Daniel Craig - Quantum of Solace
Daniel Craig is shaken and not a little stirred when, to mark the release of new Bond film Quantum of Solace, Time Out surprises him with questions from assorted high-profile pals from Sydney and around the world, in an international group Bondage session...
This first question is from Richard Kiel, who played Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. He wants to know: how has being Bond changed your career? Have you been offered better roles because of it? Yes, there's no doubt it's changed things. It might have been different it we hadn't had the success we did with Casino Royale. It could have been more, let's say... interesting. When it comes to being offered roles: at least I've been shown stuff I wasn't before. I may not have been offered all the jobs that you'd expect, but I've definitely been shown stuff. And it's made me get more active about it too. That's what I've always done, actively gone looking for scripts, and this has given me that extra push. I was making Defiance, a World War II film, last year with director Edward Zwick and alongside Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell, which was definitely one of those roles that just got plumly offered to me. I don't think that would have happened before.
Richard Kiel also wants to ask... ... no, he can't borrow my car.
...who is your favourite male actor and have you tried to emulate him in any way? Maybe you could apply that question to when you were younger?
The answer's no. Definitely not. I had a ton of people I admired but I was as fickle as I could possibly be. It depended on the movie I came out of. Literally. If I came running out of a movie, I was that person for at least ten or 15 minutes, like we all were. I was as fickle as that. I didn't care as long as they were cool and good in that movie. I admire and respect people like Paul Newman, the great modern movie actors, like Robert Redford, Steve McQueen. Those guys who were not only great actors but movie stars as well.
This question is from Dame Stella Rimington, former head of MI6. Fucking hell! Have you got some people in your family?
Have you ever met a real British Intelligence officer and is your portrayal of Bond influenced in any way by that? Firstly - how would I know if I met a spy? Although I have met quite a lot of special forces guys who do a lot of covert work. On the whole, they're easier to recognise as they look like they can kill. They give off an aura of violence.
So no spy has ever approached you in solidarity? What? A nod and wink at me in a strange way? No - I'm not sure that's the answer she's looking for!
Here's Jonathan Pryce, who was the bad guy in Tomorrow Never Dies. Who was your favourite Welsh Bond villain? [Cracks up laughing] Was Robert Shaw Welsh? [Shaw was in From Russia with Love - but, no, he was from Lancashire.]
There's a Welsh theme emerging. This one's from Shirley Bassey. Excellent! This is fantastic.
She wants to know: Are you married?
[Cracks up again, before going silent.] I'm divorced.
Carmen, Sydney's 'Queen of Crown Street', asks: did you consider the public interest that comes with playing Bond before you took the plunge? Definitely. That was one of the many conversations I had with myself - very loudly probably - but also as part of all the advice I took, discussions with family as well as colleagues. When it came down to it, I decided to embrace the whole thing. There's no point doing a Bond movie - or a $200 million movie - and hiding away for six months. You have to get out there and do it. You have to expect a level of interest, instead of thinking: "Oh Christ, I don't know if I can deal with this." But on the whole I'm doing the same thing I've always done and trying to keep as private as I possibly can. Certainly I've tried to keep my family and friends far away from it and I feel their privacy is crucially important.
This is from John Cleese who played R in The World Is Not Enough. How tall do you think Bond should be? Bastard! Tell him to fuck off! Shorter than John Cleese! He's about 6ft 5in, I think.
Ex-cricketer Stuart MacGill asks: how far have you based your Bond on your predecessors on screen? Not at all, really. Not deliberately. I sat and watched every movie religiously. And I still do, I have them all in the trailer. I've become a nerd basically. I feel I need to, it's part of what it is. But that was never the point. I could never start repeating it, I had to take it somewhere new. I may just start doing Sean Connery impressions in the next movie, just for the hell of it.
Here's one from Charlie Higson, author of the Young Bond books: how much of Fleming's Bond is there in Craig's Bond? I hope a lot, but it's subliminal. It's just about reading the books. What I wanted to do with Quantum of Solace - and what [director] Marc [Forster] wanted to do - was to draw on Fleming's obsession with detail. He has two pages to describe making scrambled egg, things like that. Some of which is in some of the earlier Bonds. Marc wanted to turn that into cinematic detail, so that just looking at the frame is sumptuous. Also, there's a darkness in Casino Royale, there's a fight in there. Here's a man who's incredibly reluctant to be doing what he does, which I think applied to Fleming too. He'd always have preferred to be at Goldeneye writing and taking gin fizzes at 11 o'clock in the morning. Wouldn't we all?
We spoke to Marc Forster and he kept stressing the importance of character in this new film. Was that key? I think so. Marc's Swiss. I mean this in the best way: he's very fastidious, very organised, which lends itself to a Bond movie. There's an efficiency that you need. I think my Bond is quite efficient, but ragged, if that makes sense. He efficiently kills people but everything blows up around him. I couldn't sing Marc's praises highly enough; he's a good man.
This is from Stephen Dorril, a writer about MI6. Is there anything you've come across making the film that might be useful for a real MI6 officer? Integrity! An understanding of moral issues. An understanding of the world - worldliness is always good.
Chris Kearney who works for gadget kings Tom Tom in Sydney asks: are there lots of cool toys in the new Bond? We haven't stressed that with this one, and I'm not saying we won't in the future. But still there are more in this one - there's something called the Smart Wall that's connected to a piece of machinery in MI6. We've tried to integrate the gadgets into everyday usage so that it's not like: "Ah ha, there's the gadget!" It's all working continually. We live in a world of surveillance and satellite tracking. We might tackle it one day. I'm not averse to anything, I just want it to feel right.
Clive james asks: are you into spy gadgets in real ife? The surveillance thing I got over quite early on in life. I found that listening in to other people's conversations only got you into more trouble than is possible. It's like in relationships when you start looking through other people's stuff. Beware! I'm very much a believer that if you're looking for something you'll find it.
Here's Sir Roger Moore. He wants to know: who is your favourite Bond between Sean Connery and Timothy Dalton? [roars out laughing] It's you, Sir Roger! I'm a Sean Connery fan, and he knows that, I've told lots of people. But I've got a big soft spot for Roger Moore as Live and Let Die was the first movie I saw in the cinema with my dad. It was ridiculously camp - and then it just got camper.
Sir Roger would also like to know if you'll be buying his new autobiography? Probably! Can he not sign me a copy? I'll buy it. You made these questions up! You could have made these questions up...
Have you had much dialogue with previous Bonds? I speak to Pierce occasionally. We've got the same publicist, so I might get on the phone with him when he's on junkets: "Hello, you alright?" "How's it going?" He was genuinely really nice and encouraging when the whole thing kicked off.
One from Kelly Zhen, a croupier at Star City casino in Sydney... When did you get this? At three o'clock in the morning?
She wants to know if you know what a French bet is? It sounds dirty. If it includes two girls, yes I do!
Apparently it involves betting on three areas of the roulette wheel. Oh yes, I know exactly what a French bet is - and my French bet is a bit slapdash.
Are you enjoying these questions? It's great, believe me it couldn't be a better way to start the day. They've been good questions!
Justin Hemmes - owner of ivy, Sydney's swankiest bar - asks, Martinis: shaken or stirred? I don't know who has stirred cocktails anymore. I like them ice, ice, ice cold, so you have to shake them up.
Paul Schulte from Gazebo Wine Garden asks: gin or vodka? Twist or olive? Vodka. With an olive.
Another Sydney bar Bondi Social is serving a Vesper Martini in your honour for the month of November. Owner Hamilton Kings asks: have you ever tried the original Vesper martini? Yes, I've tried about ten of them. They're knockout. We did a taste-testing before we did the last one and I ended up on the floor. And we did them properly: full measure of gin, full measure of vodka and then another liqueur on top of it. They knock you out.
Ian Fleming's niece, Lucy Fleming, would like to know: have you ever considered the Royal Marines commando course and earning the coveted green beret? No, I'll leave that to that professionals! They always hurt me, the Royal Marines. My trainer is one. They haunt me!
These movies are huge studio enterprises, but then there's the family element: the Flemings and the books, the Broccolis and the film legacy. How does that play out for you? I don't think Michael or Barbara [respectively stepson and daughter of original Bond producer Cubby Broccoli] would mind me saying that they are as close as you'll get to making a Hollywood movie away from home as you'll get, but the way it's run is unique. It's all because of them. It has a total autonomy and it's their love of the product - the books - that comes from Cubby and they guard it jealously.
The Broccolis have done a sterling job of keeping it up to date in a world of Bourne and digital effects. It's showbusiness, let's be honest. That's what Cubby Broccoli and his co-producer Harry Saltzman were all about. Those early Bonds defined movies in the 60s of that type because they went on location. They went to Tokyo, to Rio, they flew everybody there. We've continued that and it's a really good formula. It makes going to the cinema a special occasion. It's event cinema.
Doris Goddard, the legendary owner of Sydney pub Hotel Hollywood asks: is it hard to preserve that sense of wonder after 22 films? It is, but that's why Marc was so clever finding that location down in Panama and shooting down there. It's a place called Colon, which is seriously depressed economically but a wonderful, wonderful place, one of those magical places. And that's there on the screen. We also went to Chile, that's all up there on the screen as well. Marc pushed for that, he was so insistent on making the locations characters in this movie. Anything to keep it away from me, fine!
Forster brought with him a lot of new talent. Was there a shake-up behind-the-scenes? It wasn't a shake up...
But there were new editors, a new costume designer, a new production designer... There was no aggressive move - but Marc came in and he wanted to interview people and he wanted to interview new people. The timing was bang-on. They've done 21 Bond movies and we wanted to get a new look. It was so important to me that we didn't just rehash Casino Royale. Yes, it's a sequel, but we had to take some risks and try to do something different. We had to get some new ideas, get some fresh people in - people to share the panic with! DC
Quantum of Solace opens on Nov 19.