James Bond star Ralph Fiennes just revealed that he prevented a major change from happening in the series!
WARNING: This contains James Bond franchise spoilers!
The actor, who joined the cast in Skyfall, says he was honored when he was asked to become the new M, but down the line he had some disagreements about the script.
"Sam Mendes, as we know, directed Skyfall, and the pitch was very attractive at the time. Judi Dench’s M dies and you’re set up as the next M, and I thought great," Ralph said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
He continued, "I also loved Daniel [Craig]’s Bond, and I just respected Sam’s intelligence and the approach to it and what he was doing with it. Skyfall was a great script.”
But when it came time for Spectre, there was one thing he knew he couldn't let happen in the script.
"I think I can say now that I had to fight off an attempt by Sam in Spectre to make M — I said I don’t want to play M, and then you turn around and make him the bad guy. M is never the bad guy," he explained.
Ralph added, "So I had to have some pretty intense discussions with Sam, saying, ‘This is not fine with me…’ It was like he was Blofeld or something, but that was a red line."
After several iterations of the script, it was decided that M would be spared from villain territory while another MI6 member was ultimately made a bad guy.
