JUST DON’T CALL THEM BOND GIRLS!
For your eyes only - all the gossip from 007 movie launch where M's orders were...
BOND is back! With yesterday’s official announcement of a new cast — a month after filming actually started — the secretive producers of the great British spy franchise have lifted the veil, just a little, on what’s next for 007.
Bond 25, as it is known for now, will come out in April next year and Daniel Craig, 51, will play James Bond for a fifth and final time. In doing so, he will become the longest-serving Bond, as well as the best-paid one.
Opposite him will be Egyptian-American Oscarwinner Rami Malek, Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, who is to play his nemesis.
Young British actress Lashana Lynch and the Cuban-Spanish Ana de Armas will be playing supplementary roles — and the film’s politically correct PR machine went to painful lengths to avoid describing them as ‘Bond Girls’.
During the whole launch event, none of the cast or crew uttered the now apparently taboo phrase. Perhaps Bond has finally grown out of his womanising, as French actress Lea Seydoux, his girlfriend Madeleine Swann in Spectre, is to return, too.
The cast posed for pictures on the Laughing Waters beach in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, where Ursula Andress memorably rose from the waves in the first James Bond film, 1962’s Dr No.
So, what else has been revealed about the new film? ALISON BOSHOFF reports . . .
THE STORYLINE
THE film opens with Bond in Jamaica, having left active service. his peace is interrupted by the arrival of his old CIA buddy, Felix Leiter, who needs Bond’s help for a mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist. That leads him into conflict with a mysterious villain armed with ‘new technology’.
Provisionally called Shatterhand, after an alias used by Bond’s old nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the new film is said to be a ‘free’ remake of On her Majesty’s Secret Service. It will follow on from Spectre, which saw Blofeld defeated and Bond race off into the sunset with psychiatrist Madeleine Swann.
Much of the movie will be shot at Pinewood Studios, although parts will also be filmed at locations in Norway, Italy and Jamaica.
THE FRENCH SUPERSTAR
ONCE described by the boss of the Cannes film festival as ‘Bardot, plus Binoche, plus Kate Moss, and sometimes all three at once’, Lea Seydoux is reprising her role as Madeleine Swann.
The French actress said that when she was offered the part, ‘I thought: “Right, I really have to go for it — work on my English accent, do some sport, get fit.”
‘The main role is James Bond, but when she comes on, you have to really notice her.’
her father is the CEO of a large electronics company, while her grandfather was the boss of the Pathe film company. her mother, Valérie Schlumberger, was a costume designer, novelist and actor before founding an ecocrafts company based in Senegal.
She is the youngest of seven children. She had son Georges, by boyfriend Andre Meyer, in 2017.
THE NEW STAR BADDIE
RAMI MALEK, 37, joined in with the Jamaican press conference via video link, as he is currently filming a TV show in New York.
he said: ‘I’m not jealous one bit that you’re all in the absolutely stunning setting of Ian Fleming’s iconic Caribbean home Goldeneye on the island of Jamaica. No, not at all.
‘I’m stuck here in New York in production, but I’m very much looking forward to joining the whole cast and crew so very soon.
‘I promise you all I will be making sure that Mr Bond doesn’t have an easy ride of it in his 25th outing.’
he was born in Los Angeles to Said Malek and Nelly Abdel-Malek, Egyptian immigrants who had left Cairo in 1978. his father was a tour guide in Egypt and sold insurance
in America, while his mother is an accountant.
He was raised a Coptic Christian and spoke Arabic at home. He is a twin — brother Sami is an English teacher — and he has an older sister, Yasmine, who is a doctor.
His parents had hoped that he would be a lawyer, but, at Notre Dame High School in Los Angeles, he was drawn to drama and musical theatre. Actress Kirsten Dunst was in the year below him. He went on to study theatre in Indiana.
He told an interviewer: ‘My family are very creative, very intelligent, very lovable. But I’m first generation American. I don’t think my parents ever thought that being an actor would be the best use of this transatlantic trip of theirs’
He added: ‘I definitely felt that, culturally, I came from a different background than 95 per cent of the kids I was around. We were speaking Arabic at home. There was a feeling of being inherently different.’
Success was far from instant; it has taken him 15 years to become a screen sensation.
Malek (pictured) played a pharaoh in the Night At The Museum films, and then a Middle Eastern baddie in 24. The drama Mr Robot, which premiered in 2015, put him in another league. He played Elliot, a morphine-addicted hacker and anti-hero. He was named Best Actor in a Drama Series at the Emmy awards in 2016. He then went on to sweep the board at the awards this year with his portrayal of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. He is dating British actress Lucy Boynton — who played Mercury’s lover Mary Austin in the film Bohemian Rhapsody.
FOUR WRITERS . . . INCLUDING FLEABAG
LONG-SERVING Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have previously written six Bond films, including all four Craig outings, as well as the final two starring his predecessor, Pierce Brosnan. They have written this script, too.
Scott Z. Burns, who wrote The Bourne Ultimatum, has contributed and, last month, Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge was recruited to ‘liven up’ the script and add a more modern sensibility with some last-minute tweaks. Producer Michael g. Wilson said: ‘We do update the stories and we do update the plots, but we stay true to the character.’
THE HOTSHOT DIRECTOR
THE film has had a troubled genesis, with Trainspotting director Danny Boyle quitting last year after Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig decided that they didn’t like his bold plan to kill off 007.
In his place comes Cary Joji Fukunaga, 41, the director of the first season of the hbo series True Detective, which featured Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey.
Fukunaga, who grew up in San Francisco, also directed, wrote and produced the film Beasts of No Nation. He said yesterday: ‘Daniel is my favourite Bond. It’s definitely an honour, now I’m chomping at the bit to get started.’
He added: ‘I want to make sure that this run of films have a really
great next chapter and just keep upping the ante so whoever is next has a harder job.’
THE UBER-PRODUCERS
IMPRESARIO ‘Cubby’ Broccoli bought the film rights to the James Bond books in 1961 and his company Eon Productions (standing for ‘everything or nothing’) is still in charge.
Cubby’s glamorous, driven daughter Barbara, 5 , is now the boss, along with her half-brother Michael G. Wilson, 77.
Wilson once told an interviewer: ‘Barbara scares the hell out of people. Everyone is frightened to death of her.’
Barbara and Wilson took over at Eon in 1995, the year before Cubby died. She has veto over every piece of casting, script, marketing and product placement.
She decided in 2005 that there ought to be a new Bond, which meant the end for Pierce Brosnan. It was her decision to pick Daniel Craig, whom she had seen in the film Layer Cake. There were complaints he was too blonde, too short and not handsome enough, but the gamble paid off in spectacular style, as his films revived the franchise.
She told an interviewer that the guiding rule was to go big — always. She said: ‘My dad was always about “put the money on the screen”. You have to surpass each one.’
James Bond will still ‘rise to the occasion’ in the #meToo era, the owners of the 007 franchise told me. ‘me Too has influenced our culture, which is a great thing, so of course it’s going to influence everything we do on Bond,’ said Barbara Broccoli. she controls the Bond pictures with producer and half-brother michael G. Wilson. Wilson’s mother Dana married legendary Bond producer Cubby Broccoli in 1959. Daughter Barbara was born a year later. she and Wilson insist Bond films are always contemporary. Wilson stressed that the series ‘has been embracing me Too for many Bond films. I don’t think that any of our films would not be acceptable — certainly since Daniel [Craig] started. ‘Over the years, attitudes have changed, and so have the Bond films. The films are representative of the times they’re in.’ But both insisted Bond would remain a fullblooded action hero. ‘He’s a real man, who loved life and women and indulged in good food, and had to rise to the occasion when necessary,’ Wilson said, with a chuckle. ‘That’s the kind of character he is.’ Broccoli added that with the Craig series of Bonds, 007 had evolved into ‘a very complex character; and his relationships are far more complex — so the women have evolved. I think this will be a wonderful fifth film, and a really extraordinary journey for Daniel’. I asked if it would definitely be Craig’s final Bond adventure. ‘That’s what he’s saying,’ Broccoli shot back. ‘Yes, he’s saying this is his last movie as Bond. sadly.’ Despite their sadness, she and Wilson still have a film to shoot ‘and we’re not even remotely thinking about what will happen if indeed Daniel hangs up his holster,’ she told me. ‘all we’re doing right now is making this film, and we’re so happy to have him back.’ But what of the day when the search for the new Bond begins? Could the next person to play the world’s most famous secret agent be female? Broccoli ruled that out emphatically. ‘my response to Bond being played by a woman is, well, he was written as a man.’
SHe said ‘ what we should be doing is creating interesting stories for women, and not just turning men into women; or women into men. ‘I’m very much interested in making films about women, created for women; and not doing some sort of stunt casting by turning Bond into a woman.’ That’s pretty decisive. But what about a black Bond? ‘It would be wide open,’ she said, adding: ‘ everyone went hysterical when Daniel was cast — because he’s blond, would you believe!’ Broccoli and Wilson were talking to me from a balcony at Goldeneye, Bond creator Ian Fleming’s picturesque home in Jamaica where Bond 25 has been shooting with director Cary Joji Fukunaga and a cast that includes regulars Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Rory Kinnear, Lea seydoux, Ben Whishaw and Jeffrey Wright. Oscar-winning actor Rami malek, who will be the villain of the piece, promised a tough time of it for 007. Dali Benssalah, David Dencik and Billy magnussen
will also star in the as yet untitled film. British-born actress Lashana Lynch, who made her mark in Fast Girls and Captain marvel, has been cast in the role of Paloma, which Broccoli described as ‘very key to the story’. she added that Cuban- born actress ana de armas would also appear; playing a character called Nomi ‘ who helps Bond through part of the journey’, across locations including Jamaica, Norway, Italy and London.
Broccoli said the women were not playing ‘objects’; rather ‘they’re very interesting and competitive women’.
she said some people ‘still like to be called Bond girls; we refer to them as Bond women. They’re characters in a movie, they’re actresses. some of the actresses still like to be referred to as “The Bond Girl”,’ she said with a hearty laugh. ‘I think as we get older they like the Bond Girl moniker. I think when they’re young, they don’t like it so much.’ she refused to name names. Broccoli and Wilson inherited the Bond franchise from Cubby, who produced first Bond film Dr. No featuring Ursula andress (left). They described Cubby as ‘the greatest teacher in the world’; a man who believed in ‘ giving the audience the ride of their life, and putting all the money on the screen’. Wilson added that another of Cubby’s maxims was: ‘ Don’t screw it up.’ Broccoli interrupted, saying: ‘ He said “Don’t let THEM screw it up!” You’ve got to take risks and make changes. But don’t let others screw it up for you.’
I asked what happened after they initially hired Danny Boyle — then parted ways with him.
Broccoli praised the Oscarwinning filmmaker but said ‘we all just decided that this collaboration wasn’t working, and it was a unanimous decision.
‘We parted very respectfully and happily. sometimes you just have to do that.’
she refused to respond to rumours that Boyle wanted to kill off Bond and bring in a new operative. ‘all gossip and rumour — and we’re not going to respond to gossip and rumour,’ Broccoli said.
she did confirm, however, that Killing eve and Fleabag writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge had been hired, at Craig’s behest, to ‘add a layer to the script’. ‘We’re throwing everything we have at Bond in this movie. He’s really going to have a rough ride.’
and then, with a laugh, she added: ‘We needed all the help we could get.’