Judi Dench reveals killing off M in Skyfall was Daniel Craig’s idea

Here we go then: Dame Judi Dench has just dropped her new memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run For It? (no, that's not a joke title), and she's out giving interviews about all those decades in film. If you fancy a trip through stage, screen, and endless Bond anecdotes, her book’s out now from St. Martin's Press.

Judi Dench spent twenty years as M and racked up eight Bond films, finishing with her character's explosive end in Skyfall.

M, massacred (and other Bond memories)

You'd think playing M in James Bond would be decades of glamorous travel and witty repartee. Well, partly. Dench’s run started in GoldenEye (1995), introducing the world to a sharper, more no-nonsense M during Pierce Brosnan’s Bond years, and she actually carried on through the Daniel Craig reboot – same boss, different era.

But as every fan remembers, Dench’s reign as M ended in Skyfall, when villain Silva (Javier Bardem, being mad as a box of frogs) finally caught up with her. Variety sat down with Dench ahead of the book’s release, and she didn’t hold back: the day she learned M’s number was up, she was summoned to the Wolseley by producer Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson, and director Sam Mendes. There, they broke the news that her character wouldn’t survive the film. Not exactly a pleasant lunch.

Here’s Dench’s own take on how she took the news, straight from her memoir:

I was taken to the Wolseley restaurant by Barbara, 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. [Laughs.] Apparently, it was Daniel’s idea to have me killed. But first I had to suffer the indignity of being sacked by Ralph Fiennes. Arsehole. [Laughs.]

Apparently, the idea to kill off M came from Daniel Craig himself, which is one for the trivia buffs. And if you ever read those old tabloid stories about Judi Dench sobbing when she found out she was being replaced, forget it—she says she definitely didn’t cry. Not after two decades and eight films (a run that outlasts even Roger Moore’s record as 007).

Rewrites, couriers and chaos

Ironically, dying on screen wasn’t the roughest ride she had as M. For that, Dench singles out Tomorrow Never Dies (1998), which was Brosnan’s second go-round in the role. Apparently the script was in absolute meltdown back then, with Dench getting new lines shoved through her letterbox at all hours. Technical jargon, endless rewrites, and zero time to actually figure out what she was meant to be saying—sounds like a logistical headache more than anything glamorous.

Here’s Dench’s own memories of the experience:

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 destabilizing: 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 five a.m. the following morning. I mean, when the hell would I have a chance to learn all that? It’s not unusual to have rewrites on a film, but the script for Tomorrow Never Dies seemed to be in a permanent state of flux. That may not be entirely the director’s fault – it could be to do with schedules and deadlines – but there seemed to be a general air of chaos. And it’s not as if it was easy to learn. A lot of what I had to say as M was very technical, and at times I just didn’t understand what I was talking about.

If you ever wondered what those late-90s Bond shoots were really like behind the scenes, there you have it — couriers hurtling through the night with last-minute rewrites and Dench cramming lines before dawn. Bit less "shaken, not stirred", bit more "keep calm and carry on".