TV star turned down chance to become a real-life 'spy' - ‘This really isn’t me'

TV star Hugh Dennis has revealed he once turned down an opportunity to work for MI5 intelligence, and could have become a real-life spy.

The comic, who played a part as a scientist in James Bond‘s No Time to Die in 2021, saw his career complete a full circle with the movie. The 62-year-old explains he was plucked out by the intelligence agency and asked to do an interview as a potential candidate. But he turned them down, believing, it wasn’t going to be how we all imagine it is in the books and films.

Hugh Dennis was interviewed by MI5

Although the comedian only had a cameo in the Hollywood blockbuster, he said it was “one of the finest moments of my life”.

Speaking on the White Wine Question Time podcast, Hugh Dennis told Kate Thornton, MI5 reached out to him while he was a student over potentially working for them.

But the celebrity turned them down.

While studying at Cambridge University, he was approached by the agency and agreed to attend an interview to quench his curiosity.

But the TV star knew working in a real-life espionage situations don’t mirror “being James Bond” on the silver screen. So Hugh Dennis decided to leave MI5 behind and wanted a career where he’d be ‘noticed’.

He said: “It was a rather different world, now you apply for jobs in MI5, you actually have to go reply to adverts and things.

“But in that time, this was like the mid-80s, I suppose you got approached by your tutor or whoever.

“There was obviously a network of people who were asking, and I was approached, and I went down because, again, you think it’s sort of slightly flattering, don’t you?

“Or you’re thinking that’d be interesting, I wonder what an interview for that will be like.”

Hugh continued: “So, I went down, and I had this interview at the end of which I thought, this really isn’t me I don’t think.

“On the one hand, it is sort of flattering to be approached because you think, “Oh, I wonder what they’ve seen in me”. But then on the other hand, spying isn’t being James Bond.

“Spying, as far as I could see, was about disappearing into a crowd and no one ever really noticing you, and I think deep inside me, I thought, no, actually, I want to be noticed; I think I need another kind of career where I can be noticed.

“It was never a serious thing, but I went, just to see what it was really like. It’s amazing that was the system, though, isn’t it?”

Star ‘delighted’ he was in a spy movie

Hugh spoke about his time in the flick, despite his time in the edit being quite short.

He played a scientist in a small scene that hands over a secret that ‘threatens the world’ before being shot in the head.

The Mock The Week star explained: “They couldn’t decide whether I was going to be shot in the head or shot in the chest, but they did know I was going to be shot, so I had to practice different types of death so that I was ready when it came to it.”

The 62-year-old added: “You do it with the sort of stunt coordinator who will say if you’re shot in the chest, you’re going to fall backwards slightly, but if you’re shot in the head, it’s like having the light switched off.

“So, if you’re shot in the head, you just go straight down, you’re not even aware it’s happened to you, and you collapse vertically. We had to practice a lot of that.”

He then said: “Probably one of the finest moments of my life, I think, was when this happened; it was a head shot in the end, although you never saw it, so all this was pointless.

“The stunt coordinator was watching the scene, I get shot in the head, I go down vertically, they shout cut, and he was an incredibly cool Frenchman, this stunt coordinator.

“He came up to me and he tapped me on the shoulder, and he went, “Good death.””

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