http://www.avclub.com/article/timothy-dalton-penny-dreadful-serenading-mae-west204395
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — James Bond
TMC-4 — 9 years ago(October 26, 2016 12:52 PM)
http://www.avclub.com/article/timothy-dalton-penny-dreadful-serenading-mae-west204395
The Living Daylights (1987) / License To Kill (1989)James Bond
AVC: The story from several sources has been that you were actually pitched the role of James Bond many years before you eventually accepted it.
TD: I was. After Sean Connery left.
AVC: And you just didnt feel you were up to it?
TD: Oh, it just seemed like a ridiculous notion! I mean, I was very flattered that someone should even think that I should, but I dont know, I was in my early 20s, I think, and hey, look, on an intelligent level, it just seemed idiotic to take over from Sean Connery. I mean, if I was perfect for it, if I thought Id be brilliant in it, if Id loved the idea of taking over, I wouldve still said no. It is idiotic to take over from Sean Connery at the time when those movies were I can remember as a kid going to see them. Not a child, but I was a teenager. I mean, you cant take over for Sean Connery in that series at its height! After Dr. No, after From Russia With Love, after Goldfinger I dont know how many more he did, but to me, those were always the three great ones. You dont take over. So of course I said no.
So now the corollary of that statement is to ask, Then why did you say yes later? [Laughs.] Well, because it was later, you know? Thered been Connery, thered been [George] Lazenby, thered been Roger Moore. I think now everybody was now used to the idea that this series was gonna last. No one was trying to cheaply exploit the success, which is a path thats doomed to failure. This was a series where the producers were honestly trying to make each one better than the one before, a series that the producers took pride in and wanted to maintain. And interestingly enough, Im sure thats because it was still controlled by a family, the Broccolis. And [Harry] Saltzman with him in the first place, but then Saltzman went. If it wouldve been a studio, it mightve been an entirely different trajectory for the film series, but because it was Mr. Broccoli and his family You know, it was their life. They took pride in it and were trying to make good. So thats a plus. And now that three people had already played it and I was lots olderI mustve been 10, 12, 15 years olderI thought it was worth a shot. [Laughs.]
AVC: When you came in, you did so with a profound desire to hew as close to the original Ian Fleming version of the character as possible.
TD: Well, I came in under certain circumstances. The prevailing wisdom at the timewhich I would say I sharedwas that the series, whilst very entertaining, had become rather spoof-like. It was one-liners and raised eyebrows and it had become, lets say, too lighthearted. And the producer, Mr. Broccoli, felt that, and he wanted to try and bring it back to something more like its original roots with those Sean Connery films. I had loved them all, and I had loved the books. But I think ultimately for anything to be successful, an audience must empathize. They must also get involved, but they must be given enough to suspend disbelief so that theyre truly able to become involved with the story. Thats not to say that there cant be any comedy. There should always be comedy. Comedy is a great thing.
So that was the loose framework that we sort of embarked on, but then you find that nobody else wants to change it all! [Laughs.] The studio doesnt want to change it, the people that work on it dont want to change it Everyones happy with what they know. And everyone intellectually says, Well, yes, we should, it was getting a bit stale, it was getting a bit this, that, and the other, but nobody actually wants to. So it wasnt as easy as one would hope. I mean, now they have. I think now, with Daniel [Craig], they have. But that was, what, almost 20 years later that they actually embarked on something more believable?
AVC: So how do you look back on The Living Daylights and License To Kill, then?
TD: Well, its its strange, and I should be careful what I say, because, of course, everyone is interested in Bond. Its almost like a bracket or a bubble in ones life. Everybody treats the idea of a Bond film different to anything else. I mean, journalists come knowing the story they want to write, whereas on a normal piece of work were all discovering what to write about. Were discovering what were acting. Its part of the creative process. But in a Bond movie? No. People know what they want to write about. And they know, really, what they want. Everyones got an opinion, from the top of the studio down to the guy in the street. But youre sort of outside.
No one, no matter how well someone can communicate, can tell youand I certainly cant really communicate accuratelywhat it is like to be the actor playing James Bond. The only actors who can are the other actors whove played the part. Its kind of astonishing, really. You are in kind of a bubble. Its real, its valuable, its exciting, and it can give great pleasure. And yet its somehow u