor – and the one role that has always eluded her.
Judi Dench’s new memoir, Is It Too Late To Make A Run For It? is out now.
