Judi Dench makes bombshell claim it was Daniel Craig's idea to killer her off in James Bond film
Judi Dench has claimed that Daniel Craig came up with the idea to kill off her character.
Dench played the role of M, Bond's boss who is eternally trying to rein him in, before surreptitiously allowing him to go rogue.
She played the role for nearly 20 years, first taking it on in 1995's GoldenEye, which was Pierce Brosnan's first appearance as Bond in which he faces off against Sean Bean as Alec Trevelyan, or 006.
Dench would stay in the role of M when Craig took on the role in 2006's Casino Royale, an approach to Bond which marked a big tonal shift from the camper, more science-fiction adjacent Die Another Day to a much grittier feel.
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Dench's iteration of the character died in 2012's Skyfall at the hands of Raoul Silva, a former MI6 agent played by Javier Bardem who holds a grudge against M as she allowed him to be captured by China, leading to months of torture and a failed suicide attempt.
Speaking about the role in an excerpt from her memoir published in Variety, Dench said that Craig had the idea to kill off M.
“I’d been begging them to let me out from behind my desk," she said. "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."
She joked: "But first I had to suffer the indignity of being sacked by Ralph Fiennes."
Fiennes played Gareth Mallory, who started Skyfall as the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament who is pressuring M to step down, and is then appointed as the new M after her death, a role he has played in every Bond film since.
Dench also addressed rumours that she had cried after finding out that she would be replaced.
"It was reported in the press that I’d cried when they told me I was being replaced," she said. "Of course I didn’t cry."
She went on to champion a string of brilliant performances in the role, and point out that she has actually outlasted any Bond.
"Why on earth would I cry after twenty glorious years and eight Bond films?" she said, adding: "Which, by the way, is one more than Roger Moore, the longest-running 007 to date.”
Dench also reflected on her approach to the role, including being a woman who can boss Bond around.
"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," she said, recalling how when her character first meets Brosnan's Bond, she calls him a 'sexist, misogynist dinosaur'.
"I was drunk with power," Dench says. "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."
The role of Bond is once again up in the air since Craig's last appearance in 2021's No Time to Die, when his character too met his end in the first time that Bond has died on screen.
Jack Lowden, who has made a name in Slow Horses, is reportedly a favourite for the role, about which he has remained tight-lipped, though he hasn't said he definitely isn't up for the role, either.
Topics: Daniel Craig, James Bond, Film and TV, News
Kit Roberts
