The Actors Portraying James Bond. Your thoughts.

I'm interested to know what others think about the actors who have portrayed Bond over the years.

I'm also curious if anyone knows the answer to this question: When a Bond actor stops portraying Bond, is it because he's decided he's sick of it, or because his films didn't make any money? When I was in the midst of puberty, I liked Roger Moore ("The Spy Who Loved Me", and before that "Live and Let Die"), but even then I thought the films were mawkish, self-conscious and verged on self-parody.

Two random thoughts:

1. I think Daniel Craig is the best bond I've ever seen (but I have not seen a single Sean Connery film, so that must be confessed)

2. Timothy Dalton seemed to me to be severely under-appreciated. I thought he was a great Bond, a prototype for the kind of modern-day Bond that Craig is currently portraying.

3. Does anyone know if Daniel Craig will continue to portray Bond, or are we in for another "new Bond."

Sean Connery was so good, but so is Daniel Craig, in a different way. He is very physically fit and has an almost animal sexuality.

Mr Craig also applauded Timothy Dalton's performance (both read the Bond novels to get a feel for the character and both actors have the part down right.) I always loved Dalton as Bond, and "Licence to Kill" is a vastly underrated movie in of itself...

I hate self-parody; which is why I hate the Brosnan films. Never mind some of the big "jaw-dropping" stunts could also be seen in "Knight Rider" (1982-1986, NBC)

Moore's best outings were "The Spy Who Loved Me" (remake of "From Russia with Love") and "For Your Eyes Only" (has a few references to past Bond movies but is by and large original, with a lot of great action scenes and the best ending one could have regarding the fate of the decryption unit...) Having said all that, John Glen was easily the best director the Bond franchise had...

Lazenby deserved a second movie

Connery's first three films are great, but his remaining ones are horrible to sit through.

Also, I had no clue that "Spy who Loved Me" was a remake of "From Russia With Love." That is fascinating.

It used elements of several past Bond films and of several novels and short stories, including "From Russia With Love" and "Thunderball," as well as "You Only Live Twice." Several later Bonds have done the same thing, including "License to Kill," which had strong elements of the book version of "Live and Let Die," including Lieter's shark problems.

"For Your Eyes Only" combined several short stories into one original script.

Brosnan's first film was good--to me, it's a top five Bond--but the later ones became too self-conscious. Brosnan himself complained about that, and wanted a script and director that took the role more seriously. Instead, they dumped him and went in the Daniel Craig direction. The stunts in the later Brosnan films, like the paragliding and the invisible car, were contrived and just ridiculous. The premise of "Die Another Die" was one of the better Bond storylines, but they ruined it with special effects and unbelievable action sequences. I don't blame Brosnan for that. I think he was strong in DAD.

The Brosnan era gave Bond it's greatest casting decision, IMHO. Judi Dench as M is perfect, and has helped make the Craig films. She was the most interesting part of the later Brosnan films, too--especially "The World is Not Enough."

I completely agree on Lazenby, and on "Licence to Kill." I think both of Dalton's films are underappreciated.

He was offered a multi-picture deal.

Connery IS/WAS Bond.
Always will be for me.

It's due to my own age and ignorance that I've never seen him as Bond.

That's why I'm worried I'm missing something. Many people say he was an amazing Bond.

:P

and indifferent that I didn't care for him. He was almost a comical rendition of bond for me.

However, Sean Connery IS Bond, James Bond.

but Mr. Greenbird and I just watched Quantum of Solace and were lamenting the lack of cool gadgets in the movie. The only gadget he really used was his cell phone - no glove compartment gadgets, watches, or other nifty stuff. Too bad.

tarot card collector set, but someone stole it :-(.

He had wit and was certainly elegant. Maybe he was the right Bond for that time.

I later found out that there'd been an earlier Bond--a Scottish fellow of all things--but that held about as much sway over me as the earlier old fogey versions of Dr. Who. When I finally saw a Connery Bond movie, my first reaction was "Wow, he really treats women like shit."

Roger Moore was silly, but he was always a gentleman.

Connery and Dalton and to an extent Craig all have that characteristic in their Bonds.

I read several of the books when I was a teenager. Even then I recognized Fleming had a loose nut. On top of which he wrote incredibly unsexy sex scenes--in fact he only wrote one sex scene, but managed to cut and paste it into each of his books.

My dad took me to "Live and Let Die," and then "Man with the Golden Gun," and then "Spy who Love Me."

It was a great father/son thing.

I loved it.

But if I watch something like "Man with the Golden Gun" today I chuckle. It's dated.

1.) You included three, not two. ;)

2.) Just jokin' with you. ;)

Okay, responding to your points one-by-one:

1.) I have yet to see a Bond film with Craig. I can't imagine him being better than Connery, but I find it amusing that he gets so many rave reviews now after the whole Bond community put up a ton of protest sites against the thought of a blond Bond.

2.) Dalton suffered from a bad movie. Tbe Living Daylights was great, but License to Kill was too bad to recover from. It wasn't Dalton's fault; it was basically the fault of everyone else involved in that clunker. Awful script aside, I'll never forget how bad the acting was by most of the rest of the cast. It's as if ruining Dalton's career was the goal.

3.) No idea.

After the cartoonish, simpering, eyebrow-waggling Roger Moore, Dalton played a cold, dangerous, driven Bond. I liked that. I will say, from the interviews I've read about Roger Moore that he sounds like a terrific person in real life. Just not a fan of his portrayal of Bond.

Connery's Bond is just too dated for me to enjoy the movies very much. And that crack about the Beatles in "Goldfinger" is a mark very much against him...

My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs!

Kinda rooting for Clive Owen, but Craig has turned out to be fantastic and that's from just the one film I did see.

I thought Moore was goofy as hell in the role. Connery was best. Dalton didn't really get a chance to show whether he was good or not, but I liked what I saw of him. And I thought Brosnan could have been great, had the script and directing given him the right character to work with. As it was, they made him too emotionally attached, which is the opposite of what a secret agent needs to be. He needs to be calm, cool, detached. Almost to the point of being cold. Which is what they did with Connery. And it worked well. It kept him up on that pedastal, slightly away from the normal people in the world. He was able to do the difficult jobs because he was able to turn off that human part of himself and just get the job done.

That was a major point in the books, and one reason I'm not as thrilled with Connery as others are. Connery has mostly one dimension, and I blame that not on Connery but on the fifties image of macho. Connery was lifeless because men were supposed to be lifeless. Part of Flemming's purpose in creating Bond was to show a human element to the secret service he had witnessed first hand. Connery captures none of that.

And it wasn't Flemming's fault. They chose the most emotional books for Connery, with the exceptions of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "Casino Royale." In "From Russia With Love" Bond is in love with the Russian Agent and considers settling down with her, only to have the older Russian agent (she wasn't SMERF in the book) poison him at the end, leading to many months in recovery, during which time he lost the Russian girlfriend. Also, in "You Only Live Twice," Bond is an empty shell, a total emotional wreck unable to perform his duties, so he is given a last-ditch diplomatic task to save his career. The diplomatic task turns into a violent mission, and Bond winds up in love, and also with complete amnesia. They actually write his obituary at the end of the book, only to have him regain his memory and return to the force. He become harsher after that.

Connery captures none of that. I like Connery's Bond, but I think he had the least range of the group, and the least faithfulness to the books. Not that he had to capture the literary Bond, his films were good on their own. But the real issues isn't why each of the other Bonds played a more emotionally involved character, it is why Connery's was so detached. I think it was a mixture of a more macho era that hated male emotion, and a lack of acting skill on Connery's part.

Two more points about Connery. The most emotional death scene he had was for a man--Quarrel, in "Dr. No," and he was the one Bond who forcibly raped a woman--Pussy Galore, in "Goldfinger." It was an era when women were props in films and in real life. That alone keeps me from connecting as strongly with Connery's Bond, although that's not really Connery's fault.

Not that anyone will read all that. :)

If you read the original Ian Flemming novels and short stories, I think Sean Connery comes closest. That being said I like the Daniel Craig movies the best of all Bond films, but his portrayal of Bond isn't as true to the original works even though Casino Royale was surprisingly fairly closely based on his first Bond novel.

Daniel Craig is a good Bond. Maybe 2nd to Connery.

nt

Each actor that played Bond had their strengths and weaknesses and were/are appropriate for their times.

Sean Connery set a standard with his style and later campiness. And he was great in that role as he is in just about everything he has done.

Timothy Dalton could have been a very good Bond but the movies he was in were produced by a different studio than the rest of the Bond movies and the script quality sucked. I loved him as King Philip in "The Lion in Winter" and know he can act much better than he showed in his Bond movies.

Roger Moore basically played The Saint (yeah, I'm old enough to have watched that series when it was new to American TV) playing James Bond. Fun, suave, sophisticated and always a knight in shining armor. And campy to the core - he's the most fun Bond.

Pierce Brosnan will always be Remmington Steele to me. Frankly as an actor, he just did not have what the role needed, though he looked the part.

Daniel Craig is not my favorite Bond, but he is excellent and fits today's style - gritty, hardcore and tough. And he looks more like a secret agent should. I need to watch his films at least one or two times more and see if he will appeal more to me when I get to know him in the role better.

Connery was my first Bond. I never saw Lazenby until recently on DVD. But when Moore took over, for the first couple films, I kept seeing Simon Templar.:shrug:

A combination of paladin and comedian, and a lot of shtick. I couldn't imagine Connery playing Bond against Sheriff J.W. Pepper but Roger Moore made it a lot of fun.

And that was appropriate to the period he was Bond - no one in the 70s to 80s wanted a serious, gritty Bond. They wanted fast, fun campy.

In my other post I was confusing Timothy Dalton with George Lazenby's early Bond.

That has varied with each actor. Sean Connery stopped voluntarily, twice. He left once over contract disputes, and they hired George Lazenby, who only played him once because they then paid Connery what he wanted. When Connery stepped down, several people were considered, and Moore won the job. Moore threatened to leave a few times, too, as he felt he was getting old for the role, but they kept hiring him back until he just became unconvincing.

Dalton was hired when the series had no idea where to go. They were out of Flemming books, the Cold War was dying, and they tried to have him chase drug dealers and personal vendettas. His films were successful, but reviews were mixed. At that time, and I forget why, there was a contract dispute over who owned the movie rights to Bond, and by the time that was settled, Dalton had moved on and didn't want the role any longer.

Brosnan had wanted the role when Dalton got it, and he was a fan favorite, so they hired him. I've heard two stories--one, that he quit, two, that the producers didn't like the direction of the series and fired him while letting him announce he had quit.

I've liked each of the Bonds for different reasons. I grew up on Moore, and loved his suave intelligence, mixed with his lethal coldness. I hated Connery when I watched the old films, but I think that was because of how dated they were. Now I like Connery's rugged street-fighter demeanor. Flemming originally hated Connery, calling him a puffed up stuntman, or something like that. He changed his mind quickly, though. Flemming's original choice was Roger Moore, but it took him a decade to finally get Moore in the role.

I think Dalton was my favorite portrayal, but he got weaker scripts. He had Moore's intelligence, Connery's ruggedness, and the same introspective coldness present in the novels. He was the most like the book Bond, I think. Bond in the books was a naval Commander (they use his rank in some of the films) who was trained for the 00 branch, and lived a lonely bachelor's life, dedicated only to duty and work. I thought Dalton was the only one who captured all those elements. He managed to womanize without losing his British military demeanor.

Brosnan was just fun. He had the military bearing--they really emphasized his title of Commander in those films and he was often seen working with the military and other professionals, unlike other Bonds--and he also had a softness towards people that I found convincing. He could be playful, hard, or compassionate, depending on the need. He also seemed the most bound to duty, which is a big theme in the books.

Craig is second to Dalton as a faithful representation of the books. He lacks the military bearing, but more than compensates with the introspection that the Bond of the books has. In the book "Casino Royale," Bond begins to question the need for someone as violent as him, and decides to quit the force, partly for Vesper, but partly because he feels conflicted over killing. In the end he stays because Vesper's betrayal proves to him that the enemy has no scruples, therefore there is still need for someone like him. Craig captures that conflict brilliantly, showing the audience his hesitations and guilt over killing, while outwardly demonstrating only cold competence. He could become my favorite, easily. I already rank "Quantum of Solace" (easily the best Bond title) as the best Bond film, and "Casino Royale" as one of the top four or five.

Craig is signed for at least the next Bond film.

How's that? All from memory, so some facts may be misremembered.

A whole side subject are the Almost-Bonds--the actors who almost became Bond. Michael Gambon, Richard Harris, Burt Reynolds, a bunch of others. James Brolin was the most interesting. He was hired to replace Moore, and was about to begin filming when Moore agreed to a new contract.

...but I have to say I'm thinking I like this re-boot of the story. Casino Royale had an almost intangible...polish...for lack of a better word that most of the previous films lacked. It was everywhere: the acting by all parts (Especially Dame Judi Dench) the filming, the stunts, the almost complete lack of gadgets. Bond survives on his intelligence and his wits. And his guts. All woven up into this complex plot coming at you from all directions. The movie stands up to repeated viewings easily.

There's a ton more of Bond's character developed in these two new movies than in most of the previous works combined (I would except On Her Majesty's Secret Service and perhaps License to Kill. For me, it's about how they've pushed past what Bond was (and what he was becoming. I still shudder at the over-hyped gadgetry and uselessness of Die Another Day, even if it does have Rosamund Pike in it). That's why I'm a huge fan of the new direction.

These two new Bond movies got my mother interested. She loves them, and she hates Bond movies.

Racist and very sexist by modern standards. Even by contemporary standards, Flemming was quite a chauvinist. I don't think he was racist, but values have changed enough to make for some uncomfortable moments.

As for the new Bonds having polish--each of the Bonds have tried to use the most current filmmaking and directing techniques. The current Bonds imitate Bourne, the Batman movies, and a few other films. Even Guy Ritchie, to some degree. The older Bonds also seemed current at the time, though usually they hung on to a style too long, so that it became dated before they stopped using it.

But yeah, I love what they are doing. "Quantum of Solace" has a John Le Carre element, with a complex political and social world that can't be saved just by killing the right person or defusing the right bomb. At the end Bond has solved the immediate problem, but the world is just as messy.

My favorite dialogue:
James Bond: You know I was just wondering what South America would look like if nobody gave a damn about coke or communism. It always impressed me the way you boys would carve this place up.
Felix Leiter: I'll take that as a compliment coming from a Brit.

yes, that's him.

Yes?


No, not Yes, Who


who?


Yes.


Yes who?


I just told you....

All the others are pretenders to the throne.

He is and always will be the best. The others parade about in mere artifice! Imposters!

Sean Connery - other than Never Say Never Again, that I wish he'd never said yes to, I had not seen one of Sean's Bond films in its entirety until I watched the entire series last year. I grew up on Roger Moore, so never was among the only-Bond-is-Connery crowd. After seeing the original Bond actor I have to say that he did nail the role, but that he was very obviously less then enthused during You Only Live Twice and when he returned for his last film he was not only totally phoning it in but wasn't right for the role. I've always liked him in other properties and it's in other films that I think he's done his best work.

George Lazenby - considering that he wasn't even really an actor, I think he did a good job. Could have been interesting if he'd stuck around for You Only Live Twice because his one outing was quite respectable and he not only looked and moved appropriately but was perhaps one of the very best, 'til Craig, in unarmed combat scenes...better than Connery, by far.

Roger Moore - like I said, I grew up on Moore's Bond. The first James Bond film I ever saw was The Man With The Golden Gun (in theaters...I was a bit young for Live And Let Die but I heard all about it and vividly remember the marketing tie-ins) and so Sir Rog really defined the role for me. I didn't like most of Moonraker when I saw it in theaters and the last Bond film saw in theaters, until Casino Royale in 2006, was Octopussy. I think Rog's had a bit of unwarranted contempt directed his way for the way he approached the role and I think that The Spy Who Loved Me and, especially, For Your Eyes Only hold their own very well and show what he COULD do in the part.

Tim Dalton - until recently I'd only seen him in one film as James Bond, and I like it. He definitely brought a darker, rougher presence to things and yet still retained that suave veneer...basically kind of like a more polarized version of Connery, in some ways. He's an appealing actor, anyway, and arguably the finest actor to yet portray James Bond. It's a pity there as such a gap in the series because more from him would probably have been very nice.

Pierce Brosnan - always had a soft spot for this dude, as an actor and as a person, and I've seen him act the hell out of some fine roles in a wide variety of genres. As Bond he kind of combined elements of Dalton and Moore, with an updated sensibility. Goldeneye was one I didn't see 'til recently, expertly directed by the brilliant but yelly Martin Campbell, and when I saw it I was rather blown away by the proceedings. He retained a lot of the quips and gadgets of Moore but there was generally still a darker sense about. Die Another Day, though, was awful. Probably the best looking Bond, and the smoothest (maybe...I mean, Moore was pretty darned smooth).

Daniel Craig - brutal, witty in a darkly sarcastic way, basically an amoral sociopath...essentially what I remember (it's been a good three decades since I read most of them) from the literary Bond. Not classically handsome or pretty, really, but still what I'd consider a craggily attractive man even if the blond hair's yet another departure. I just saw Quantum of Solace a few days ago, for the first time, and I think I liked it more than many did, despite its quirks and the unnecessary confusion they help create and its overly sequellish nature. Casino Royale was masterful, from that incredible opening chase to the payoff at the end where he finally earns the Goldfinger suit, the "Bond, James Bond" line, and the theme music from Dr No, along with the attendant coolness that goes along with being Bond James Bond. As is usually the case with any film, much will depend upon the direction but I am sure happy with Daniel Craig as a new take on the old classic.

Roger Moore will always be the inevitable nostalgic favorite but I like 'em all in different ways.

George Lazenby was the best Bond!

Then Peter Sellers and David Niven a close second...

Followed by that Connery guy.

I've never seen Daniel Craig in a Bond role but I think he'd probably be pretty good. Worst...bar NONE Pierce Brosnon

Flemming Bond books when they first came out. Bond really was a parody, and Flemming treated him as an "in joke" Flemming was in the British Intelligence Service in WWII and he knew the reality of the business - he liked to romanticise and to have a laugh at the whole thing.
Roger Moore really brought out that aspect, even though many of his movies were junk.

I hope Craig will be around for a long time.

mark

I don't understand producers choosing ANYONE
else.



Really.

:shrug:

I forget the others.

for the 'posh' accent in OHMSS. Any actor who can't put on a convincing posh British accent shouldn't be let anywhere near Bond.

I thing Craig is really good. I enjoyed the other Bonds fine. But there is no true Bond but Sean Connery.