Judi played M for hubby
Many men would like to be married to a Bond girl. Dame Judi Dench’s late Michael Williams husband encouraged her to take on the role of M – not that she needed much persuading – so he could have his own Bond girl at home.
She says: “They asked me if I’d play M– I was a huge fan.
“Michael said, ‘I long to live with a Bond woman’. And that was good enough for me.”
Dame Judi, 84, took on the role for seven films, before bowing out after 2012’s Skyfall, but the actress notes that life on set was not quite as glamorous as the films.
Her character spent much of the time holed up at MI6 HQ.
And Dame Judi says: “I was kept in that back room for a long time. Barbara Broccoli,
“I said to ‘You all get to go everywhere and I’m in that back room’.
“The next film, we went to Stowe School and they gave me a trailer. They said to me, ‘You can never complain again’.”
Dame Judi has previously spoken about suffering macular degeneration, which affects her eyesight, and now says she struggles to hear in theatres.
Speaking at the Theatre Royal Haymarket for the Sunday Encounters series, in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital, she said: “Somehow I can’t hear in the theatre much. The very first thing we had to learn was about projection and how to make your voice heard. I don’t know that that’s even thought to be very important.”
She also said she struggles to understand actors on TV, sympathising with those who complain about stars “mumbling”, and struggles to read subtitles.
Her scripts are also “blown up to a ridiculous size” to help.
But she said: “I’m just glad to be offered a part.”