Names and faces
■ The 25th James Bond movie and Daniel Craig’s fifth and final installment as
007 is heading home to Jamaica. Craig,
Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, and director Cary Fukunaga on Thursday launched the film from the Caribbean island nation where Ian Fleming wrote all of his Bond novels. The still untitled movie will be partly set in Jamaica, which was also a setting in Dr. No and Live and Let Die.
Rami Malek, fresh off his Oscar win for Bohemian Rhapsody, is joining the cast as the villain. In a videotaped message, Malek said he’ll make sure Bond “will not have an easy ride of it” in Bond 25. The movie finds Bond out of active service and enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica. That changes when his CIA friend Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) turns up asking for help. Their mission is to rescue a kidnapped scientist. Aside from Jamaica, filming locations include Italy, Norway and London, with studio production based at Pinewood Studios outside London. Returning cast members include Lea Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes and Naomie Harris. Production will begin Sunday. Craig has said this will be his final turn in the tuxedo. When the 51-year-old actor first confirmed his return for Bond 25, he said: “I just want to go out on a high note.” Delays, creative disagreements and a directing change have made for an especially long break between Bond films. The last one, Spectre, came out in 2015, when it made more than $880 million worldwide in ticket sales. Bond 25 is due out in April 2020.
■ Britain’s Prince William on Thursday met with some of the police officers and medics who were the first to respond to last month’s mosque attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand. The Duke of Cambridge arrived in Christchurch in the afternoon after earlier attending an Anzac Day service in Auckland alongside Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. William is on a two-day trip to New Zealand
and plans to meet with survivors of the mosque attacks in which 50 people were killed and 50 others wounded. He’ll also visit the two mosques where the massacres took place March 15. New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush told reporters after the meeting with first responders that the prince had been very supportive and had wanted to make sure the officers and medics were looking after themselves. Bush said the prince told staff members that “A good friend doesn’t pick up the phone when people are in need. You travel to their place and you put your arms around them.” Anzac Day is a memorial holiday on the anniversary of New Zealand and Australian soldiers, known as Anzacs, landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula in what is now Turkey in 1915.