Updated: 12 May 2012 8:19 pm
Posted: 22 Sep 2008 8:01 am
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We selected the best reader inquiries, which were then vetted by Columbia Pictures in order to make sure there were no duplicate questions. Upon flying to London on Virgin Atlantic, we screened a 10 minute promotional reel featuring never-before-seen footage from Quantum of Solace as well as the new trailer.
While we're not allowed to divulge any specific details about the promo reel, we can reveal that it showed the gist of the film's plot and emphasized the movie's wall-to-wall action. Indeed, given its current 106 minute running time, Quantum of Solace looks to be the shortest but most action-packed Bond movie yet.
In addition to our Q&A session with Craig and Forster, we also had afternoon tea with Lucy Fleming (the niece of Bond creator and author Ian Fleming), a guided tour of Pinewood Studios with The Essential James Bond author Dave Worrall, a tour of the 'For Your Eyes Only' Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, and a visit to the Millbrook race track where we got to test drive a number of Aston Martins (Bond's signature car). Stay tuned for more of our coverage of these special QoS events in the coming days.
Continue on for Daniel Craig and Marc Forster's answers to your Quantum queries!
Marc Forster
IGN: Our first question from the readers of IGN is, "Since Quantum of Solace cannot have a love story involving Bond because Vesper is supposed to have been his first and only true love, what was the challenge in order to make this one a unique story like its predecessor?"
Marc Forster: I thought there's this incredible opportunity here because we ended Casino Royale with Bond being at a very vulnerable state and he was sort of at a place where I felt one could really take advantage of and really pick up and sort of go a little further, a little deeper into the emotional ground of Bond. And I thought in the same time that it's fascinating because you know… I created the character of Camille [played by Olga Kurylenko] as sort of a mirror image to Bond and a reflection of him. Basically, what I think is interesting about Bond -- and I think also was a part of the sort of the success of Bond -- is that Bond always kept mystery around him, and this mystery keeps you interested in the character.
In a sense I don't think one ever wants Bond to talk openly about his emotional feelings. I think it wouldn't be right because there's still this hard shell of this tough man, but inside there's a certain vulnerability. So I created Camille's character sort of more to be a mirror image of Bond than to have a relationship or anything. So there's definitely a sexual tension, but above it all it's more like that she is very similar to Bond and speaks the words Bond sometimes would like to speak and through that we can feel sort of what Bond thinks, and I thought it would be a nice way to express that.
IGN: And our second and final fan question from IGN is, "The latest word seems to be that Quantum of Solace will have many more action sequences than Casino Royale. However, I think one of the strengths of the last film was the quality of writing and dialog between characters, particularly Bond and Vesper. How is this film going to reprise that among all of the added action?"
Marc Forster: Yeah, I know. It was very important for me that it's just not purely -- you know, when I signed on to make the movie I just didn't want to do a pure action film. It was important that every action scene tells a story as well, and has a sort of implication on the drive of the character. But so in the same time I felt like it's really key to have a sort of emotional story throughout the film, and have, like in the last one, interesting dialogs. I felt like I added more scenes with M [played by Judi Dench] as well because I thought that relationship between M and Bond is really interesting. Especially to lead those dialogs a little further and have their relationship a little bit more conflicted. Because it's an interesting relationship, because M is sort of the only woman in Bond's life where he basically doesn't have a sexual interest in, which I think is a fascinating role in itself.
Daniel Craig
IGN: The first question from the readers of IGN.com is, "How do you think your portrayal of James Bond reflects Ian Fleming's original vision of the character?"
Daniel Craig: Well, he doesn't smoke sixty a day and he doesn't wake up with a shot of bourbon -- although he probably does actually. You know, it was a post-war thing. Fleming was in the service, he was in the secret service. A lot of the stories that he put into Bond came from stories that he'd heard of fearless men. I think Fleming drove his car fast and I think he probably pushed himself until he got to fight and probably did things that represented somebody who was living the fast life. But Fleming was not the action man. He told stories about action men and it's those people kind of I was more interested in. In that sense it was sort of the beginning of the commandos. Before the Second World War there weren't special forces. It was kind of [like early stuntmen], "Can you jump down there? "I'll do it." It was volunteers. And then post-Second World War there were more, the Seals, all of those special sort of services kind of came out of those experiences within the wars.
Fleming embellished. He was a writer. And he put his kind of Englishness into it. He put his sense of style into it and I hope we've gathered some of that back in. I mean certainly you know we've got Tom Ford designing clothes on this picture. We've got Dennis Gassner, who's the production designer [and] whose eye for detail is just second to none. And for me that's the Flemingness hopefully in Quantum of Solace. Because if you read Fleming he spends two days describing how he makes (expletive) scrambled eggs [laughter] in two pages. And it's like insane. It's just insane. Mmmmmm. [laughter] And you kind of realize in the meantime he's having breakfast [laughter]. And every morning he has twelve eggs, fourteen sides of beef, but it's just the absolute detail of this man fueling his body before he goes off. And then has six cigarettes, you know.
But it"s that detail I hope we've just kind of…it's not self-conscious but it's there it's in the movie. Hopefully, you'll look at the screen and you'll go, "Wow." I mean if you look at it -- hopefully you're gonna see it a second time, please do [laughter] -- you'll be looking at different parts of the screen and sort of discovering more because we took care, we really took care and it's definitely for me was the Fleming influence. I'm rambling. I'm sorry. I've just had that double espresso. [laughter]
IGN: The second question is,"What liberties have you tried or wanted to take with the character, but were told to shy away from because it didn't fit with the character at all or at this point in time?"
Daniel Craig: I wasn't allowed. [laughter] ... I haven't been denied anything really ... you know, I think one of the things about making a film is …this is kind of a long roundabout way of answering this question but what makes movies sort of immediate is the restrictions you put upon them. This is an example which is probably a bad example but I love the original cut of Blade Runner with the voice-over. I mean I still love it. I still think it's great because that was the movie they had to put out at that time because those were the restrictions that were put upon it. And so it has sort of something about it -- you know, despite the fact there's ten others now that are kind of an hour longer than all the others.
That's kind of what we have when we're making Bond movies. We are under the tightest of schedules so you're on the hoof, you're inventing things as you go. You go, "Oh, what about this?" I mean we can't change a lot because once things are set and once the ball's rolling on a movie like this there's no stopping it so we can't change action sequences all the time. We do but I mean they're kind of it's because when things -- it's not because we suddenly have inspiration, it's because physically we can't do something or we have to change an idea. You have to keep thinking and trying to bring these things and say, "Oh, I'll try this out." But it's the restrictions that make it interesting.
It's a really convoluted way of answering the question. I'm just pushing it back but that for me is sort of the process of filmmaking. It's about what you can't do more than what you [can], as opposed to the freedom that you're given. Often the more freedom you're given the more kind of meandering a movie becomes and maybe less interesting.
[Check out the other parts of the roundtable interviews with Daniel Craig and Marc Forster at CHUD, Ain't It Cool, UGO, Cinematical, and Coming Soon.]
Quantum of Solace opens stateside November 14.
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