It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
I've heard Liam Neeson was one other actor considered besides Brosnan.
There has to have been others too.
According to GoldenEye IMDb trivia page, Paul McGann would have been Bond if Brosnan had turned down the role. Ralph Fiennes is mentioned as having auditioned, too.
It's not a complete list, but alternative007.co.uk wrote an article about many of the actors who were (allegedly) considered. Here's the section about GE:
http://www.alternative007.co.uk/303.htm
They probably won’t, but that’s because they won’t have a company over them going bankrupt and not allowing them to make a Bond film for a certain amount of time. Or changing hands with either legal battles or battles over creative rights ensuing… y’know like MGM (or indeed Amazon-MGM)…
Hopefully a pandemic or writer’s strike won’t crop up either. And the director of the film decides to stay.
Anyway, I really like Craig’s performance in SF. It’s more subdued (or subtle) in many ways but I feel that’s the point. It’s fantastic acting. I’d say it’s ever so slightly above his performance in CR, but both are great films involving the same Bond at different stages of his life.
I just remembered a mate of mine used to laugh at the line “Bring the chair” in the TLD sniper scene, a pretty innocuous bit of dialogue which Dalton imbues with great brooding significance! :D
I would also add that with those 3 words, Bond wants to put Saunders in his place. Saunders has gone out of his way to be an insufferable pen pusher, but he's in Bonds world now.
Yeh, there's that too! Good point. Saunders reaction shows that!
I think he just wanted the chair :)
Completely correct. It’s pure Fleming.
Dalton and Thomas Wheatley are brilliant in this opening scene.
It’s subtle and says so much at the same time.
TLD is full of these moments. The Bond and Pushkin interrogation scene, or when Bond pushes the coffee away in the Prater cafe.
Some of these are subtle and may be missed. But for those who noticed them, like the ‘bring the chair’ scene, it’s first class Bond.
The sniper sequence is Dalton doing a great job of playing Bond as professional and cold and then how he must reckon with the impact of killing.
As 007HallY put it, it’s a little theatrical and not very subtle. It’s a line about a chair which he gives a big dramatic pause for and a bit of an emotional emphasis to… it’s just a bit much for my taste and feels a bit silly given the line itself.
I think it's supposed to show the amount of care and consideration that Bond puts in every element of operation, even something as insignificant as whether he will sit or kneel to shoot. The intensity is supposed to represent a large contrast between how lax he is at the concert.
The next line about strawberry jam also sort of contextualises Bond's mood. Every detail must be perfect, or Koskov dies. The chair is supposed to represent a small consideration on Bond's part and the intensity conveys to Saunders the importance of everything being perfect.
I don't personally find it overacted but I suppose it's a matter of taste.
He's not particularly lax at the concert though: the "we have time" is practically spat out. There's not a huge amount of variation there and I just feel like he's doing a bit too much, trying to put deep meaning into every word. A bit theatrical and over-intense.
I just find that a bit over-wrought. It's a chair. Can you guys really not see how we laughed at that a bit?
No, says a lot about you and your mate though! 😁
Getting back to the subject at hand @007HallY for sure many of the events were out of their control. I do question holding things up for Mendes for SP. Why not have another director? I believe I heard he was hired as a consultant but couldn't assume the directors role until the production went underway? I might have mis-heard things.
I hope the truth or a timeline is shared about Boyle's hiring for NTTD. When did Craig share that he wanted Bond to die in the end? When was this a problem for Boyle? Why did EON allow a script to be okayed that they knew would not fly with Craig? I have heard that Boyle didn't want Bond to die at the end and this is why he was dismissed? Seems to me that there is a good story there to be dived into. Though I wonder if we will ever get the true story as it wouldn't be a favourable story for any of the involved parties.
I also love his facial expressions during the licence revoked M scene.
I'm sure Dalton does a lot of vocal warm ups prior to a scene hence his delivery. I remember an interview with the guys on CHUCK where they talked about Tim bringing a true sense of "professional actor" vibe to the set. I love that about The Daltonator.
Getting back to Craig, I've always loved him as Bond, too. Lately I haven't been in the mood for his films as much though. I'm sure that will change as my wife got Amazon Prime for us, and I've been recently watching the Bonds there.
I don’t know the reasoning, but I can imagine they may have simply thought him the best option. And to be fair we got SP three years after SF, which isn’t bad. From what I understand the consultancy title was for SF in the midst of MGM’s issues and not being able to officially begin (don’t know about SP one way or the other).
It wasn’t a problem for Boyle. He’s openly said Bond’s death and the daughter were included in his script. Where on earth did you hear he was dismissed because of him not wanting Bond to die?
What likely happened was Craig and the producers came up with the basic ideas (ie. A Bond in his 50s coming back from retirement, a big baddie with a world domination plot, a big climax, and Bond dying at the end). Boyle and Hodge pitched a story idea and a condition of them developing the script was to include what EON wanted. They fully accepted, and if they hadn’t they would not have been hired. The script was written but was not fully fleshed out with the production deadline approaching. Boyle has said EON lost faith in the script, and other outlets have said Boyle’s ‘mad’ ideas didn’t fully align with what the producers wanted from the film. EON suggested getting other writers involved. Boyle refused so he and Hodge walked. Likely there was also a minor disagreement about the villain casting too.
All parties have been pretty consistent about it from what I’ve seen.
To be fair the strawberry jam line in that scene is pretty overwrought. The chair line is subtle by comparison! But yes, they’re quite funny. A quirk of Dalton’s acting. It doesn’t ruin the scene or anything and I think he does well showing Bond’s professional side.
To be fair, I do remember reading stories (tabloid stories, but stories nonetheless) about Boyle's departure being over Bond's death. Some suggested he was against it, others said he was the one pushing for it and EON weren't having it.
Of course, now we know Bond dying was always the plan, and the disagreements that led to Boyle leaving the film, were unrelated.
I've never minded either of those line deliveries myself. The chair one, I thought, was supposed to be humorous. As if you're expecting him to say something really important and then he just tells him to bring the chair.
As for 'strawberry jam', I find him cocking the rifle right on ‘jam’, oddly satisfying. Is that just me?
Maybe a bit overdramatic, but still fine. All of the Bonds have had one or two strange line readings (yes, even Craig).
I came to say just this. That's the subtext of his performance when he tells Saunders to bring the chair, and in fact of the entire scene. Bond doesn't want to be there, he's uncomfortable about the whole thing. He's thinking "okay, let's get this over with." It even sounds like he's acknowleding the uneasy relationship between Saunders and him.
How annoying. Not the disagreement, just how Mathis is elaborating on their point of view and this comment just dismisses all that. A smiley face at the end doesn't really make it any better; in fact, it makes it more annoying as it comes across as contradictory rather than conciliatory. Perhaps you don't like how he said your friend missed the point? I can understand if that was a bit annoying as well.
The pause is not about the chair, that's just looking at things in the most literal sense. It's about the fact the preparations are over. Now Bond has to go outside and the moment of assassination is imminent. Said pause even has a certain musicality to it, as it brings the scene inside the room to a close.
I'm sure you will agree it is par for the course for an actor to say one thing, banal as it might sound, and be thinking or feeling about something more important underneath. That's all Dalton's doing. And Bond's uncomfortable mood in the scene isn't going to go away just because his next line is about a chair.
I get and agree that Dalton's acting style is more theatrical than other Bond actors' (not to my displeasure at all) and that bothers you, but while you might not like the intensity of expression in this moment, in my opinion, the concept behind said expression is perfectly sound.