Judi Dench says Bond role 'came completely out of the blue'

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Iconic actress Judi Dench, 87, has enjoyed a career spanning over six decades and fans still enjoy her work today. Among her most notable roles includes her portrayal of M in the James Bond franchise. She first appeared in GoldenEye alongside Pierce Brosnan and carried on with the role until Skyfall in 2015, before her character was killed off. Talking to Alan Titchmarsh on Love Your Weekend, Judi explained the offer of the role was “completely out of the blue” but that she had “a wonderful time”.

“Didn’t the offer to play M in the Bond movies come out of the blue?” Alan, 73, asked.

“Oh completely out of the blue, completely,” the star confirmed.

She continued: “And I went home in a complete fever to Mike and I said, ‘Oh, Mike,’ and he said, ‘You’ve got to do it, I want to live with a Bond woman,’ he said.”

Reflecting on her work on the films, she continued: “And I had a wonderful time, wonderful.

“And having the first go with Pierce, and it was his first too, we were frightened together.”

“And then you saw all the way to Daniel Craig as well,” Alan pointed out.

“Through Piers to Daniel, yes,” Judi recalled fondly.

“What was so wonderful, and I won’t give it away just in case somebody still hasn’t seen it, was how the secret about the end of Skyfall was kept,” Alan stated.

“I saw so many people who’d been to that film who never mentioned what happened.”

“Did you keep it secret as well?” He asked the theatre icon.

“I don’t remember,” she confessed. “They kept it quite a secret from me at the beginning.”

Although still praised for her extensive work in the showbiz world, Judi has recently spoken out to educate others on her health condition.

The actress suffers from age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which impacts her eyesight and worsens with time. 

In a 2021 charity event, she described how she copes with her deteriorating eyesight, including the unexpected advantages.

She explained last year: “You find a way of just getting about and getting over the things that you find very difficult.

“I’ve had to find another way of learning lines and things, which is having great friends of mine repeat them to me over and over, and over again.

“So I have to learn through repetition, and I just hope that people won’t notice too much if all the lines are completely hopeless!”

She added: “I can’t read the paper now, I can’t do the crossword, I can’t read a book. A couple of years ago I stopped driving…

“I just know I’ll kill somebody if I get behind the wheel of a car now.”

Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh airs from 10am on ITV every Sunday.

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