(April 13, 1937–     ): Aristocratic British actor who portrayed Bond’s superior, M, as a hot-tempered, impatient bureaucrat in Never Say Never Again. The performance was a striking contrast to that of the previous actor to play opposite Sean Connery in the role, the fatherly Bernard Lee. But Never Say Never Again doesn’t hesitate to place the British Secret Service in a more contemporary era of tight operational constraints and squeezed budgets. In the 1980s, in the eyes of the new M and perhaps the government more broadly, the double-0 section has become more of an embarrassment than an asset. Once again, it’s up to James Bond to prove them wrong.

Fox, a London native, made his credited motion picture debut in writer/director Herbert J. Leder’s sci-fi horror film The Frozen Dead (1966). After years of television work and mostly modest feature roles, Fox’s career reached another level when he played the title character in director Fred Zinnemann’s The Day of the Jackal (1973). His additional feature credits include A Bridge Too Far (1977), with fellow Bond player Sean Connery; Soldier of Orange (1977), with future Bond player Jeroen Krabbé; Force 10 from Navarone (1978), with Bond players Robert Shaw, Richard Kiel, Barbara Bach, and Paul Angelis (For Your Eyes Only); Ghandi (1982); The Dresser (1983); Robin Hood (1991); Nicholas Nickleby (2004); and the spy spoof Johnny English Strikes Again (2018), starring Rowan Atkinson.