LONDON — Judi Dench’s new memoir, “Is It Too Late to Make a Run For It?”, goes on sale today, Nov. 3, from St. Martin’s Press, and an excerpt published by Variety looks back at her years playing M in the James Bond films.
The 91-year-old Oscar winner wrote the book through a wide-ranging conversation with actor and director Brendan O’Hea, Variety reported.
Dench played M, the head of Britain’s secret service, in eight Bond films. Her run began with 1995’s “GoldenEye” and ended in 2012’s “Skyfall,” in which the character was killed off. She later made a brief cameo in “Spectre.”
In the excerpt, Dench says she loved the part because it let her “tell all those men where to get off.” She recalled the character calling Pierce Brosnan’s Bond a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur” at their first meeting.
Dench wrote that she built a backstory for M even though audiences never saw most of it. Over the films, she learned more about the character from the scripts, including that M studied law at Oxford, has two daughters and enjoys a glass of whisky.
She joked that in “Casino Royale” she suddenly discovered M was married, and by “Skyfall” the character was a widow.
Dench also said she was not trying to play real-life MI5 chief Stella Rimington, though she expected people would draw the comparison.
Sources: Variety. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Vojtěch Hynais / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
