JUDI DENCH SAYS DANIEL CRAIG WANTED M KILLED OFF IN SKYFALL

Dame Judi Dench has revealed in her new memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?, that Daniel Craig suggested killing off her character M. She writes that producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, and director Sam Mendes, told her the news over lunch at the Wolseley restaurant in London, without Craig present. M was killed off in the 2012 film Skyfall, Craig's third outing as 007. Dench writes: "Apparently, it was Daniel's idea to have me killed."

Dench played M across eight Bond films, including a cameo, over more than two decades from GoldenEye in 1995. She disputes press reports that she cried on learning she would be replaced, insisting "of course I didn't cry" after "twenty glorious years" in the role, one more film than Roger Moore, whom she calls the longest-running 007. She also writes: "I had to suffer the indignity of being sacked by Ralph Fiennes. Arsehole." She recalls asking producers for more to do ever since GoldenEye, when the production filmed in Monte Carlo and St Petersburg while she spent three days in Watford.

Reflecting on the role, Dench writes that she loved playing M because it let her "tell all those men where to get off; put them in their place." She recalls a line M delivers to Pierce Brosnan's Bond, calling him "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur", as a point of pride, adding: "I was drunk with power." Craig's own tenure as Bond also ended in his character's death, in the 2021 film No Time to Die, a storyline he had likewise pushed for. The book's publication comes amid continuing speculation over who will next play James Bond.