Dame Judi Dench has revealed which James Bond movie she found “more challenging” to film than the rest.
The legendary actor, 91, reflected on her lengthy stint playing M, the head of MI6 and 007’s superior, over the course of seven Bond movies and one cameo appearance.
Dench joined the franchise in 1995 for Pierce Brosnan’s debut as the superspy in GoldenEye, becoming the first woman to portray M.
She then went on to appear in Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997, The World is Not Enough in 1999 and Die Another Day in 2002, which was Brosnan’s final outing as Bond.
The actor also reprised the character when Daniel Craig joined the franchise in 2006’s Casino Royale, before also appearing in 2008’s Quantum of Solace and taking her most prominent role yet in 2012’s Skyfall, which served as a swan song for M. She later made a cameo appearance in Spectre in 2015.
In an extract from her upcoming memoir Is It Too Late to Make a Run For It? published in The Times, Dench said that she “loved playing M” because “it was great to be able to tell all those men where to get off” – but also admitted that some of her filming experiences were more enjoyable than others.
“My enjoyment tended to depend on the script – especially if there was a chance to show another side to the character,” she said.
“And it also relied on the director,” she added, revealing that she “adored working with Michael Apted and Martin Campbell”.
Apted helmed The World is Not Enough, while Campbell served as director on GoldenEye and then returned to the franchise for Casino Royale.
However, Dench revealed that working on Tomorrow Never Dies was more of a difficult and even “destabilising” experience, due to the frequent rewrites that made learning lines tough.
“By contrast, I found my time on Tomorrow Never Dies more challenging – too many rewrites,” she said. “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 destabilising.
“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.”
Dench claimed that “every day we’d be presented with new scenes” and that she once arrived home “at ten o’clock at night” after filming “only to be greeted by a motorcycle courier with a dozen new pages to be learnt before my pick-up at 5am the following morning”.
“I mean, when the hell would I have a chance to learn all that?” she asked.
Tomorrow Never Dies was directed by Roger Spottiswoode, and was notoriously beset by challenges, reportedly thanks to a tight production schedule, with the studio keen for the movie to arrive two years after GoldenEye rebooted the franchise.
It was also the first Bond movie made without the legendary producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, who died in 1996.
The first script was scrapped early on, putting pressure on cast and crew, and a pre-credits stunt sequence was also dropped last minute. As Spottiswoode would later reflect in a 2004 interview, they “started almost from scratch at T-minus zero”.
He also said, however, that “the mood was great” behind the scenes and that “nothing important really went wrong”.
Read MoreFrom Billie Piper’s tears to a knife by the door: Russell T Davies’ book goes all in
Saoirse Ronan addresses rumors about husband Jack Lowden becoming next James Bond
James Bond ‘will never be the same’, says former Bond girl
Brad Pitt makes rare public appearance with his girlfriend in London
Michael Douglas reacts to wife Catherine Zeta-Jones’ comments about his wild memoir
Hugh Hefner’s widow urges Jessica Biel to reconsider playing his wife in new film
