Sunday, September 21, 2008
Your Quantum of Solace Questions Answered!
Well, I’m back from London with the answers to your Quantum of Solace questions! Along with a few friends, we got to speak to Daniel Craig, director Marc Forster and sitting in for the day was producer Barbara Broccoli! It was quite the trip and as we get closer to the film, I’ll let you know a bit more about our Bond-related activities, give you some exclusive info and other 007 goodness. Here’s what I can tell you so far. We flew to London on Virgin Atlantic (my first time in what they call “upper class” and let me tell you, it certainly beats the normal 10 inches of space I’m used to...the bar on the plane was featured in Casino Royale. Anyone want to donate to the “help Jenna live like a rich chick” fund?) and from the moment we landed, we were in a James Bond whirlwind. We drank Bond-themed cocktails, and had high tea with Ian Fleming’s niece Lucy...we drove freaking Aston Martins! More on that later, I promise. Check back for our next Quantum of Solace post.
So without further ado, here they are. Our favorite fan questions.
Director Marc Forster:
UGO: These are from the fans at UGO.COM. Will the original gun barrel opening be making a return in this film?
Marc Forster The gun barrel will be making a return, yes.
UGO: Why do you think the Bond franchise has steered towards unknown or obscure actors to play the characters and not co-opt the big A-grade Hollywood actors? Why do you think this format works so well?
Forster: I think, you know, it’s just so much more interesting, always, to introduce new faces and discover new faces, because, you know, you have preconceived notions when you take a very well known actor in one of the lead parts because you’ll connect him with so many other films they have done, and I think if you, cast someone fresh and new it’s just, it’s sort of like more of a clean slate and because of that you have more opportunity to be surprised and be interested in them, and in their story.
UGO: Can you tell us about the challenges of the opera scene and was Tosca chosen um for a reason?
Forster: I saw the location photos and I saw the eye [check out the trailer] and I loved the eye, and I loved that location and they said, look we’re performing Tosca there during this time, and then I incorporated Tosca basically into the story, into the script, so at the beginning when Paul Inglis ordered the script I basically said look, this is sort of what I’m seeing here, and this is sort of what I would like to do and there is a parallel action between Tosca and our story which will reveal itself in the movie, which I think works really well and works visually in, in favor of the film, and became a beautiful sequence because of that.
And James Bond himself, Daniel Craig:
UGO: If you can use any of the gadgets from any of the previous OO7 movies, including the cars, which one would you use?
Daniel Craig: I should come prepared for this answer shouldn’t ? [laughs] Should actually crib up a bit and think about it before I actually come, or maybe I’m just sort of pausing for effect. Oh god I don’t know. It would be difficult because I think that I, you know, I always say this about the gadgets. I mean look at this table it’s insane [laughs, looking at all our recorders] You know there’s not a moving piece of…there’s nothing moving on this table yet...it’s recording everything, it’s looking after everything. But, the DB5 in Goldfinger, the buttons, the ejector seat. I think it was the next movie after that, that had the thing that came up the back you know with the lead plate that came up the back. The car must have weighted about eight tons. I can’t imagine how it drove. I think that would be…I mean I look at that and it driving through the Swiss Alps when he‘s chasing after Goldfinger, I mean that gadget, that’s the kind of the epitome of a Bond gadget I think,
UGO: We’ve seen a very human side of Bond in the Fleming books where Bonds talks about wanting children and envisions a time post service. So do you envision any deeper revelations? Will we ever see the private life of Bond with May Maxwell or Miss Ponsenby?
Craig: Miss Ponsenby. Uh, maybe. Maybe we will, I don’t know. I mean I don’t, you know, [to producer Barbara Broccoli] I know that we haven’t actually ever had this conversation but the, um, there are characters obviously we haven’t used in the films and maybe there will be a time to introduce them. I don’t, I mean, literally we would never have the conversation about it, but if we did, the conversation we’ve always had is that we have to introduce them properly, which is that they would have to be rounded characters and we’d have to discover who they are before…we wouldn’t just go, oh here they are, you know who this person is. Because I think it would be fun to do that and private life, it’s where you see most of him. [laughs] You’ve got most of him and there’s not much more to see. It’s interesting, I mean we haven’t really done, we’re a little bit in London in this one, we’ve never kind of been to his house. I mean there’s in some of the, in some of the older movies they kind of go to his, to his pad which is, um…
Barbara Broccoli: Yeah I’m not sure. I mean May is the Scottish house keeper and I think that’s very much of the sort of time of the books in the fifties that you know you would have a stern Scottish housekeeper.
Craig: That’s fine yeah.
Broccoli: Spreading the marmalade on your toast. [laughs]
Craig: What’s wrong with that? [laughs] That sounds great.
UGO: So the fans also wanted to know about the free fall sequence?
Craig: Yeah. The discussion came about that we were gonna do the sequence where we were gonna fall out of a plane. So I immediately went, no fucking way! [laughs] Cause I’m not gonna sit with a fucking fan in my face going [laughs and flails about] I just was like,, I’m just so you know thankfully, I don’t know who’s idea it was, Gary, but I don’t know if it was Gary who came up with idea of the wind tunnel. I don’t know where that came from. But, there’s this, you’ve probably seen them. There’s this aeronautical testing facility which is a vertical fan and discovered...how they discovered it I don’t know. Someone jumped in one day, and, and you can actually fly and it’s as close to free falling as you can get, it’s really tricky and it’s really difficult because every movement is actually sends you off because there’s a two hundred mile and hour wind. So that’s great cause it looks like you’re free falling, but how the hell you film that is a different matter so what we did is we got, um, we had a very brave cameraman who had a very small 35 millimeter camera round his waist. He had a handler and then we had how many digital cameras?
Broccoli: I think it was seventeen.
Craig: Seventeen digital cameras around which were all bare so in fact it was incredibly dangerous cause if we’d…if you spin off ordinarily there’s a solid wall which, if you hit it, hurts. But we had to do it without helmets on and without glasses on. Without goggles on, because if you free fall you can’t keep your eyes open, so we had specially made wind resistant hard lenses and we just went in there at sort of, thirty second intervals. It’s very quick in the movie but that’s what we wanted because actually free falling is not, it doesn’t take a long time. There isn’t time to have a fifteen minute fight if you’re falling out of an airplane. It’s fall and you’ve gotta get going. So what it does is hopefully...you see our faces are up round here we’re just screaming and spinning round and I think it works very well in the movie, but blink and you’ll miss it. It was important to get it, make it feel as real as possible. It was great to do that. Really great to do.
So there you have it. I’ll be updating this post with the links to the questions our buddies from other sites asked. Check back tomorrow for more. And in case you’re wondering, I was able to exercise a little self-control and kept myself from asking Daniel Craig to take his shirt off. Kind of wish I didn’t. Even the boys were waxing poetic about his eyes. Ahem.
Here are the links we have so far:
From comingsoon.net:
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=48630
From chud.com:
From aintitcoolnews.com
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38427
From ign.com:
http://movies.ign.com/articles/911/911930p1.html
From cinematical.com
http://www.cinematical.com/2008/09/22/daniel-craig-and-marc-forster-answer-your-bond-questions/