Ralph Fiennes says the James Bond movie Spectre cut twist that would have revealed his version of M to be Blofeld. Fiennes stepped in as the iconic character in 2012's Skyfall following the death of Judi Dench's M. Currently, Fiennes can be seen in The King's Man.
From the earliest iterations of the James Bond franchise, M has remained one of the series' most enduring characters. As the highest-ranking officer in MI6, the character has almost always been the one to give James Bond his assignments and mentor the hero. The franchise dove deeper into M's personal life during the Judi Dench era between the Pierce Brosnan films and Daniel Craig's run. It gave audiences their first proper M origin story in Skyfall when Ralph Fiennes inherited the role. As Gareth Mallory, aka M, Fiennes would go on to play the head of MI6 from the end of Skyfall through the battle with Blofeld in Spectre and right up to the finale of No Time to Die, getting far more action than any previous M to date.
With over six years of hindsight since Spectre hit theaters and the Daniel Craig era of James Bond now officially closed, new insight has emerged about the fourth installment in the Craig run. In fact, during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Ralph Fiennes revealed that he fought against Spectre director Sam Mendes when an attempt was made to show that his version of M was actually Blofeld. Fiennes said:
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. 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.”
Clearly a Bond traditionalist, Ralph Fiennes wanted no part of M being turned into a villain. In the end, the Spectre script went through numerous iterations, and M was spared a heel turn, with Christoph Waltz stepping in as Blofeld – something many fans saw coming as soon as the Inglourious Basterds star was cast. However, Spectre did retain some elements of the original concept, as Andrew Scott's C was eventually revealed to be a mole working for Blofeld from within MI6.
Of course, there is a long fan conversation to be had about whether or not this would've improved Spectre as a film. The idea of Blofeld being an undercover villain within MI6 is an exciting concept and not something that the Bond films have ever explored in a meaningful way. That said, knowing that Ralph Fiennes has often been typecast as a villain and because Skyfall pitched him as a soft antagonist before allying him with James Bond, keeping him as a traditional M may have been the right choice. Audiences will have to wait and see if the 007 franchise returns to this concept of a villainous M when the Bond franchise inevitably reboots and brings in a new 007.
Source: Happy Sad Confused