Dame Judi Dench
Michael Douglas isn’t the only legendary actor who is spilling secrets in a memoir. Dame Judi Dench is now promoting her new book, Is It Too Late to Make a Run For It?, and she has her own set of stories from her illustrious career that she’s telling. Is It Too Late to Make a Run For It? comes from St. Martin’s Press and releases on today. You can order your very own copy HERE.
Dench’s death in James Bond
One of the rare franchises that Dench has been in is the James Bond franchise. She starred as the new M in the Pierce Brosnan debut entry, GoldenEye, in 1995. She would continue throughout his tenure, but would also carry over into the Daniel Craig-led rebooted series. Her run in the Craig movies would not be as long as Skyfall saw M being targeted by a terrorist and by the film’s end, she would be killed off by Javier Bardem’s villainous Silva. Variety recently sat and talked with Dench about the franchise and she recalls the time when she found out she was being replaced as M.
Dench tells a story about speaking to the creatives on Skyfall, including producer Barbara Broccoli and director Sam Mendes,
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.]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 twenty glorious years and eight Bond films – which, by the way, is one more than Roger Moore, the longest-running 007 to date.”
Her worst Bond experience
Even though she was distraught about being killed off, her worst Bond experience actually came from filming 1998’s Tomorrow Never Dies, which was Brosnan’s sophomore effort. She recalled,
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.”
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