After a glimpse of Root (Judi Dench) in the trailer, we’ve been curious (also ridiculously excited!) to see what Judi Dench looks like as Commander Root. Well… here we go!

The image was released exclusively by Entertainment Weekly, and the accompanying article also has some hints about Judi Dench’s role, as well as answering who Beachwood Short might be!

Taken from the first scene the Dame shot for the fantasy film, the above still shows Root and her troops preparing to launch a siege on Fowl Manor. Unsurprisingly, Dench exuded authority from the moment the cameras started rolling on the scene.

“I saw all of those actors suddenly, naturally go to attention when they saw Judi, who had this swagger and this cool, who had this great leather coat, who carried the authority quite so effortlessly,” says Branagh of the scene, which included 400 to 500 extras. “She walked out of the craft, looked up at the house, and said [in an Irish accent], ‘Top of the mornin’.’ It was a real sense of a memorable character walking into a movie and owning it, saying ‘I love my clothes, I love my look, I’m in charge, and I’m here to make mischief.’”

“Eoin Colfer was always very much involved with the development of these scripts, and he’s a man who writes and lives right in the here and now, and I think he was very aware that larger conversations about societal roles have moved on from the time when he wrote this first novel where Holly as a lone woman in a man’s world was an important part of the story,” says Branagh. “Here, a sense of identity, a sense of what her father did, her place in Haven City, her place in LEPrecon is as important as her gender identification.”

Image Credit: Entertainment Weekly.