Judi Dench Filmography James Bond Boss M

In GOLDENEYE (1995), a new female M, played by Dame Judi Dench, takes charge of MI6. She sees Bond as a “sexist, misogynist, dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War,” but like her predecessors, she sees a use for Bond and his methods. In CASINO ROYALE (2006), M presides over bond’s initiation as an “00” agent, a narrative shift that relaunches both Bond and M in the 21st century. M guides Bond’s transformation from a skilled agent who occasionally fails to see the bigger picture to a hardened operative guided by larger objectives.

In SKYFALL (2012), M finds herself in political hot water when a hard drive containing the names of nearly every undercover NATO agent falls into enemy hands. In an attempt to recapture the drive she instructs Eve Moneypenny to take a high-risk shot, resulting in Bond being hit. Unknown to M, Bond survived the attack and eventually shows up at her London home. Refusing to apologise for making the judgement call, she is nevertheless glad to have Bond back. M conceals the results of Bond’s failed physical, shooting and psychological tests and sends him to Shanghai. His mission results in the capture of Silva, a cyber-terrorist, who M reveals once worked for her but whom she traded to the Chinese for six agents. Silva has since longed for revenge and escapes from his MI6 cell and attempts to kill M. Bond takes M to temporary safety at Skyfall, his old family home. During Silva’s attack on Skyfall, M is injured and finds refuge in a chapel. Silva eventually finds her and begs her to end both their lives. Bond kills Silva and cradles M as she dies. Following her death she bequeaths Bond her Royal Doulton Bulldog, revealing her true name to be Olivia Mansfield.

Dame Judi Dench played M in seven Bond films over 17 years, from GOLDENEYE (1995) to SKYFALL (2012) and made a cameo in SPECTRE (2015). Daniel Craig on Dench; “Judi Dench can say a hundred words and make them sound wonderful, but can also give one look and break your heart.”

Judi Dench as M

James Bond character

Gender

Female

Affiliation

MI6

Status

Active

Role

Ally

Portrayed by

Judi Dench

After the long period between Licence to Kill and Goldeneye, the producers brought in Dame Judi Dench to take over as the new M. The character is said to have possibly been based on Stella Rimington, the head of MI5 between 1992 and 1996. M's real name has yet to be revealed in the films, but recent Bond novelist Raymond Benson gives her the name Barbara Mawdsley. Unlike the ambivalence of Brown's M, Dench clearly plays a new person appointed to the position of M (putting to rest a long time debate over the nature of the character), although in Casino Royale she states that she worked in MI6 as far back as the Cold War. She mentions having studied law at Oxford.

In GoldenEye, she is clearly established as different from her predecessors; she is cold, blunt, and unabashedly dislikes Bond, whom she calls a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War." Tanner, her Chief of Staff, refers to her during the film as "the evil queen of numbers" given her reputation at that stage for relying on statistics and analysis rather than impulse and initiative. As she herself puts it to Bond: "You think I'm an accountant, a bean counter, more interested in my numbers than your instincts."

In Die Another Day, she orders her subordinates to disavow Bond after he is taken prisoner in North Korea, and abandons him to be tortured for 14 months, though this is in line with typical attitudes toward captured agents. Although it would appear that Dench's M and Bond don't get along too well, M still has the same high professional respect for Bond that her predecessors had and shows a rising level of affection for him as the series progresses. In The World Is Not Enough, she even goes as far to say "He's the best we have ... although I'd never tell him."

There have also been brief references to M's family: one in GoldenEye (where she responds to Tanner's "Evil Queen of Numbers" jab by telling him that when she wants to hear sarcasm she'll listen to her children) and two in The World is Not Enough (early on when Sir Robert King wishes M the best to her family and later when she remembers how she had advised King not to pay the ransom for his daughter even though it went against "every instinct [she] had as a mother").

Dench again plays M for the 2006 film Casino Royale. In this film M has no history with Bond, unlike her first appearance in GoldenEye where her relationship with Bond concentrated on the fact that she is a successor to another M. She promotes Daniel Craig's Bond to double-0 status and sends him on his first mission. The new M is shown as more of an eager spymaster than an administrative official, and there is no trace of her predisposed animosity toward Bond. She is patient and tolerant of the new agent's excesses. Also, her home appears for the first time when Bond breaks in to use her home computer's security clearance, and in a later scene she is shown sleeping in bed next to an unidentified man, suggesting a husband.

Bond reveals that in finding her home address he also found out her real name. Bond almost reveals M's name onscreen, which dialogue suggests begins with the letter M (possibly a confirmation that her name is Barbara Mawdsley). She stops him before he does and warns that should he utter one more syllable she will have him killed, suggesting her real name is considered a secret. Although it is possibly an additional retcon of the James Bond universe, it could also be a coincidence, as in the case of Sir Miles Messervy, or simply a joke on Bond's part. The answer has yet to be established onscreen.

Judi Dench is back again as Bonds boss M

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Judi Dench as M