10 Actors Who Played The Same Character A Ridiculous Number Of Times
6. Bernard Lee As M 11 Times
The Films: Dr. No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Live And Let Die (1973), The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979) Although MI6 now seems to burn through staff on a rotation of about every ten years, in years gone by that honour was only reserved for their top spies. As the Bond films have always stuck to pretty standard formula since Dr. No, you can always depend on certain characters popping up (unless we're dealing with a reboot), chief among them M. The head of MI6, M is still defined by Bernard Lee, who portrayed the Admiral as a straight-down-the-line boss, always focused on the job. With Ralph Fiennes' Mallory recently taking over it looks like were heading back to Lee's (and by extension Fleming's) traditional characterisation, although its unlikely hell be able to stick around quite as long. Lee played M up until his death during the the shooting of For Your Eyes Only, which made the rather forgettable Moore outing the only film in the series to date to not feature the character.
