Dame Judi Dench has reflected on her lengthy stint playing M in the James Bond movies.
Dame Judi Dench was “drunk on power” playing M in the James Bond franchise.
The 91-year-old actress portrayed the head of MI6 in eight movies and she had a great time getting to put the various actors who played the suave spy “in their place”.
Speaking to Brendan O’Hea for her memoir Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?, she said in an extract published by The Times magazine: “I loved playing M because it was great to be able to tell all those men where to get off; put them in their place. ‘You’re a sexist, misogynist dinosaur,’ she says to Pierce Brosnan at their first meeting.
“I was drunk with power.
“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.”
Judi admitted her levels of enjoyment differed on each film, and Tomorrow Never Dies was particularly “challenging”.
She said: “My enjoyment tended to depend on the script — especially if there was a chance to show another side to the character.
“And it also relied on the director. I adored working with Michael Apted and Martin Campbell.
“By contrast, I found my time on Tomorrow Never Dies more challenging — too many rewrites.
“Making a film is nerve-racking enough — at least it is for me — and to be presented with a load of rewrites last-minute is very destabilising.
“There are whole new chunks of information to take in — not to mention new lines to learn — that you haven’t had the time to examine.
“Every day we’d be presented with new scenes. On one occasion I arrived home at ten o’clock at night only to be greeted by a motorcycle courier with a dozen new pages to be learnt before my pick-up at 5am the following morning. I mean, when the hell would I have a chance to learn all that?”
Judi joked it was her own “fault” she was killed off in Skyfall because she’d been desperate to get out from M’s office environment.
She recalled: “I was taken to the Wolseley restaurant by Barbara [Broccoli, producer], Michael and Sam [Mendes, the director] — I don’t think Daniel Craig was there — and they outlined the plot and told me they were going to bump me off.
“My own fault, I suppose. 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.
“Well, they did finally let me out from behind my desk … and they shot me.
“Apparently, it was Daniel’s idea to have me killed. But first I had to suffer the indignity of being sacked by Ralph Fiennes. A*******!
“It was reported in the press that I’d cried when they told me I was being replaced. Of course I didn’t cry. Why on earth would I cry after 20 glorious years and 8 Bond films? Which, by the way, is one more than Roger Moore, the longest-running 007 to date.”
Judi Dench was ‘drunk on power’ playing M in James Bond films
