Syd4Vaughn
Cadet
Ohh I'm going to see it tonight
It actually looks better than I thought it would ^_^
It actually looks better than I thought it would ^_^
JulianSark
Cadet
You and Mike will love it, I promise 
JulianSark
Cadet
I highly recommend it Sophie, its one of the best Bond's. And I'm sure the ladies will be admiring Daniel's physique, certainly the most well put together Bond man in a long time, wish I had those pecs!
Craig is a total BAD-ASS in this film...a must see!
undercover_spy
Cadet
I just saw it last night. It was really good. The torture scene...OMG! I think I everyone in the theatre winced (and the theatre was completely packed). There were certain parts that were a little confusing, but it was still good. I recomend people go and see it!
JulianSark
Cadet
I saw it yesterday evening! It was really good.
Still I enjoyed the movie a lot!
Yeah I see wot ya mean, but it did follow the Bond novel pretty well, glad ya liked it!
WatchMaker
Cadet
Other than a cool parkour scene at a construction factory, absolutely terrible movie. Nothing really happens. Only note worthy mention is 007 gets his balls beat twenty some times by a club.
Go watch Pick of Destiny instead.
Go watch Pick of Destiny instead.
HJ-Navarre
Cadet
WRONG! [-X I LOVED this movie! (ok.. I 'guess' you are entitled to an opinion also )
Daniel Craig is... er... 'I believe' Daniel Craig is the best bond since Connery. I liked all of the bonds (except Lazenby), but the last Pierce Brosnan movie was completely unbelievable, over the top, and retarded. With this movie, they have made bond 'real' again. He bleeds, he isn't perfect, he grows. This movie feels a lot like the Bourne Identity/Supremacy movies, which were also great. Real gritty action scenes. Lots of stunts w/o CGI. I think this ties Dr. No for my favourite Bond movie ever. /
) Daniel Craig is... er... 'I believe' Daniel Craig is the best bond since Connery. I liked all of the bonds (except Lazenby), but the last Pierce Brosnan movie was completely unbelievable, over the top, and retarded. With this movie, they have made bond 'real' again. He bleeds, he isn't perfect, he grows. This movie feels a lot like the Bourne Identity/Supremacy movies, which were also great. Real gritty action scenes. Lots of stunts w/o CGI. I think this ties Dr. No for my favourite Bond movie ever. /
Pietoro
Cadet
Navarre said:WRONG! [-X I LOVED this movie! (ok.. I 'guess' you are entitled to an opinion also
Daniel Craig is... er... 'I believe' Daniel Craig is the best bond since Connery. I liked all of the bonds (except Lazenby), but the last Pierce Brosnan movie was completely unbelievable, over the top, and retarded. With this movie, they have made bond 'real' again. He bleeds, he isn't perfect, he grows. This movie feels a lot like the Bourne Identity/Supremacy movies, which were also great. Real gritty action scenes. Lots of stunts w/o CGI. I think this ties Dr. No for my favourite Bond movie ever. /
I loved it too. For all the same reasons, basically. Casino Royale was the very first Bond book, and its interesting to see the start of the character.
blur
Cadet
This is a newspaper review from down here:
As everyone knows, watching a James Bond movie requires what the poet called "a willing suspension of disbelief".
Agent 007 eludes dozens of bad guys in an Aston Martin outfitted with ejector seats, machine guns and smoke-screen capabilities? Sure, that could happen.
The evil villain launches a mysterious rocket that gobbles manned space launches from Earth, sowing suspicion among the world's superpowers and hurtling them to the brink of war? OK, I can see that, too.
Bond and the requisite hot-looking babe escape from an exploding island fortress and, with radioactive matter raining down on them, immediately make love in a rubber raft in the middle of the ocean? Well, OK. Maybe that's not the usual response to a terrifying thermonuclear incident. But, hey, those two kids were crazy about each other.
In any event, if you thought all the other Bond movies required reality to be put on hold, wait until you see the new one, Casino Royale. This one stars Daniel Craig as the new Bond, a blond-haired, blue-eyed dude who looks like he should be skiing the giant slalom for Sweden in the next Winter Olympics.
That's bad enough, if you're a traditional 007 fan like me. What's worse is that the producers have done the unthinkable: they've turned James Bond into a virtual Superman. All he's missing is the blue and red costume with the big S on the chest.
Casino Royale really is not a bad movie. It's got all the usual Bond touches: creepy arch-villains (this one weeps blood), breathtaking locales, fast cars, beautiful women and a few cool gadgets. But turning 007 into a secret agent with almost super-human physical powers really diminishes the film - at least for me.
I hope I'm not spoiling anything here. But in the opening chase scene alone, Bond survives about three dozen brushes with death. He jumps 20 metres from a crane onto a metal platform. He jumps 25 metres off the platform onto a moving pallet. He gets shot at, burned, kicked, scalded, karate-chopped in the thorax, whacked over the head with a pipe. Then he gets away while surrounded by 200 ticked-off soldiers pointing automatic weapons at him. (I won't tell you how he gets away. But it's not the old ballpoint-pen-turns-into-a-hand-grenade thing again.)
It's all too much. And that's just the first few minutes. By the end of the movie, Bond has been beaten, shot, whipped, poisoned, nearly run over by a tanker-truck, thrown from a speeding car and almost drowned. You talk about having a bad day.
Did I mention he was tortured, too? I should probably mention that. And tortured in a very, um, unique way. It makes the famous dentist scene in Marathon Man look like they were baking cookies.
But the point is, it's so over-the-top, this physical abuse, that it becomes cartoonish. Even for a Bond movie. Bond able to withstand the kind of punishment no human being - not even a bionic man - could withstand.
No, give me the old days, where all Bond had to sweat was the occasional tarantula dropped on his pillow, or a powerful laser inching towards his groin, or a nutty SPECTRE agent who looked like your grandmother with a stiletto hidden in her boot.
He never took the kind of beating they give him in Casino Royale. Heck, back then Bond would wipe out 20 vicious martial-arts-trained hitmen and barely get a scratch on his face. Not a lick of hair was out of place, either. I liked him a lot better back then.
As everyone knows, watching a James Bond movie requires what the poet called "a willing suspension of disbelief".
Agent 007 eludes dozens of bad guys in an Aston Martin outfitted with ejector seats, machine guns and smoke-screen capabilities? Sure, that could happen.
The evil villain launches a mysterious rocket that gobbles manned space launches from Earth, sowing suspicion among the world's superpowers and hurtling them to the brink of war? OK, I can see that, too.
Bond and the requisite hot-looking babe escape from an exploding island fortress and, with radioactive matter raining down on them, immediately make love in a rubber raft in the middle of the ocean? Well, OK. Maybe that's not the usual response to a terrifying thermonuclear incident. But, hey, those two kids were crazy about each other.
In any event, if you thought all the other Bond movies required reality to be put on hold, wait until you see the new one, Casino Royale. This one stars Daniel Craig as the new Bond, a blond-haired, blue-eyed dude who looks like he should be skiing the giant slalom for Sweden in the next Winter Olympics.
That's bad enough, if you're a traditional 007 fan like me. What's worse is that the producers have done the unthinkable: they've turned James Bond into a virtual Superman. All he's missing is the blue and red costume with the big S on the chest.
Casino Royale really is not a bad movie. It's got all the usual Bond touches: creepy arch-villains (this one weeps blood), breathtaking locales, fast cars, beautiful women and a few cool gadgets. But turning 007 into a secret agent with almost super-human physical powers really diminishes the film - at least for me.
I hope I'm not spoiling anything here. But in the opening chase scene alone, Bond survives about three dozen brushes with death. He jumps 20 metres from a crane onto a metal platform. He jumps 25 metres off the platform onto a moving pallet. He gets shot at, burned, kicked, scalded, karate-chopped in the thorax, whacked over the head with a pipe. Then he gets away while surrounded by 200 ticked-off soldiers pointing automatic weapons at him. (I won't tell you how he gets away. But it's not the old ballpoint-pen-turns-into-a-hand-grenade thing again.)
It's all too much. And that's just the first few minutes. By the end of the movie, Bond has been beaten, shot, whipped, poisoned, nearly run over by a tanker-truck, thrown from a speeding car and almost drowned. You talk about having a bad day.
Did I mention he was tortured, too? I should probably mention that. And tortured in a very, um, unique way. It makes the famous dentist scene in Marathon Man look like they were baking cookies.
But the point is, it's so over-the-top, this physical abuse, that it becomes cartoonish. Even for a Bond movie. Bond able to withstand the kind of punishment no human being - not even a bionic man - could withstand.
No, give me the old days, where all Bond had to sweat was the occasional tarantula dropped on his pillow, or a powerful laser inching towards his groin, or a nutty SPECTRE agent who looked like your grandmother with a stiletto hidden in her boot.
He never took the kind of beating they give him in Casino Royale. Heck, back then Bond would wipe out 20 vicious martial-arts-trained hitmen and barely get a scratch on his face. Not a lick of hair was out of place, either. I liked him a lot better back then.
HJ-Navarre
Cadet
blur said:
I will retort with an Interview I read before seeing the movie:
Daniel Craig Interview, Casino Royale
from: moviesonline.ca
PART 1 of 2
At the recent New York City press day for the new James Bond film "Casino Royale,” Movies Online caught up with Daniel Craig who plays the new 007. Craig delivers an impressive performance in his first outing as the formidable secret agent and leaves no doubt that he has what it takes to reinvigorate the long standing franchise for a 21st century audience. Based on the 1953 novel by Ian Fleming, "Casino Royale” explores Bond’s early career and how he came to be the legendary 007.
Craig, who is a theatrically trained actor, takes the role seriously and brings dimension, complexity, subtlety, and magnetism to his performance that hasn’t been seen on screen since Sean Connery appeared as James Bond in "From Russia With Love” over 40 years ago. In fact, the rugged featured, charismatic actor may just be the best Bond since Connery. His modern version of Bond, while a bit grimmer and more realistic, remains dashing and true to the original spirit of Fleming's inspired creation.
Craig's Bond is tough, arrogant, humane, sadistic, and vulnerable – all rolled into one. And he hasn’t lost his sense of humor even when he’s angry. When asked by the bartender in one particularly intense scene if he would like his martini shaken or stirred, he responds with a dangerous glint in his eyes, "Do I look like I give a damn?’ There's no doubt he means business and he'll take his drink straight up if he has to.
Daniel Craig is a sensational actor and we appreciated him taking time out of his busy schedule to sit down with us and talk about the challenge of becoming the new Bond, working opposite Eva Green, and his plans for 007’s future. Here's what he had to say:
Q: So, did you let yourself go after you wrapped production?
DC: You mean physically let myself go or mentally let myself go? I did a little bit of both after it. I went on holiday and let myself go in lots of ways. But that was just because we were in France and eating good food and drinking lots of wine. And I have kept up going to the gym, but not quite as intensely as I was doing it during the film.
Q: Have you had time to breathe yet?
DC: It wasn’t like that because we went straight into long-lead press, a junket for a week, where I actually had to go talk about the movie just as we finished it. And it was one of the most bizarre experiences because I hadn’t given it any thought. I’d been just working. People were going, ‘What’s it like to be Bond?’ And I didn’t know. I still don’t really know. And then we went on holiday. So it’s kind of never stopped. As much as I went away on holiday, the phone was ringing every day and we were discussing stuff about how we were going to do this and how we’re going to do that and what the next stage is. It’s a full-time job. It’s a good job, though.
Q: We heard you indulged in several vodka martinis when you got the role. Were you a fan of the drink?
DC: No, no. Believe me, a good one; nothing is like it. I’m not bad at mixing them, either. I used to do that in pubs, in bars. I’m quite particular about them.
Q: You had to go through a lot to get the role and you’ve had to deal with the press and internet since getting it. Why did you want it?
DC: There are simple answers and there’s no kind of bullshit attached to it. The script was great. I got it and I read it and I thought, ‘I’d be a fool not to have a go at this.’ Hindsight is a very easy thing to say, but I was going, ‘If I don’t do this, you’re going to regret not having a go at this,’ because he is one of the biggest, iconographic [characters] in movie history. And I’m an actor. This is what I do for a living. If I don’t take on challenges like this, then what’s the point? Work was going well. It’d been going very well for me and I’ve been very happy with what I’ve been doing. And I so didn’t
expect it to happen. I had other kinds of plans in my mind, maybe, what I wanted to do and how I wanted to carry on, but this came along and Barbara Broccoli is very persuasive. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Q: How different at the end of the day is something like Bond vs. The Mother?
DC: It is and it isn’t. You’d be surprised, really. The biggest difference on a movie set like that is when you walk on and you’re doing a huge stunt sequence. Then you get an understanding of how big the scale is. You see many more people on set. But when you’re [doing a] dialogue sequence, when I’m doing it with Eva or I’m doing it with Mads, it’s scaled down. You’re trying to do the same thing as I was doing in The Mother. You’re just telling a story and you’re acting with other people. I don’t differentiate between the two, and that was important when we were doing the film. I didn’t want us to shoot two movies. I didn’t want to shoot an action movie and a love story, or whatever the story (part of it) was. I wanted it to be absolutely seamless. I wanted it to be so that I could see the storytelling going on in this.
Q: What was your most grueling stunt?
DC: They were all pretty grueling, but I think the Madagascar sequence at the beginning, because of all the running involved. I picked up injuries, strained muscles. I wouldn’t classify myself as a professional athlete in any way, but I understand now a little bit more about how professional athletes are constantly working through pain. And painkillers go a long way.
Q: How pleased were you that this is a low-tech Bond adventure, light on the gadgets?
DC: It was not a debatable issue, and that was from all of us. That was from Martin. That was from Gary Powell, the stunt coordinator, and Barbara and Michael. It was NOT a debatable issue. We are making a movie here which is that any gadget, any kind of effect that happens, is part of the storytelling. You see at Miami Airport there are a lot of planes landing. They were there to sort of say, ‘We’re in Miami. Here are the planes.’ We couldn’t have planes landing in the back of shots, so we had CGI to give us that. But nothing that you see in the movie, stunt-wise, is not happening. It’s all happening. And if it’s not me doing, it’s someone else doing it, and they’re getting hurt. You also find out what it’s like falling down a flight of stairs. It feels like you’re falling down a f***ing flight of stairs. And that’s what we wanted to feel. We wanted to feel the pain, the pain in it.
Q: How likable or not did you want your Bond to be?
DC: I didn’t go out to make him likable. I didn’t go out, going, ‘Please like him.’ I wanted him to be somebody who changed. I did not want him to be the same person at the beginning of the movie as he was at the end. And, for whatever reason, and I wasn’t thinking beyond this movie at the time, I was thinking that if we ever do do another we need to have somewhere to go. I wanted to see a fallible human being, somebody that made mistakes, somebody who an audience watches and goes, ‘This might not turn out good. This might turn out really bad.’ And sometimes it did.
Q: How many are you signed to do?
DC: Three.
Q: How tough was the torture scene to shoot?
DC: It was the simplest, easiest scene in the movie to shoot. I hate to say it, but it took a day. It took a day of shooting. It was on the page. Mads is a fantastic actor. We figured it out together. I sat in a corner and listened to some music and got myself into the idea. We both had a discussion. I said to myself, ‘The one thing I don’t want to do, even though he is in this position he’s in, is have him lose.’ He cannot lose. Even though he knows he’s going to die, he must never let it go. Martins, Mads and I just sat down, talked about it, thought how we were going to do it and just got on with it and shot it. It was remarkably easy, apart from one [incident]. We had a hard bottom on the chair, obviously, because I wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise. And it cracked at one point. I left the room rather [hastily]. I just like [jumped] eight feet in the air [and yelled] ‘Stop!!’
Q: What were you listening to?
DC: I was listening to the Clash and to the Foo Fighters. Vivaldi? No. The Four Seasons? No. It was just some good guitar music.
Q: Was there a point where, hearing the negative Internet and tabloid buzz, you took those comments to heart?
DC: Look, I will not lie to you about it. It affected me. It affected me and I went, ‘You know what? What can I do? I can’t answer it.’ I can’t start getting on Internet sites and go (he makes whining noises). I get it. I get the passion that people feel for this, and I understand it. But I make films. Normally, when I make a film, we wait until we get to the premiere or we wait to the time when the press screening happens, and I start getting reviews. So it was like, ‘See the f***ing movie. Watch the movie and then you can say what you like about it. But just watch the movie.’ That’s my answer. There’s no point in getting into tit for tat arguments about the way I look.
Q: Women at the screening gasped at your body, in a good way.
DC: Thank you.
Q: Can you talk about the James Bond workout you did?
DC: It was just nothing special. I went to the gym, I pushed weights and I ran about. It was intense. I mean, I had to do it every day. I was doing an hour and a half, maybe, every day. We increased the weight quite rapidly because that was the only way I was going to build up. I had a high-protein diet. And at the end of the workout I’d do 20 minutes on the bike to try and keep the fat down. There’s no real secret to it. You can find it in any heath magazine. I had a good trainer, which helped, someone encouraging me.
Q: You’re signed for two more and you just said you want this to be a beginning for Bond. So what are the next steps?
DC: I think we’ve set up the idea now that there’s an organization out there that needs to be sorted out, and he’s sort of got a sense of revenge. He wants to go and get them, so that’s his spur. Everybody has sort of said, ‘This is how he becomes Bond.’ I think the process is still happening. That idea that we have the finished article? We haven’t yet. We’ve got somebody who’s still maybe too headstrong and doesn’t always make the right decision. I want to take on what we’ve set up and I think we’ve made a good movie here, and I want to make another good movie. I don’t want to let the ball drop.
Q: Why does it work more for you that he’s fallible?
DC: Because I think it’s dramatically much more interesting. If I play any character I want to see a weakness within them, because I want to see how they cope with that, how they dealt with it. I don’t want to watch two-dimensional characters when I go to the cinema. I want to watch rounded people make decisions, and I can’t believe that they’d make a decision that they’re Teflon-coated. That doesn’t interest me.
HJ-Navarre
Cadet
Part 2 of 2
Q: How do you think the action-adventure landscape has changed since the last film?
DC: We’ve got a number of things. People have mentioned the Bourne series, which are superb movies. They’re pretty gritty. But we’ve had those kinds of movies for years. If you think about Get Carter and think about the Michael Caine spy movies that were done during the 1960s. Those have always interested me. I think Bond had a lot of that in the beginning, then it sort of was lost, and then it came back again with Timothy Dalton. A lot of influences from movies I put into the work I do. The landscape has changed in the world, politically, but I don’t know if we’re any less confused than we ever were. That’s what I think is enduring about the character is that he kind of seems to know the answer. At least he knows where the bad guy is and he goes and gets him. I think that, as a piece of escapism, that’s what I want to see in my Bond character. I want to see a guy who knows what he’s up to.
Q: How is His Dark Materials going?
DC: That’s fantastic. Those are three of my favorite books, the Philip Pullman trilogy. Just the timing worked out. New Line came and said, ‘Are you interested?’ And I was interested. I think they are fantastic children’s books. I think they’re about love and they’re about growing up and they’re about how, as adults, we should see the world, and how, for children, growing up is one of the biggest struggles, one of the toughest things you’ll ever do.
Q: What direction are you going with your character?
DC: A fine direction. He’s single-minded. He’s not unlike the one I’m playing at the moment. He’s singled-minded in trying to achieve something, because he believes that without a little change in the world then it won’t move on.
Q: Have you read the Fleming book?
DC: I read it. I read it. I read most of them. I read most of them and I watched all of the movies and then I kind of put it there. There’s a huge history, a huge lineage of the books and the films, and to ignore it to would be stupid. So I soaked it up and just got as much of it [as I could]. I had them in my trailer. I’d relax and stick on one and just check it out. I didn’t want to miss a trick.
Q: What does your daughter make of you being Bond?
DC: I don’t want to talk about my daughter, sorry. Her privacy is sacred. It’s absolutely sacred to me.
Q: What does your family make of it?
DC: It’s a huge deal. They’re very proud and seem to be very happy. I’ve been acting a long time now, so it’s not like I haven’t been doing things and they haven’t noticed things and I haven’t been getting a lot more press. This is a big deal, but this hasn’t come out of the blue.
Q: How was the sinking house sequence to shoot?
DC: Chris Corbould, who was the special effects supervisor/set designer, is a genius, just a genius. It was on the Bond stage. There was 20 feet of water and this house. And it sank five, six, seven times a day, like that into the water. It was like a roller coaster and it was all computer-driven. Then it would raise out, we’d dry it off a bit and we’d do the scene again. I think it's a great sequence. I’ve ever seen anything like that before. It’s not the submarine base. Maybe there will be a submarine base next time.
Q: How different is this from everything else you’ve done in terms of seeing it actually put together and sitting there in a theater?
DC: I don’t know, really, how to say it. I think the finished product is quite extraordinary. What’s interesting is that from the very beginning, ‘If you include me in everything that’s going on, everything that’s going on in the movie, I will feel confident enough to be able to walk on that set and play this man.’ And they, thankfully, as Martin did, involved me. Even though I’m certainly not responsible, I had a say in the look of the film, the feel of the film, the music. So I feel just immensely proud. That’s the simple way of looking at it, I think.
Q: Do you worry at all about being trapped in the role?
DC: It’s a high-class problem to have. It’s a very high-class problem to have. There are worse things. I count myself very blessed to be in a situation like this. I’m not looking for a way of countering it. I’m just going to enjoy it for the moment, as opposed to looking at the negative.
Q: What if you play a wimp in your next role?
DC: A wimp with a heart. Maybe you’ve got a good idea.
Q: Have you been in contact with past Bonds?
DC: Someone asked me the other day, ‘Is there a secret group?’ We were trying to decide whether I’d be kidnapped one night and get a bag pulled off my head and say, ‘Oh, hi guys.’ Pierce Brosnan has been very supportive. I met him last year at last year’s BAFTA’s and he’s just been great. He said, ‘Go for it. You’ve got to go for it.’ And I hear through the press that other (positive) things have been said. Whether they’re true or not, I don’t know, but it seems to me that there’s been some nice things said, which helps.
Q: Did Brosnan have any advice?
DC: Just ‘Go for it. Just go for it. Have a go, and you’ll have the ride of your life.’
Q: No advice about weapons, women and cars?
DC: What? Weapons? Weapons, women and cars? I had some experience in that, so I
tried to put that in.
Q: Brosnan also said, in interviews after he was officially not going to do it, but before you signed on: Get a good lawyer.
DC: I already have one.
Q: Not to get into controversial territory, but who’s you favorite of past Bonds?
DC: It’s not controversial at all, because Sean Connery defined it. From Russia with Love is one of my favorite films. What he began there, what he started, and his physicality. He did it. And it’s no reflection on any of the others. It’s just that’s where I look. If I think about Bond, I think about him.
Q: Have you seen the first Casino Royale?
DC: There was actually a TV movie, but of course I’ve seen the David Niven film. I thought it was a ----ing mess; what am I going to tell you? But it was meant to be. It was always meant to be. The producers of that, they deliberately got in all those directors. I think John Huston directed a bit of it. Orson Welles directed a bit of it. And then there were four other directors. Woody Allen’s in it. David Niven. Peter Sellers. And they’re all playing Bond. I don’t know. It’s confusing. It’s good fun, but it’s nothing to do with the book.
Q: When did you do Infamous?
DC: I did that at the beginning of last year, way before [Bond].
Q: You’re going on a publicity tour with Bond, then going back to work on The Golden Compass. Eva is in that, too. Do you have scenes together?
DC: No. Maybe if there is a third movie, if we do the third book of the trilogy, we will have scenes together. But not in this one.
Q: You and Eva have wonderful chemistry in this. What can you say about her?
DC: I know there was a lot in the press about who was going to do this and whatever. When she came in there was no decision for me. She brings to it something special. She’s got a mystery about her, anyway, Eva, and the character had to have a mystery. She’s beautiful and, well, she can act. That’s the really important thing. It needed to be someone who I would think he could fall in love with, and Eva does such a fantastic job. I mean, she’s the heartbeat of this movie. And that was crucial that we got that love story going because then everything else sort of slots into place around it. She was great and we had a lot of fun together.
Q: What was it like working with Giancarlo Giannini?
DC: Well, he’s fantabulous. Giancarlo is very naughty, all the time. He likes women. (laughs). He was very funny all the time. He’s a live wire. He brings a really, really fantastic atmosphere to the set. And he’s a pleasure to work with.
Q: How are you going to balance everything from here on in?
DC: This is a big deal. I can’t construct it. You can’t make that happen. It will happen or it won’t happen, and it’ll ride on the fact whether or not there’s stuff out there and how people perceive this movie. Those are things I haven’t planned, but I’m doing what I’ve always done, which is read scripts. I’m hopefully going to make a movie next year with my best friend, which is about growing up. It’s small. I’m doing it because I love the script. I haven’t got suddenly this producer’s hat on now, going, ‘Well, if you do this you must do this and do this.’ I’ll kind of take it as it comes.
Q: You don¹t have a producer’s hat on now, but do you want to producer and/or
direct?
DC: I’d love to, yeah. I kind of consider myself a moviemaker and that’s the natural extension of that. I’d love to start producing movies. Somebody asked me the other day whether I’d direct a movie, and I said, ‘No ----ing way.’ I mean, Martin, on this job, he was the first to arrive on the set and the last to leave, and that’s what a good director does. He’s in control. But producing would be interesting.
Q: Women like your body, as we discussed, but what do you think of your ass?
DC: I can’t see it! Every time I turn around it disappears. I’m not looking at my ass. Where are you going with this??!!
Q: Do you worry at all about putting on too much muscle, being too big?
DC: Yeah, there was, but you can’t really gauge that. I’ve always worked out, and when I push weights I’ve got genes there. My uncles and things are all big. My grandfather was 6-foot-2 and big. The only intention with that was when I took my shirt off I wanted it to look like what he was capable of doing. It’s a hit and miss thing. It’s not an exact science. It’s a silly thing you get into. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve bench-pressed 180 pounds.’ You can only go so far down that road and then you’ve got to drag yourself back to life and sort of say, ‘It’s not my existence.’
Q: You do have to look good in a dinner jacket?
DC: Well, there you go. And those two things often don’t mix, so I had to be careful about it. I know (costume designer) Lindy Hemming had me at one point. I came in and had a costume fitting at Brioni and I came back like a month and a half later and I’d been working quite intensely. And she just went, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, we’re going to have to let this out.’ But, actually, we worked it out in the end. The way she designed it made it look pretty good.
Q: We heard about the card games during breaks. Who was the better player, you or Mads?
DC: Ah, who do you think?
Q: What about shooting the three weeks of poker?
DC: It’s tricky. If you tried to shoot this table here, you’d have to shoot everybody, and that’s what it was like at that table. What we did and what was really essential was the fact that we made the scene about the battle that was going on, and because of that I think the scene works really beautifully.
That’s a testament to Martin and to Stuart Baird, the editor, because it’s really tricky to get that intensity. The cards are important, what’s on the table, but not everybody understands cards. It’s funny, we were watching the other night and obviously there were a couple of hands that went down where people were like, ‘Wow.’ We got some gasps in the audience because they were good hands. But actually it’s not important. The important thing is who’s winning and, actually, who screws the other person. And I get him in the end. "Casino Royale” opens in theaters on November 17th.
Q: How do you think the action-adventure landscape has changed since the last film?
DC: We’ve got a number of things. People have mentioned the Bourne series, which are superb movies. They’re pretty gritty. But we’ve had those kinds of movies for years. If you think about Get Carter and think about the Michael Caine spy movies that were done during the 1960s. Those have always interested me. I think Bond had a lot of that in the beginning, then it sort of was lost, and then it came back again with Timothy Dalton. A lot of influences from movies I put into the work I do. The landscape has changed in the world, politically, but I don’t know if we’re any less confused than we ever were. That’s what I think is enduring about the character is that he kind of seems to know the answer. At least he knows where the bad guy is and he goes and gets him. I think that, as a piece of escapism, that’s what I want to see in my Bond character. I want to see a guy who knows what he’s up to.
Q: How is His Dark Materials going?
DC: That’s fantastic. Those are three of my favorite books, the Philip Pullman trilogy. Just the timing worked out. New Line came and said, ‘Are you interested?’ And I was interested. I think they are fantastic children’s books. I think they’re about love and they’re about growing up and they’re about how, as adults, we should see the world, and how, for children, growing up is one of the biggest struggles, one of the toughest things you’ll ever do.
Q: What direction are you going with your character?
DC: A fine direction. He’s single-minded. He’s not unlike the one I’m playing at the moment. He’s singled-minded in trying to achieve something, because he believes that without a little change in the world then it won’t move on.
Q: Have you read the Fleming book?
DC: I read it. I read it. I read most of them. I read most of them and I watched all of the movies and then I kind of put it there. There’s a huge history, a huge lineage of the books and the films, and to ignore it to would be stupid. So I soaked it up and just got as much of it [as I could]. I had them in my trailer. I’d relax and stick on one and just check it out. I didn’t want to miss a trick.
Q: What does your daughter make of you being Bond?
DC: I don’t want to talk about my daughter, sorry. Her privacy is sacred. It’s absolutely sacred to me.
Q: What does your family make of it?
DC: It’s a huge deal. They’re very proud and seem to be very happy. I’ve been acting a long time now, so it’s not like I haven’t been doing things and they haven’t noticed things and I haven’t been getting a lot more press. This is a big deal, but this hasn’t come out of the blue.
Q: How was the sinking house sequence to shoot?
DC: Chris Corbould, who was the special effects supervisor/set designer, is a genius, just a genius. It was on the Bond stage. There was 20 feet of water and this house. And it sank five, six, seven times a day, like that into the water. It was like a roller coaster and it was all computer-driven. Then it would raise out, we’d dry it off a bit and we’d do the scene again. I think it's a great sequence. I’ve ever seen anything like that before. It’s not the submarine base. Maybe there will be a submarine base next time.
Q: How different is this from everything else you’ve done in terms of seeing it actually put together and sitting there in a theater?
DC: I don’t know, really, how to say it. I think the finished product is quite extraordinary. What’s interesting is that from the very beginning, ‘If you include me in everything that’s going on, everything that’s going on in the movie, I will feel confident enough to be able to walk on that set and play this man.’ And they, thankfully, as Martin did, involved me. Even though I’m certainly not responsible, I had a say in the look of the film, the feel of the film, the music. So I feel just immensely proud. That’s the simple way of looking at it, I think.
Q: Do you worry at all about being trapped in the role?
DC: It’s a high-class problem to have. It’s a very high-class problem to have. There are worse things. I count myself very blessed to be in a situation like this. I’m not looking for a way of countering it. I’m just going to enjoy it for the moment, as opposed to looking at the negative.
Q: What if you play a wimp in your next role?
DC: A wimp with a heart. Maybe you’ve got a good idea.
Q: Have you been in contact with past Bonds?
DC: Someone asked me the other day, ‘Is there a secret group?’ We were trying to decide whether I’d be kidnapped one night and get a bag pulled off my head and say, ‘Oh, hi guys.’ Pierce Brosnan has been very supportive. I met him last year at last year’s BAFTA’s and he’s just been great. He said, ‘Go for it. You’ve got to go for it.’ And I hear through the press that other (positive) things have been said. Whether they’re true or not, I don’t know, but it seems to me that there’s been some nice things said, which helps.
Q: Did Brosnan have any advice?
DC: Just ‘Go for it. Just go for it. Have a go, and you’ll have the ride of your life.’
Q: No advice about weapons, women and cars?
DC: What? Weapons? Weapons, women and cars? I had some experience in that, so I
tried to put that in.
Q: Brosnan also said, in interviews after he was officially not going to do it, but before you signed on: Get a good lawyer.
DC: I already have one.
Q: Not to get into controversial territory, but who’s you favorite of past Bonds?
DC: It’s not controversial at all, because Sean Connery defined it. From Russia with Love is one of my favorite films. What he began there, what he started, and his physicality. He did it. And it’s no reflection on any of the others. It’s just that’s where I look. If I think about Bond, I think about him.
Q: Have you seen the first Casino Royale?
DC: There was actually a TV movie, but of course I’ve seen the David Niven film. I thought it was a ----ing mess; what am I going to tell you? But it was meant to be. It was always meant to be. The producers of that, they deliberately got in all those directors. I think John Huston directed a bit of it. Orson Welles directed a bit of it. And then there were four other directors. Woody Allen’s in it. David Niven. Peter Sellers. And they’re all playing Bond. I don’t know. It’s confusing. It’s good fun, but it’s nothing to do with the book.
Q: When did you do Infamous?
DC: I did that at the beginning of last year, way before [Bond].
Q: You’re going on a publicity tour with Bond, then going back to work on The Golden Compass. Eva is in that, too. Do you have scenes together?
DC: No. Maybe if there is a third movie, if we do the third book of the trilogy, we will have scenes together. But not in this one.
Q: You and Eva have wonderful chemistry in this. What can you say about her?
DC: I know there was a lot in the press about who was going to do this and whatever. When she came in there was no decision for me. She brings to it something special. She’s got a mystery about her, anyway, Eva, and the character had to have a mystery. She’s beautiful and, well, she can act. That’s the really important thing. It needed to be someone who I would think he could fall in love with, and Eva does such a fantastic job. I mean, she’s the heartbeat of this movie. And that was crucial that we got that love story going because then everything else sort of slots into place around it. She was great and we had a lot of fun together.
Q: What was it like working with Giancarlo Giannini?
DC: Well, he’s fantabulous. Giancarlo is very naughty, all the time. He likes women. (laughs). He was very funny all the time. He’s a live wire. He brings a really, really fantastic atmosphere to the set. And he’s a pleasure to work with.
Q: How are you going to balance everything from here on in?
DC: This is a big deal. I can’t construct it. You can’t make that happen. It will happen or it won’t happen, and it’ll ride on the fact whether or not there’s stuff out there and how people perceive this movie. Those are things I haven’t planned, but I’m doing what I’ve always done, which is read scripts. I’m hopefully going to make a movie next year with my best friend, which is about growing up. It’s small. I’m doing it because I love the script. I haven’t got suddenly this producer’s hat on now, going, ‘Well, if you do this you must do this and do this.’ I’ll kind of take it as it comes.
Q: You don¹t have a producer’s hat on now, but do you want to producer and/or
direct?
DC: I’d love to, yeah. I kind of consider myself a moviemaker and that’s the natural extension of that. I’d love to start producing movies. Somebody asked me the other day whether I’d direct a movie, and I said, ‘No ----ing way.’ I mean, Martin, on this job, he was the first to arrive on the set and the last to leave, and that’s what a good director does. He’s in control. But producing would be interesting.
Q: Women like your body, as we discussed, but what do you think of your ass?
DC: I can’t see it! Every time I turn around it disappears. I’m not looking at my ass. Where are you going with this??!!
Q: Do you worry at all about putting on too much muscle, being too big?
DC: Yeah, there was, but you can’t really gauge that. I’ve always worked out, and when I push weights I’ve got genes there. My uncles and things are all big. My grandfather was 6-foot-2 and big. The only intention with that was when I took my shirt off I wanted it to look like what he was capable of doing. It’s a hit and miss thing. It’s not an exact science. It’s a silly thing you get into. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve bench-pressed 180 pounds.’ You can only go so far down that road and then you’ve got to drag yourself back to life and sort of say, ‘It’s not my existence.’
Q: You do have to look good in a dinner jacket?
DC: Well, there you go. And those two things often don’t mix, so I had to be careful about it. I know (costume designer) Lindy Hemming had me at one point. I came in and had a costume fitting at Brioni and I came back like a month and a half later and I’d been working quite intensely. And she just went, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, we’re going to have to let this out.’ But, actually, we worked it out in the end. The way she designed it made it look pretty good.
Q: We heard about the card games during breaks. Who was the better player, you or Mads?
DC: Ah, who do you think?
Q: What about shooting the three weeks of poker?
DC: It’s tricky. If you tried to shoot this table here, you’d have to shoot everybody, and that’s what it was like at that table. What we did and what was really essential was the fact that we made the scene about the battle that was going on, and because of that I think the scene works really beautifully.
That’s a testament to Martin and to Stuart Baird, the editor, because it’s really tricky to get that intensity. The cards are important, what’s on the table, but not everybody understands cards. It’s funny, we were watching the other night and obviously there were a couple of hands that went down where people were like, ‘Wow.’ We got some gasps in the audience because they were good hands. But actually it’s not important. The important thing is who’s winning and, actually, who screws the other person. And I get him in the end. "Casino Royale” opens in theaters on November 17th.
Syd4Vaughn
Cadet
^ was I the only one that laughed??
obviously not at the concept of torture more what Bond was saying to the guy torturing him :lol:
I actually really enjoyed it, the chase scene at the start was amazing!
