From The Make-Up Chair

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BAFTA and Academy Award nominated make-up designer Naomi Donne, shares her memories of working on five of the Bond films: The Living Daylights, Licence To Kill, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre.

You’ve had an incredible career so far, where did it all begin?

I was doing a foundation course at Art school wondering where it might take me and it suddenly hit me that I could be a make–up artist. My mother rang the BBC to see if it was even a job and after a 3 year course at the London College of Fashion I managed to beg my way into the BBC to get on their training course. I left after an incredible 7 years to go on tour with Tracey Ullman as her make up artist. A year later I was working on a Bond film!

How was the move from TV and touring to Bond? 

Film was never on my horizon and I didn’t think there was any way I could ever get into it. Tracy [Ullman] was offered a film for Channel Four which I did with her and the producer asked me to do a feature film. It was called The Doctor and The Devils starring Timothy Dalton. It was my first film. Then I went off to work with The Comic Strip gang: Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Rik Mayall and Ade Edmonson. One day, I saw the headline ‘Timothy Dalton is the new James Bond’ and I said as a joke, “Wouldn’t it be fun if Tim asked me to be his personal make-up artist”. We all laughed. That night, the Bond producers rang and asked if I could come in for an interview. You have to understand it was so outside my realm of experience to even be working in film, let alone a Bond film. 

Were there major differences between working in TV and Bond?

At that time, all the make-up artists who worked in television were women but in film it was all men. There were some female hairdressers, but they had never seen a woman make-up artist before. But I got the job. I joined the Bond family and it has defined my career.

What were your first impressions working on The Living Daylights?

First of all, the make-up tests were terrifying because you have the whole team inspecting the look of the new 007. All the producers were there and I had never been in that situation before with producers giving me notes and asking what we can do. I was terrified!

What went into creating a look for Timothy Dalton as Bond?

Tim was very keen that there was a huge reality to his character. That might sound obvious now but that was a big change, not just in Bond films but for films in general. Films were moving away from heavily made up people who looked perfect and into a portrayal of expressing what the characters were going through. Many people said that Tim was ahead of his time with Bond. He was incredibly handsome so it wasn’t really a push to make him look good. I helped create a Bond that was good looking with a reality to him. So you see him sweat, his wounds, dirt on him after fighting, his hair becoming a bit messy, and all of the things Tim really wanted his 007 to be. You’re telling a story and the make-up has to fit that story. In the old Bond films, you’d never see Sean Connery with two-day beard growth so he’d always be clean shaven. But with Tim, you would go, “Well, he’s been up all night, so maybe we won’t shave today”. It was a big deal in those days. 

What surprised you working on Bond? 

The press. Someone would always be watching so I didn’t want to do make-up checks on Tim and get Bond caught on camera having his make-up done. So we were on a tram in Vienna and to avoid the press getting a photo I said, “Get under their seats and I will fix your make-up”. We crawled under a seat and I adjusted Timothy’s make-up!

What are the demands of doing make-up on location? 

When it’s your first Bond, like The Living Daylights, you’re battling the conditions but it was all fun. Bond films are always going to extreme locations which are exotic, remote, hot, tropical or freezing. Scenes in the desert with the heat, the sand, the dust is challenging. On Spectre, we were up in the mountains in freezing cold conditions and brilliant sunshine so the actors were cold but could burn in the sun. 

Working in the desert must have been difficult? 

I made Tim up, he looked a bit bronzed and gorgeous but the make-up was just dripping on his white shirt. It’s a battle all the time not to mess up costumes with make-up. There are lots of things I would do differently now.  There are so many new products but none of them existed in the 1980s. 

In Licence To Kill, there’s some big moments for make-up and hair. What do you remember?

With Carey Lowell, who played Pam Bouvier, she started out in disguise and we were trying to work out what hairstyle she should have. I had a wig made and I decided to cut it into a bob. I cut it, blow dried it and styled it on Carey’s head in front of Cubby and Dana Broccoli, who were watching the whole thing. It was so stressful! That was a huge pressure but it worked out. In many ways I felt very supported.

Why did you have such a big gap between the Bond films you worked on?

I did two Bond films and then I moved to the US to live. I didn’t do any more Bond films until Quantum of Solace when I was asked to do the hair and make up for all of the women on screen. I was very happy to come back.

What had changed in that time?

We had all changed. I was much more experienced but it felt like coming home. In 2008, people had embraced the reality of how people look in those gritty situations. We had Bond women like Olga Kurylenko as Camille Montes looking like she’d been through hell. Paul Engelen was doing Daniel Craig’s make-up on Quantum of Solace. Daniel had a huge reality to his portrayal as Bond, he was sweating and bloody. It was great. 

Strawberry Fields dies in a visually dramatic way when Gemma is covered in oil. How did you put that look together?
Gemma is brilliant. I had black oil made by special effects, obviously non toxic and tested, and she just laid there while I poured it on her. There’s an amazing photo of me pouring it all over her body in one of Greg Williams’ books showing Bond behind the scenes. 

Did Gemma have to stay still in between shots?

Gemma is just incredible, such a pro and very highly trained. She was a dancer and so disciplined. She just didn’t say a word. The oil went everywhere – up her nose, in her hair and her eyes – and she just didn’t move.

You went on to be responsible for the overall make-up design for Skyfall…

I had met Sam Mendes socially but we’ve never worked together before. On Skyfall, we developed a professional relationship and it’s grown over the years. He gives you a lot of freedom to try out ideas. Skyfall was the beginning of a great collaboration with Sam.

Donald Mowat was Daniel Craig’s personal make-up artist on Skyfall. How did you work together?

I’m very aware of that dynamic between someone who’s designing a film and someone who is fitting into that vision because I’ve also been a personal make-up artist. I always ask the designer , “What world are you creating? How do you want the character to look?” You have to be in the same world. Donald is so experienced and is very aware of that. 

You worked with a team to create prosthetics for Skyfall for Javier Bardem as well?

Chris Lyons designed the teeth to look perfect on Javier and then created the special effects steel jaw. He also had contact lenses and a wig designed by Zoe Tahir. It was quite an achievement. I was involved because Javier’s personal make-up artist Alessandro Bertolazzi wasn’t around at the beginning of filming so we collaborated to make it work. We’re friends so I was very happy to do that. 

Where did the idea for Javier’s blonde hair come from?

Javier came in with a picture of a criminal who had white hair and he loved the idea. His hair is heavy and very dark so it’s quite a thing to turn him into a blond. He played it brilliantly and is so creepy.  Javier’s got a great sense of humour and is really good fun. 

In Spectre you returned to Mexico for the iconic Day of the Dead sequence… 

It was an incredible achievement to make-up all of those people in Mexico City. We prepped for weeks. I was shooting at Pinewood so I sent a team of people out led by Nikita Rae who knew how I worked and was able to fulfil my ideas. They would fit 25 people a day and paint their faces. At the end of my day, all these images would start coming through to me while I was filming at Pinewood. I would give notes on every single person. 

It must have taken some organising! 

It was run like an army! When I got to Mexico, we had 150 make-up artists and 150 hairdressers all working together in this massive stadium conference centre. They’d been doing those looks for six weeks so they were very prepared. We did 1,500 extras in two hours which is mind-blowingly fast. When we got to the set everyone looked so amazing and I just burst into tears!

It’s an incredible opening few minutes…

Sam had very strong ideas about what he wanted these moments to look like. The opening of Spectre influenced Sam’s work going forwards. 

How did you ensure the authenticity of Mexico shone through?

By employing local artists and giving people freedom to be creative. You give references for all the looks and freedom to interpret. That’s how the local flavour comes by giving people a safe place to create. They’d never had a Day of the Dead parade on the scale we had in the film there in Mexico City and since then it’s become a big event.

Where’s your starting point then for creating the look of a lead actress in a Bond film? 

It’s a collaboration. You sit with the director, the actor and the costume designer, and come up with ideas. I do a series of make-up tests. You have that luxury on Bond films as you have the actors for quite a while before shooting, so you can try different things. Bérénice playing Lim Marlohe in Skyfall wanted a smokey eye look. When Javier’s character Silva shoots Severine, she’s lying there with make-up dripping down her face and it adds emotion to the scene. It’s all smudged and that’s a moment where you can see the reality.

Do you have a favourite make-up look?

It was great creating the Bond actresses because they go through so many changes – natural, in a shower, dressed up to go to the casino and in action. There’s lots of hidden details for Severine in Skyfall. We had a link up with OPI nails and they allowed me to design a nail colour called Skyfall. I took the colour straight from very warm burgundy-type reds on set. So we designed a nail varnish and I put gold leaf on the very long nails for Severine. Things like that are very exciting to me. 

Were there other hidden details?
We designed this little tattoo on Severine. She had been held captive and been tattooed in the same way that you brand cattle. I spent days looking at types of branding and in the end we went with a number-like symbol on her wrist. When Bond sees the number tattoo on her wrist he realises her past. It was a very pivotal moment in telling that story. I think the detail was probably missed, because it was a very quick moment but I spent weeks looking for reference, because you want to be accurate. 

What advice do you have for the actors to look good on screen?

I like them doing a lot of prep work with their skin. I send them to have facials to get their skin in really good condition which means less make up is needed and their skin has a natural glow.

What is your favourite memory from your work with 007 so far?

I’ve done over 100 films and nothing compares to working on a Bond. When I think of my time on these films, it’s the fun we had mixed with all the hard work. People always say that you are never cared for as much as when you work on a Bond. It’s truly a feeling of being part of a family and it’s that caring that pushes you to do your best work.

Live And Let Die At 50

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Live And Let Die was released in the UK 50 years ago on July 12, 1973. To celebrate, read essential facts about the film below.

1. While 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever was filming, producers selected Live And Let Die to be adapted as the eighth 007 film.

2. Roger Moore had no qualms when taking over the James Bond role from Sean Connery and George Lazenby commenting, “Four or five thousand actors have played Hamlet. Everyone had their own interpretation on that!”

3. Filming began on Friday 13th October 1972 in the Irish bayou in Louisiana with the boat chase between 007 and Mr. Big’s henchmen.

4. Roger Moore described director Guy Hamilton as ‘General Hamilton’. This was not only due to his leadership style, but his role during WW2 – Hamilton ran covert high-speed motor gun and torpedo boats and even went undercover after being dropped in occupied France. Roger described him as “very much a James Bond character himself”.

5. The massive boat chase was never detailed in the script – it just said ‘the most terrific boat chase you’ve ever seen’. The stunts were developed on location.

6. Twenty six boats were built by the Glastron boat company for the speedboat stunt sequence. Seventeen were destroyed during rehearsals.

7. On the 16th of October 1972, stuntman Jerry Comeaux raced his Glastron speedboat at 75 miles per hour towards a specially built ramp to perform a record-setting 95-foot leap.

8. Roger Moore was involved in an accident while filming the speedboat chase – he suffered a fractured tooth and a concussion. He recovered after several days and resumed filming.

9. Roger Moore trained and then performed a substantial portion of driving the double decker bus with guidance from the stunt crew. Roger Moore said, “Before we started shooting, I was sent to London Passenger Transport, to their skid pan, to learn how to skid a bus, which I have to admit is rather scary.” The double decker bus featured was an AEC Regent III.

10. Live And Let Die was the first 007 film not to feature Q. The novel of the same name was also the first to mention Q Branch.

11. Early in the production, Roger Moore was hospitalised with kidney stones which resulted in him having to wear a special harness during the speedboat chase scene to support his back.

12. Jamaica, part-time home of James Bond creator Ian Fleming, was used as the filming location for the fictitious country of San Monique.

13. As well as providing his crocodile farm as a filming location, Ross Kananga took the role of a stunt double for Bond – jumping across five crocodiles to avoid being eaten. In one attempt he had the heels bitten off his crocodile loafers.

14. Kananga also gave his name to Mr Big’s alter ego Dr. Kananga, who was originally named Jakata.

15. Many of the alligators and crocodiles that featured in these scenes had names and were well loved by Kananga – the star being ‘Daisy’ whom he had owned for over 20 years and trained since she was eight years old.

16. This is the first Bond film to feature swearing. Mrs Bell, whose flying lesson is hijacked by Bond, utters the words “holy s**t” while Sheriff J.W. Pepper also begins to say another word but is cut off when Bond jumps over him in a speedboat.

17. Roger only said his first lines 14 days into filming, which were “Hello Felix, What are you doing here”?

18. Jane Seymour went to have her Tarot cards read in New Orleans in preparation for her role. Many of the cast received tarot card readings on set, Roger Moore’s cards said he would have a son and become a humanitarian, both became true.

19. Live And Let Die gave us a second look at the interior of Bond’s townhouse since we saw a glimpse in Dr. No, 11 years before. The next time we see his home is in Spectre.

20. The film’s rushes shot in New York were transported back to London by Harry Saltzman’s secretary Sue Parker. In JFK airport, customs confiscated her luggage and put the film canisters through x-ray machines, almost destroying the footage.

21. Geoffrey Holder, former dancer, played henchman and ‘voodoo god of cemeteries’ Baron Samedi. He not only helped design the costume of his character, but choreographed the dances he performed during the ritual scenes.

22. Live And Let Die was the first James Bond movie that Daniel Craig watched.

23. Mrs Bell, the trainee pilot whose flying lesson is hijacked by Bond, is named after Bell Helicopters.

24. Real snakes were used in many scenes, and during the pre-credits sequence, the actor Dennis Edwards, who played a captured British agent about to be sacrificed using a snake, was so scared that he fainted during filming. This footage was used in the finished film to represent Baines’ death from the snake’s venom.

25. Roger Moore’s favourite gadget was the magnetic watch which could skillfully snatch lightweight metallic items when activated.

26. This was the first film score not to involve John Barry. Paul McCartney was suggested by George Martin for the title song. Producer Harry Saltzman was interested in having Shirley Bassey or Thelma Houston perform it instead of Wings but McCartney would only allow the song he had written with Linda McCartney to be used if Wings performed it.

27. ‘Live And Let Die’ was the first Bond theme to make the US Billboard Top Ten. The song was nominated for an Academy Award. The winning song, ‘The Way We Were’ had its music written by Marvin Hamlisch, who later co-wrote ‘Nobody Does It Better’.

28. David Bowie and his wife Angie attended the premiere. Bowie was later considered to do the theme for Moonraker.

29. The film holds the record for the most viewed film on television in the United Kingdom by attracting 23.5 million viewers when it premiered on ITV on 20th January 1980.

30. The film was a resounding success at the box office, earning over $161 million worldwide against a budget of $7 million, making it the highest-grossing Bond film at the time of its release.

Albert R. (Cubby) Broccoli honoured in Italy

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Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli has been honoured with two days of celebrations in Carolei, Calabria, Italy in recognition of his Italian ancestry.   

“We are honoured that Carolei in Calabria, Italy is celebrating our father’s heritage,” Michael G. Wilson commented on behalf of the family. “It is especially meaningful as today marks the 27th anniversary of Cubby’s passing. We are therefore delighted to continue his legacy by launching the Cubby Broccoli Scholarship with the Universita Della Calabria in Cosenza and the UK’s National School of Film and Television (NFTS) as part of our shared commitment to nurture and empower up-and-coming filmmakers.” 

The Mayor of Carolei, Francesco Lannucci, granted honorary citizenships to Michael G. Wilson, Tony Broccoli, Tina Broccoli and Barbara Broccoli to commemorate the family’s connection with the village. 

A bronze bust of Cubby sculpted by Dominco Sepe, renowned Italian sculptor, was also unveiled which will be placed in the village of Carolei in the coming weeks.

A film festival included a selection of Cubby’s films and the documentary, Everything or Nothing, The Untold Story followed by a Q&A with Barbara Broccoli and Italian producer Enzo Sisti.

Italian actors Giancarlo Giannini (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace) and Caterina Murino (Casino Royale) attended the celebrations.

How Daniel Craig Became Bond

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Being Bond, A Daniel Craig Retrospective, written by Mark Salisbury is out now. The 256-page hardback book takes us on Daniel Craig’s journey from 2006 to 2021.

Readers will go behind the scenes of Daniel Craig’s five films as James Bond with exclusive on-set photography, concept art, costume designs, stunt breakdowns and more, accompanied by cast and crew interviews. The extract below tells the story of casting Daniel Craig as 007. 

“We wanted to do a twenty-first-century Bond and redefine what a classic male hero should be,” says Broccoli. “Casino Royale gave us the opportunity to get into Bond’s inner life. It tells you why he became the man he became, so we wanted an actor who could be an iconic image of the twenty-first-century man and who had the acting chops to be able to deliver the emotional inner life without a lot of dialogue, because Bond is a very internal character. It was a very, very tall order, and there were hundreds of people being discussed.”

Casting director Debbie McWilliams, whose association with the series dates back to the days of Roger Moore and who had been involved in the casting of Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan, was given the herculean task of finding this new Bond. “The whole process was several months from me setting off with my backpack and passport going here, there and everywhere to when they actually chose him,” she recalls. “There are always the usual suspects, but I like to find people who aren’t well known or are slightly more unusual or a bit offbeat.” Initially she was looking for “young actors, much younger than Daniel was at the time, because it was about him becoming James Bond. I went to all the English-speaking territories and I met lots of people, and a lot of them have become very famous.” However, when it was decided that Bond should be young, but not that young, “we went up a level age wise, and it brought in a different group of people.”

One name had been on Broccoli’s list from the very beginning: Daniel Craig. A graduate of the National Youth Theatre and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Cheshire-born Craig had originally broken through with the BBC drama serial Our Friends in the North in 1996, before going on to prove his versatility in a succession of acclaimed film and television roles, with his taste erring towards the arthouse rather than the overtly commercial, be it as George Dyer, alcoholic lover and muse of artist Francis Bacon, in Love Is the Devil, the pampered son of Paul Newman’s mobster in Sam Mendes’s Road to Perdition, philandering poet Ted Hughes in Sylvia, or as a Mossad agent hunting down Palestinian terrorists in Steven Spielberg’s Munich.

Broccoli remembers first seeing Craig in Our Friends in the North. “Everything he did, he always became the character and disappeared into the role,” she recalls, “but he also had an unbelievable amount of charisma. I always say, ‘He’s lit from within,’ because whatever scene he’s in, whether it’s on the stage or on screen, he’s completely captivating. He is a great character actor, but in the body of a movie star, and it’s a very unique thing.”

While many critics saw Craig’s 2004 role as the nameless drug dealer determined to go straight in Matthew Vaughn’s Layer Cake as his “audition piece” for Bond, Broccoli insists it was his performance as Jesuit priest John Ballard in Shekhar Kapur’s 1998 period drama Elizabeth that convinced her Craig was the one. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, he’s the guy,’ when he was in Elizabeth, walking down the corridor. I know that sounds crazy, but that was the moment I felt it in my gut. When your whole life is James Bond, some part of you is always looking for, Who could play the role? Daniel just eats up the screen. He’s a truly remarkable actor.” 

McWilliams had her doubts. Not about Craig’s ability, but rather about his desire to take on such a high-profile role as James Bond. “I thought he probably wouldn’t be that interested, because he was a rather serious actor and did independent films and had never seemed to venture into the commercial side of things, apart from Layer Cake,” she reveals. “He’d been classically trained and it was hard to categorise him, although the stuff he’d done showed how versatile he was. We got in touch with his agent and she was rather doubtful as well, but mentioned to him what we were up to. He immediately went out and bought a copy of Casino Royale, and within about twenty-four hours was in the office at Eon, which confirmed his interest.”

“I got a telephone call, ‘Barbara would like to meet,’” recalls Craig, “and I thought, She’s probably seeing fifty people. I’m on a list. I’ll go in, do the interview, say, ‘Hello,’ and that’ll be it. I’d be that old bloke in the pub: ‘Yeah, I was considered for Bond once.’ So, I wasn’t excited or anything, didn’t feel particularly nervous. I’d met Barbara, sadly, at someone’s funeral long before and we had a couple of friends in common, and we just chatted. I don’t know what happened in the first meeting, but they said, ‘We want you to do this.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ It was not on my radar. Genuinely. Of all the people in the world I would have expected to play James Bond, it was not me. So, I went, ‘Well,

I better read the script.’ Then I went away and thought, This is ridiculous. I can’t do this. It felt so far removed from anything I was about, who I was, or what I was doing at the time. It’s not like I was snobbish about Bond. I’m a Bond fan. I love Bond.” In fact, Craig had been a fan ever since his father took him to see Live And Let Die (1973) when he was five. “But it wasn’t me.”

Broccoli sent the script on to Craig for his thoughts. “At a certain point it was, ‘We’ve got a script,’” he remembers. “I was like, ‘Okay, great,’ because I thought, I’m going to read it and go, ‘Thanks very much. It was lovely, but I can’t do this,’ and that’ll be the end of it. We all move on. Very nice. Then I read the script and was blown away. It was everything I would have wanted it to be. It was a resetting. It was witty. It was thrilling. It was dangerous. It ticked all the boxes I thought needed to be ticked if you were going to do James Bond.”

More than anything, Craig loved the attitude of the character. “The line that made me want to do the bloody film was, ‘Can I get a vodka martini?’ ‘Shaken or stirred?’ ‘Do I look like I give a damn?’ which in the script was, ‘Do I look like I give a f*ck?’” he continues. “I was like, That’s the reason I want to do the part. That was it, because that meant they were trying to break from a tradition. They were trying to disconnect and reset, and as far as I was concerned that meant resetting everything: resetting the toughness, resetting the gags, resetting the gadgets, starting again, reinventing it. I was like, ‘If we can do that, I’m f*cking in.’”

“He fitted right into that tone,” says Casino Royale director Martin Campbell. “Apart from being a fine actor, he had that rugged, tough look. It’s what Fleming wanted. He always said [American singer and actor] Hoagy Carmichael was the perfect looking guy to play Bond, and Daniel completely slotted into that concept.”

Discover more great stories and behind the scenes photos in Being Bond, A Daniel Craig Retrospective, written by Mark Salisbury, available now from 007store.com

Movie Magic With John Richardson – Part 2

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In part two of our conversation with Academy Award-winning special effects supervisor John Richardson, we discover how he created incredible explosions, futuristic gadgets and turned a cello case into a fast-moving getaway vehicle for James Bond.

There are a lot of special effects shots in A View to a Kill – how did you create the shot of the blimp going over the Golden Gate Bridge?

It’s a classic demonstration of model work. We had to build four different sizes of airships: a small one, 10 ft one, and 40 ft one. We built them so the bigger one could either hang under a crane to blow it up with air or we could fill it full of hydrogen and tether it from underneath. Whichever shot we were doing, it made it much easier to lose the wires. That was all part of the trickery of model work. CGI can paint wires out so much easier now but we had to be very inventive and every shot was a different model. We had a background of San Francisco, which was a photographic cut out, with real sky behind it which was in the bottom of frame. Everything above that was real with a model and the Pinewood backlot. We did similar things on The Living Daylights with a bridge that was supposed to be 200 ft high over a river. On the real location, it was six ft high over a muddy, dusty floor so we built a foreground miniature to make it possible.

Tell us about getting to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge?

I did all of the filming up on the bridge. The most interesting thing was getting up there! There was a lift that went up in the middle of the tower but the problem was the lift was very small. It was literally only big enough for three of us when crushed together and a seven minute journey. So you’re squeezed in the metal coffin in the middle of the bridge and we’ve got all the camera boxes in there with us too. On your way up you think, “What would happen if there was an earthquake now or if all the power went out?” One occasion we got to the top and we were so crushed that none of us could reach the door handle to open it to get out! That was fairly amusing for a few minutes.

What did you capture while on top of the bridge?

I shot all the background plates of San Francisco so that you could have the actors in front of them with smoke and mirrors on the Pinewood backlot. I shot all the live action stunt work and the helicopter shooting while we were there. To do a lot of the plates we had to go 100 ft down one of the main cables and set up a camera on the cable itself. Now the cables are at an angle, it was the crack of dawn when we were going up there and it was wet too. What you don’t realise is that even though it’s a four ft wide cable on the bridge, there’s still a hell of a gap down the side. So as you walk down the bridge, the cable is bouncing as the lorries go over the bridge. It was very scary!

You must need a head for heights for that?

I must admit I did spend one night lying in bed wondering whether it was going to take more courage to go out and walk down the cable on the bridge or go into the production office and say I couldn’t do it! I decided at the end of the day, it was easier to go up there and do the filming than let people down so I just got on with it. It’s only when you’re on terra firma you appreciate not everybody gets to do these things.

You’re briefly on screen in A View To A Kill aren’t you?

Yes, in Zorin’s office. I’m on the front page of a mock-up of People magazine when Roger Moore looks at a painting. There’s a big photo of Zorin on the cover and a small one of me in the top corner with a caption saying ‘A real-Life JR’. I have Jerry Juroe (EON’s former marketing director) to thank for that.

The next 007 film you worked on was The Living Daylights. What are some of your favourite memories from that film? 

We had the famous royal visit towards the end of filming which was an unexpected highlight. We set up a thing in Q’s workshop where a rocket had to be fired out of a ghetto blaster to blow a dummy’s head off. So we’d rigged it up for Prince Charles, as he was back then, to fire the missile and explode the head. That was the fun part for me on the day and Charles was brilliant. He fired it right on cue.

The Aston Martin V8 was laced with gadgets – was that your work? 
It was fun to work with Aston Martin and have those cars around. We shot a lot of the scenes out in Weissensee in Austria. It was great because we had the Aston Martin V8 out on the ice and set off explosions. We had the skis out the side and tires that blew themselves up and let themselves down. There was an Aston Martin that we fired out of an air cannon to jump over the dam when a roadblock was in place. Just working on that lake was interesting. It was frozen over so we used to drive across it in the mornings to get to the location. It was quicker than going all the way around. But as you drive across, the ice would crack and break, and it made these extraordinary noises that echoed right across the lake with the cracks. It can be quite unnerving and was certainly an interesting place to shoot.

How did you prep the cello case for what was needed in the snow scenes?

We built the cello case. I built one for Timothy (Dalton) to steer. It had two steering handles so as he came down the hill he could safely steer it. Tim was great and up for anything. So he and Maryam d’Abo got on and went straight down the hill. They enjoyed it, it was great fun and worked perfectly. A funny thing happened when I went on to work onWillow afterwards. Another actor was supposed to get on a similar sledge we built out of a shield for him to ski down an easy snow slope in New Zealand. This actor turned up, looked at it and said, “I’m not getting on that thing and riding down the slope”. He said it was too dangerous and walked off. Then a young Warwick Davis saw it, got on and did the stunts and thought it was great. These stunts aren’t for everyone I guess. Tim was great at the physical side of the role and he wanted to take it more seriously and so didn’t have too many outlandish gadgets.

Do you actually have a favourite Bond scene?

They are all pretty unique so it is hard to pick a favourite. We sank a replica of Cubby Broccoli’s Rolls Royce in the gravel pit in Denham for A View to a Kill and that was quite fun. The V8 was the only Aston I was involved with that had to do anything unusual. We had the famous Land Rover vehicle which came out of the back of the Hercules plane with Tim and Maryam on and landed on a pallet. We shot it coming out of the back of the model aeroplane full speed with a long lens. It took 65 takes to get that in camera because you’ve got a model plane flying at probably 70 or 80 miles an hour, a cameraman on the long lens, a parachute pulling a vehicle out and you’re trying to get all of it in shot, with the desert and nothing else, all at the same time. Because you’re filming at five times normal speed, rushes just went on forever and used to drive everybody mad but we got some good takes in the end.

What are some of the other sequences you were involved in?

The Living Daylights had a vast array of different effects in it. The opening alone started out in Gibraltar for the chase sequence. We ended up having to fire a Land Rover off the top of Beachy Head with a dummy inside and a parachute coming out. We blew it up before it hit the sea. When we were doing that, we had the stunt guy coming off it with a parachute. Then for a sequence near the end of the film we built a lightweight Land Rover, travelled with it out to the Mojave Desert, took it up 10,000 ft under a helicopter and dropped it with the stunt man on top. So that was interesting. Apparently it made a wonderful noise when it hit the desert. I wasn’t there, I was up in the helicopter, but I can tell you it was as flat as a pancake! We also had all the stuff in Morocco, which was supposed to be Afghanistan, and the foreground miniature bridge, which was a real bridge but only 10 feet off the riverbed. So we built a foreground miniature to make it look 200 ft. Nobody who saw the film should realise that it was a miniature.

Is there any one moment that encapsulates your time on Bond?

There are so many! I’ve got wonderful stories from my time on the Bond films. I’ve included a story in my book about a model submarine that was bobbing along the ocean floor and towards a drop off of around 1,000 ft. The model was about to go barreling over the edge and down into the Pacific Ocean! That was scary. The prospect of having to phone Barbara Broccoli and say we couldn’t film anything as we’d lost the submarine was unthinkable. It made half a dozen guys get into their diving gear very quickly! But to answer your question, there are so many wonderful stories to tell. The question I’m asked all the time is, “What’s your favourite film” and it’s too hard to choose, every film is different. They’re fun for a myriad of different reasons. If you ask me what my favourite film is, then it would be all the Bond films.

What makes working on the 007 films so special?

I mean, obviously with the Bond films what everybody echoes is that you’re part of the family. It’s the family working environment. Barbara’s lovely, Michael is lovely and Cubby was lovely. I have an old autograph book my father started for me in the 1930s which is filled with greats. Can I read you something from it? It’s from 20th April 1988, “Dear John, thank you for your magic, but mainly for your friendship, for all the 007 years. Fondly, Cubby Broccoli.” Now that is special to me. He was just such a lovely man and told great stories.

What is your favourite Bond film to actually watch?

I have two. I enjoy watching Moonraker because it brings back the whole experience of what I went through on the waterfall. But for a stand alone short sequence, the opening of Octopussy because it encompasses every piece of movie magic that you can pull together. I have nine Bond films on my CV and I remain incredibly proud of them all.

John Richardson’s books Making Movie Magic and Making Movie Magic – The Photographs are available from 007store.com.

Black Tomato’s Bond Travel Experience Revealed

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Today (March 30), Black Tomato have released details of their limited edition travel experience. ‘The Assignment’ is an immersive journey to signature destinations inspired by the world of James Bond. The United Kingdom, France, Monaco, Italy and Austria are the five countries which feature in the trip. 

In addition to stays in world renowned hotels such as London’s Corinthia and Hotel Metropole in Monte Carlo, ‘The Assignment’ features a hand-picked itinerary of Bond experiences created exclusively for this unique journey.

Travellers can train with stunt coordinator Lee Morrison in London, be given unprecedented access to Champagne Bollinger’s Chateau and Estate in France, board a private yacht to explore Monaco’s Côte d’Azur with Octopussy and A View To A Kill actress Carole Ashby, and even water-ski on Italy’s Lake Como.

Another highlight of the trip will see clients attend the 007 ELEMENTS exhibition in Sölden, Austria, accompanied by Oscar-winning special effects supervisor Chris Corbould OBE who has worked on 15 Bond films.

Full details of Black Tomato’s Bond-theme travel experience ’The Assignment’ can be found on their website.

GoldenEye 007 Game Launches

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Iconic Nintendo 64 video game GoldenEye 007 is now available on Nintendo Switch Online and Xbox Game Pass.

Refreshed for a smoother HD experience, the third best-selling Nintendo 64 game of all time launches globally today (January 27th) for Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X | S & Xbox One, allowing a new generation of players to experience the classic 1997 title.

The Nintendo Switch version includes online multiplayer functionality for the very first time and also allows gamers to play handheld, while the Xbox edition features a full roster of platform-exclusive achievements.

GoldenEye 007 – based on the 1995 film – lets players control Bond through a series of levels following the GoldenEye film story. In multiplayer mode, up to four players can compete in several scenarios based on elements from You Only Live Twice, The Living Daylights, The Man With the Golden Gun and Licence to Kill.

Leica Release D-Lux 7 007 Edition Camera

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Leica Camera have released their new D-Lux 007 Edition compact camera.

Celebrating Bond’s debut appearance at the Baccarat table in Dr. No (1962), the special edition commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Bond franchise, and is limited to 1,962 units.

The camera is housed in a leather holster-style case, with the top plate printed with the 007 logo. The camera trim is made from high-performance, rhombus-textured material and also features a gun barrel lens cap.

Coinciding with the camera’s launch is a new London exhibition, ’Photographs from the James Bond Archive’. Curated by producer Michael G. Wilson, the exhibition features images from all six decades of the 007 films and is open to the public at Leica Gallery London, 64-66 Duke Street, Mayfair W1K 6JD until March 21 2023. Opening hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday 10am-6pm, Wednesday 10am-7pm and Sunday 12pm-6pm.

Explore the camera at 007Store.com. Read more on the exhibition here.

Ricou Browning (1930 – 2023)

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Ricou Browning, Underwater Director for Thunderball has sadly passed away.

The thrilling underwater fight sequences in the fourth James Bond film between SPECTRE and US aqua-paratroopers, helped by 007, were directed by Browning.

Browning’s other work includes The Creature From The Black Lagoon, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Don’t Give Up the Ship, Sea Hunt, Gentle Ben, Salty, Mr. No Legs, Day of the Dolphin, Flipper and Caddyshack.

Our thoughts are with his family at this time.

Movie Magic With John Richardson – Part 1

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Though you might not know his name, you will definitely know John Richardson’s work – the pioneering special effects legend’s movie CV stretches back five action-and-adventure-packed decades. He’s been Oscar nominated six times (he won for Aliens in 1986) and his groundbreaking screen magic is seen in all eight Harry Potter films, Aliens, Superman, A Bridge Too Far, Straw Dogs, Rollerball, The Omen, Starship Troopers, Cliffhanger, Far and Away and Willow, amongst more than 100 films. Despite the extraordinary range and breadth of his movie experience, it’s still his nine James Bond adventures that have given John his most treasured movie memories. “I’ve been privileged to work with some of the Hollywood greats, a very wide swath of different technicians and actors on both sides of the camera,” he told 007.com when we sat down to discuss his extraordinary career, “but the Bond films have always remained closest to my heart.”

Why is it that the Bond films remain so special to you?

Who wouldn’t enjoy working on movies where you get to build huge sets, blow things up and also go to all the wonderful places where we filmed? We did really difficult and exciting things like filming 60 ft long model submarines 120 feet down off the Bahamas and flying model aircraft, building 40 foot long airships to do various things and conjure up different model scenes. Which I think to this day, is probably some of my proudest work – because I think many of the audiences when they were looking at the movies, didn’t even realise that they were models. So that, for me, has been one of the highlights, and to work with that sort of family atmosphere and receive their protection. It really was a family feeling and I am still in touch with people from the Bond family, which is lovely.

How did you get your film industry break?

Nepotism, very simply. My father was a special effects man and he started in the business in 1921. He worked on a lot of films with Cubby Broccoli and Irving Allen in the 1950s. Things like The Red Beret in 1953, High Flight in 1957 and Zarak in 1957. He also worked on Lawrence of Arabia and a whole bunch of movies throughout that era. I pretty much grew up on film sets. From the age of about 10 or 11 I used to go to work with him and learn the ropes during school holidays. I’ve worked on films like Exodus, Lawrence of Arabia, and then I left school in 1962. The first film I worked on was The Victors, which had a huge cast, directed by Carl Forman and then worked with my father for the next 10 or 15 years.

Your father was an industry legend – what was it like working with him?

A lot of people say it’s hard working with your father, and I suppose to a degree it is because if he’s gonna tell somebody off on a crew it is invariably his son, because it’s easier to do that than someone else. It was a great privilege to work with him though because he was the best. Certainly, throughout that era. He was very well respected, and was probably the most knowledgeable regarding the use of explosives. He was very safety conscious, had a great track record, so I was learning from the master and was very aware of it. He taught me well. He reached a point in his life where he wanted to slow down and retire and I started getting offers of films myself. Which was, I suppose, a little bit daunting.

What was the first film you supervised on your own?

The first film I supervised all the way through was Duffy with James Coburn, James Mason, James Fox and Susannah York, directed by a lovely director called Robert Parrish. I had to go out to the south of Spain and blow up a very big, real fishing boat. When I say blow it up, I mean, blow it up! We filmed it from a helicopter, which was challenging itself because I had to be able to fire it by remote control. Which, back in the 1960s, I think it was one of the first times radio control was used to do something on that scale. I was 21 years old and in charge of the effects on the movie. So by the time I was doing James Bond films I was still relatively young, in my thirties and forties.

You got your start in the Bond films with Moonraker – how did that come about? 

I joined the Bond team on Moonraker which was an interesting and fun film to work on. The Bond team were struggling a bit with the volume of what they were doing. I’d worked with both the director Lewis Gilbert and Bill Cartlidge, the producer, before and they called me up and asked if I could go to Paris and talk to them. I did and I ended up taking over most of the filming in South America and all of the boat chase sequences in Florida. It sort of relieved the pressure on other team members like Derek Meddings. Derek was doing the model work on Moonraker. Johnny Evans was looking after the floor stuff in France and Italy. I got together with Derek and we talked it through and came to an agreement of how much I could take over because it was fairly late in the day to get everything prepared and shipped out to the location. 

So for Moonraker, was it the boat chase you were tasked with creating?

I took over the sequences that were going to be filmed in Iguazu and Florida, and it was mainly the boat chases and everything related to that. One of the things that happened was that they had recced the Iguazu Falls much earlier in the year. They’d looked at them when there was probably a lot less water going over the top. I went out there with the second unit director in November with a view to going back in January to film. They wanted to get Bond’s boat, which was a two tonne fibreglass speed boat, down in the river and right over the top of the waterfall, which was about a 360-foot drop. There was a vast amount of water coming down. It’s a huge river and I looked at it and said, “Personally I think the chances of it working because of all the rocks and everything out there is challenging. I’m quite happy to have a go if you want me to.” And then ended up with myself and one of my assistants, Johnny Morris, roped together going out about a quarter of a mile upstream of the edge of the falls. We’d have to walk, float, sink or swim or whatever from one rock to the next. I’d get to one rock and then I’d hold the rope to belay John while he swam over to join me. Then we pulled the boat across behind us and we did this all the way out. We got the boat down to about 100 feet short of the edge. It took us a whole day to get the boat out into that position and that was from first thing in the morning till late afternoon. Anyway, the next day, we set up all the cameras and got word over the radio to release the boat. We released the boat. It went thundering down in the water to the edge of the fall where it promptly impaled itself on a rock. Literally right on the edge of the fall with part of the boat sticking over the edge. 

How on earth did you deal with that?

We went back to the hotel that night to have a meeting to decide what to do. The second unit director said, “Well, the boat can’t stay there. How are YOU going to move it?” I suggested that as I’d got a harness with me, we take the helicopter out which had a winch on it. They could lower me down onto the boat and the rock that it was stuck on and I’d see if I could push it or shove it over. We tried that and it didn’t work. We then figured out a plan: we tie a rope onto the cargo lifting winch under the helicopter and a rope onto my harness, as well as the winch, and they’d lower me down on the winch. Then they could hold me in place. Anyway, we flew out 30 feet underneath. Johnny, my sidekick, was in the helicopter signalling to the pilot and I think they dropped me in the water twice and in the bushes three times. Eventually, I got hold of the boat and signalled to John who told the pilot to stop flying. I suddenly heard a very strange ping-ping-ping-ping-ping noise over the sound of the helicopter. I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was quite loud. Then I realised it was the stitches on my harness breaking under the tension. I had two choices: do I stay with the boat or go with the helicopter? I figured there were probably more stitches left so I held on. I went with the helicopter and it took about 15 minutes to get me back up. As luck would have it, it rained up river overnight and a large torrent came and washed the boat over the falls in the middle of the night, never to be seen again.

That must’ve been terrifying? 

I was scared stiff. I can’t say I enjoyed it in the moment. But I often thought about it after. I always raised it with the stunt teams that whatever they do, they get a bonus for doing it! But I suppose I can put it down to experience.

You returned to 007 with Octopussy. It features some all time great 007 sequences starting with the Acrostar “Bede” jet right as the film opens. That must’ve been an amazing film to work on?

I was on Octopussy from the beginning. The jet was in the script and it was flown by Corkey Fornof who had said that he could fly through a hangar which everybody was excited about. But of course, when it came down to the nitty gritty of how to shoot it, there couldn’t be anybody in or around the hangar at the time. I think we worked out that with the speed the jet was flying it would be in the hangar for less than half a second or something ridiculous. So filmically, it wasn’t gonna work. So John Glen asked what we could do. We came up with a foreground model and built a third scale Bede jet and a third scale hangar door that we set up in front of the real hangar at Northolt Airfield. We lined it up exactly with the hangar doors and it looked like the plane had flown into the hangar. Then we did the same thing at the other end for the plane leaving it. 

Is it true you attached a real plane to a car to shoot the sequence?

I had this wonderful idea that we could get an old car, cut the top off it, paint it camouflage colours and add a steel polearm from the centre of the car with a gimbal on top with an air hydraulic system that would bank the real full size jet. We could bank it from side to side. So the idea was, I would drive it through the hangar at 75 miles per hour with stuntmen and people running hither and thither with some foreground dressing to help hide the car and stuntmen closing the doors at the far end to a stop which I think allowed me about six inches spare on either side. We did it about four times. I think literally 75 miles an hour was our speed. The last time we did it, I exited the hangar and the throttle on the Jaguar had jammed. One of my guys, Johnny Morris, was lying on the floor in the back of the car. So I got us outside on the tarmac at RAF Northolt where we were filming and we were in front of one of the Royal Air Force jet planes parked on the grass. It took me a few seconds to realise why the wretched thing wouldn’t slow down and of course it dawned on me then that it was the throttle. So I was able to switch the ignition off and steer the car onto the grass, I think much to the amusement of all the RAF guys. We ended up spinning across the grass until we finally came to a stop. It’s quite interesting to drive a Jaguar with a full size jet on top! That still remains one of my favourite sequences because it does encompass all the different sorts of types of visual effects. 

Tell us about the knife throwing?

Some stunts were done for real by a guy called Barrie Winship and some by Tony and David Meyer who played the twins. The rest of the knife throwing scenes were created with wirework. Which is essentially where we had knives going down wires, including one in the forest scene that went in by Roger’s ear as he was pinned to the door. However, when they were doing the rotating disk knife throwing scenes in Octopussy’s circus you couldn’t put a wire on that because it was going round and round; the wire would get twisted. So we put flick-up knives built into the spinning disk. As it was going round, suddenly a knife would flick up through the disk. They pop up so quickly your eyes don’t catch it. 

What are some of the other props and effects you worked on for Octopussy?

We had the three-wheeled Indian Tuk Tuk taxis that we souped up for all the chase scenes. We also had the rope in Q’s office which I tested myself and the wire inside broke and swiftly posited me on my arse from about 12 feet which was uncomfortable, but that’s why you test these things. We had cars on the railway lines, including a Mercedes being fired from an air cannon into the water. Some of the stuntmen thought that the car might hit them and jumped into the water. It didn’t though and landed perfectly, even gently nudging a boat. We created a yo-yo saw which really worked and we mounted one after filming and gave it to Cubby. For the lovers of poison pen letters we created a pen that dispensed acid, which was actually tartaric acid found in wine mixed with some bicarbonate of soda to give the fizz effect. There was also the blowing up of the hangar in the opening which required us to blow the thing sky high. It was great fun and I am lucky to have spent a lifetime in special effects. 

In part two of our conversation with John he tells us about filming on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, turning a cello case into an escape vehicle and a one-of-a-kind autograph from Cubby Broccoli. Read on 007.com next week.

John Richardson’s books Making Movie Magic and Making Movie Magic – The Photographs are available from 007store.com.

Harrods To Host 007 x The Macallan Experience

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Harrods are to host an interactive experience celebrating 60 years of James Bond in partnership with The Macallan.

For four weeks, from Sunday February 19, the department store will exhibit signature artefacts from the 007 archive to commemorate the release of the Scottish whisky distillery’s 60th anniversary range of six Bond-themed bottles.

At the heart of the experience is a timeline of original concept art and storyboards chronicling the creative process of the Bond movies, which is also featured on the packaging for The Macallan’s 60th Anniversary single malt.

Central to the exhibit is Little Nellie, the autogyro commanded by Sean Connery in 1967’s You Only Live Twice. Other memorabilia on display include Oddjob’s bowler hat from Goldfinger (1964) and Jaws’ metal teeth from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).

Exclusive to purchase at Harrods in the UK is a limited edition Globe-Trotter case containing all six bottles of The Macallan’s 60th Anniversary Release.

Bringing Bond’s Jamaican Retreat to Life

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Art director Neal Callow, production designer Mark Tildesley and set decorator Veronique Mallory discuss how they created James Bond’s house in Jamaica, reflected the region’s history on screen and added unseen touches of Ian Fleming to a unique set featured in No Time To Die.

Where do you start to try and merge all the elements together for Bond’s Jamaican home?

Neal: With a film like No Time To Die, it all starts with the script. Taking the example of the Jamaica house, James Bond has retired from service from MI6 and he’s moved to Jamaica. He’s living this semi-retired life somewhere in a remote part of the north coast of Jamaica, so there’s your starting point. What is this guy like? For that, you can go back to what he was always like as a character through the Fleming books and the early films but you obviously modernise that, and then you think what would his house look like? What would he be doing in his house? Would he like to go sailing or fishing? He’s probably fixing up a few things around the place. He’s going to really want to blend in with the local population and have a bit of privacy to his world. Those conversations, we have with the production designer, Mark Tildesley. The set decorator is very important for that thing as well. Veronique Mallory was our set decorator and obviously the director who will have opinions of how to articulate that personality through environmental design. We’re looking at the legacy of the design of Bond films. We’re looking at the character and then we’re using all of those foundations to then sketch out what his house might look like in Jamaica.

Veronique, what was your approach when you’re dressing that set?

Veronique: We imagine the life of a gentleman who is reaching a certain age. We wanted to show the life of someone who has retreated from the active world but at the same time being into social interaction, interested in contemporary culture, very refined in his taste. As he’s a man who sails a lot and, like sailors in general, he likes handcrafted pieces of furniture and handcrafted objects, I tried to go along that way. I wanted to give James Bond and various surroundings this touch of old wood vintage choices that are mixed up with very contemporary objects. Every object for me was chosen by Bond because he is a man of great taste, he’s a man of intelligence and he wouldn’t live with some mainstream objects. I went looking for pieces that could be existing in a world but someone who would have been leaving the world and choosing another path for his life than staying in a big city. The objects chosen and the furniture chosen were some iconic designer pieces but not produced anymore. We recreate them and remake them because these pieces these days are museum pieces. You can’t have them and I tried to create an environment which was quite unique and original. They had to be very much touched beforehand by the hands of the workers, by the makers.

Mark, how important was it to go to Jamaica and have an authentic design for Bond’s home there?

Mark: We went to Jamaica, which is the spiritual home of Bond movies and we find in the story of No Time To Die that Bond has retired there now. We were tasked with the idea that we would have to give him a home. “How do we make this glamorous?” A simple house won’t be glamorous but there’s something about the place where we built this house. It was just such a spectacular cove. I’m not suggesting that anything you put there would be wonderful but it was, in itself, a piece of beautiful nature. It’s really absolutely crystal clear waters and super tropical plants and wonderful sounds of birds and gorgeous skies. The task was to build him a house and we went through various forms of thinking about what that house could be. Should he have bought a house that already existed? Has he made it himself? Has he adapted a house that’s partly built? One of the things is that Bond is discombobulated there and sort of running out of ideas. He’s sort of a fish out of water. He’s really built to be an agent in action, and to be moping around on an island is not really his deal.

We built this house and it is very much a house by the sea, it’s about him getting in his boat and sailing away. Does a bit of fishing, does a bit of venturing and the only other things he’s doing in it, in terms of character based things, are he’s planning an escape. He has maps and books about where else he could test himself.

It really did feel like a place in Jamaica, it had a sense of location that it was grounded there. Was that something you were thinking about when you were bringing that together?

Veronique: Yes, it was, certainly. One of the main characteristics of that house was to have the sense of this Jamaica. Very laid back and very, very refined world in terms of fabrics, prints, woodwork. The house was built like that and what was dressed inside had the same kind of flavour.

Neal, the outside feels very local, and the inside feels like an amalgamation of the old and the new and also someone who’s got time so is that what you meant by things fixing up like the original?

Neal: Exactly. Veronique thought about all of those things so what we wanted to do there was to give the impression of an Englishman living in Jamaica for a start, so there’s things that would be recognisable as British set decorating or props lying around. The exterior of the house, and the construction methodology of the house, we wanted it to be Jamaican. We wanted it to look like a Jamaican built place but you’ll notice that there are certain aesthetic tweaks to it.

For example, there’s a big round window above one of the facades and that’s like a classic Bond design. It’s a piece of design iconography that we get these big, round shapes. Ken Adam was always about these simple, brutal shapes, creating amazing space, but not being particularly over complicated. We wanted to put something like that in there that gave a nod to Ken Adam but we wanted it to feel like it was a house that Bond hadn’t had built for himself. Bond had moved into that house and had been able to fix it up and do his own things to it and then he brought what little possessions that he has, over from whatever storage locker he has and put it around the house. That’s where you get those interesting choices of books, pictures, bits and other pieces. We see lots of Ken Adam classic set design in the film – Ken Adam uses a lot of that circular iconography, and it has become a classic design icon within Bond legacy production design. It’s always nice to get bits of that back in and we use that elsewhere in No Time To Die as well which again, if you look at that arrangement of sets, there’s a nod in there as well.

As we all know from James Bond, he’s an effortlessly stylish guy. So there’s certain kinds of furniture that he may have picked up locally, which are stylish but not too ostentatious or anything like that. Again, it all comes back really to thinking about what the character of Bond is. Production design for film in the end is about light. In fact, cinema is all about light in general so when we’re designing film sets, subconsciously or consciously, we’re designing for light and shadow. For a house like that one in Jamaica, we were very careful as to which way to orient the house in terms of the sun, the way the sun came up and the sunset at the end of each day. Obviously, all of those slatted doors on the side of Bond’s home, we had them made in a way that we could adjust the angle of the louvres in the door so that we could get the correct amount of light coming in or be able to shoot through them to the outside. So the whole thing, like most film sets, really is a lighting gobo which has been designed with the correct materials and the correct field tactility to tell the story of where we are. It is about designing for photography in the end and making everything look great on screen.

What are your favourite items and were any of them particularly tricky to get a hold of?

Veronique: In the living room, I especially like two or three of the chairs that were designed in the 60’s, in the 50’s by Italian or French or American designers like Lena Dubois who was an architect in Italy and created very interesting pieces of leather seats. We made one of those. A french designer also worked for creating houses in Africa, tropical houses. This atmosphere of tropic was there even within a piece of furniture and with the work of these amazing people.

Of course, you’ve got the reproduction of the Fleming desk as well.

Neal: Fleming wrote the novels about James Bond in his home, GoldenEye, which is a few miles down the road from where we built the 007 house in No Time To Die. A lot of Fleming’s experience of his own life was obviously interwoven into the character of James Bond. We thought that was a really nice touch to be able to have the desk at which those books were written in James Bond’s bedroom because it connects Bond back to Fleming. Also, it has this aesthetic taste which Fleming himself might have had, which we would probably rightfully assume he would have given James Bond. Fleming was into lots of contemporary food and what would be considered exotic foods back in the day. Fleming’s own experience of what he would have chosen is interwoven into 007 so there’s a connection between the character of Bond and Fleming beyond that of just the fact that he wrote a character.

With the building of the house, how was it then that you approached the construction? Did you hire local crews to help create the Jamaican world for 007?

Neal: Well, it’s a combination of a few things, really. One is that we worked with an amazing construction manager called Steve Byrne who runs a company called Palette Scenery with his brother. He is an incredible guy and he also has a way of doing these jobs in foreign countries where he only hires local people to do it. So we had a carpenter, Benny Gillespie, and a painter called Nick. Other than that, everyone else was a local Jamaican worker and the way that Steve does this is he goes out early to the location that we’re proposing to build stuff at. He’ll go and spend his time going around meeting people asking: Does anyone know anyone who’s a carpenter, painter? Before we know it, he’ll have a team of people who are local to the area and are enthusiastic to do the job in their neighbourhood. He will do that on every job we go to. It’s an amazing kind of methodology. What that does for us, as a production, is it means that the people who are working on the film are engaged in it because it’s right in their backyard.

Mark, is it true there were access issues on the site?

Mark: Yes. We went from one bay to another looking for the perfect location. We finally honed down this one spot, which was spectacular, but there was no road into it and no possibility of a road, so the only way to bring anything to it was to take a boat, which we built a platform on and then we could move our wood and our materials round and build, physically, on the beach itself. No workshops or anything like that. It’s hand tools and these are the sort of things that I think are great. There are no wood yards as such. If you want wood, you go to a man that cuts down a tree, sadly, but nevertheless, that’s how they do it. They go up into the woods, cut down the trees and then bring back the wood. All the wood was very fresh and very new and very twisted. All our ideas about making this very sharp looking house disappeared and it became very Jamaican, very quickly, just by the nature of the people building it, the way we had to build it and the materials. It was a Jamaican built house.

We didn’t have much UK construction at all, we just had two people and a team of about 30 locals who were not film people. They are local joiners and carpenters and local house painters so this flavour of being handmade in Jamaica wasn’t very difficult to achieve because we had all the right people doing it.

We saw some wonderful works of art and lovely nautical maps. Could you tell us about those two things and how that ties in with his character?

Veronique: Well, the nautical maps were quite obvious. It seems that for someone who is travelling the world, travelling a lot and who likes the ocean, it was quite obvious to have maps. These nautical maps were something that you would naturally have around you. Not only because they are useful, but also because they’re very beautiful. They are beautiful artworks if you want to look at them precisely. Daniel Craig asked for some contemporary photos from artists. We looked for different kinds of prints and we had a chance to work with a Canadian photographer who agreed to use some of his work.

Did Daniel Craig have any input on any other aspects of the design of the home?

Mark: Daniel was fantastically supportive of all of our work and anything that was really pertinent to him like, for instance, that house. We obviously pitched that to him and carefully involved him in the process. As an actor, if you’re going to go and profess that this has been your house for the last 10 years and the first day you ever saw it is the first day of filming, it’s not a great thing in terms of feeling that you’re involved in the process. Daniel had some great comments, he’s a super supportive actor and we got in to tune quite quickly and understood where he was coming from.

Veronique: It’s really important though for Daniel to be involved. It’s the first time where we see a house in which Bond lives outside London. Until now we see places where, in general, he’s passing through and this one is his world. So it was extremely important for Daniel Craig’s character to keep an eye on everything that was in the house and to give his input and what it should look like.

What would fans be surprised to hear went into the production of the house that they might not have seen or heard of before?

Neal: Well, there was a challenging swimming pool in the middle of that set, which was this little sort of tide pool at the bottom of a waterfall that we always sort of wanted to be full but that was very, very difficult to fill up because the wall that was containing it was built 30 years ago and was leaking all over the place. We were doing everything we possibly could to try and plug the holes in this wall so that there would actually be some water in there for those nights scenes. But we finally managed to do it. I think it basically filled up, we shot it and it drained out again the next day so got very lucky with that. I mean, there was lots of stuff in that house. You know, there was so much created, like on all film sets really. So you’ve got to get everything ready. A set like that was pretty much a 360 degree set. You have limited information on what the DP is going to film and in which way they will want to set up the cameras. So there’s lots of the house that you didn’t see especially in the reverse of the exteriors, behind the house looking out to the sea, Bond’s workshop, all of that stuff. There’s lots of kinds of landscaping done. But I think in the end it it works well because we got the feeling of the place that we designed across, which is in the end that is our job is to create this environment in which the characters can tell their story and if the audience get the idea and you get the flavour of that world they live in then you’ve got get the message of what we were trying to do in terms of design. Then it feels like we have been successful and I think in this case, with Bond’s Jamaican Home, everyone could see what we wanted and it looked great on screen.