New Zealand film-maker became a Hollywood fixture in the 90s and 00s, including making Pierce Brosnan’s last 007 movie, before returning to his home country
Lee Tamahori, the New Zealand director of Once Were Warriors and Die Another Day, has died aged 75.
In a statement to Radio New Zealand, Tamahori’s family said he had Parkinson’s and died “peacefully at home”.
Continue reading...The prolific performer played varied roles – from arms dealer to baseball star – and made the rare switch from Bond villain to Bond good guy
Tough-guy actor Joe Don Baker, a prolific performer in movies as varied as GoldenEye, Cape Fear and Mud, as well as the BBC TV series Edge of Darkness, has died aged 89.
Born in 1936, Baker grew up in small town Texas, and studied business administration at North Texas State College. After a period in the army, Baker moved to New York and joined the Actors’ Studio in the early 1960s, where he was a contemporary of Rip Torn. Baker made his Broadway debut in 1963 with the Actors’ Studio company, appearing in Marathon ’33, about the dance marathons of the Great Depression, and made his film debut in an uncredited role in 1967 in Cool Hand Luke. He also appeared in numerous TV series, including the pilot episode of a western show called Lancer in 1968, the making of which was fictionalised by Quentin Tarantino in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton in Baker’s role.
Continue reading...Famously suave actor’s family selling items ranging from Lamborghini skis to luxury watches, cufflinks and numerous silk ties
If you ever wanted to dress, schuss or tell the time like James Bond, now might be your only chance: a selection of items including dinner suits, silk cravats, Lamborghini skis and a special edition Omega Seamaster watch are up for auction, all from the personal collection of 007 himself, Roger Moore.
Moore, who died in 2017, played Bond in seven films between 1973 and 1985, beginning with Live and Let Die and ending with A View to a Kill. His family are selling 180 lots of Moore’s own memorabilia, with part of the proceeds going to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), which appointed Moore as a goodwill ambassador in 1991.
Continue reading...Star of The Wire and Luther says playing 007 would be the pinnacle of an actor’s career, but the discussion became ‘off-putting’
Idris Elba has said that the racist backlash to the prospect of him being cast as James Bond “made the whole thing disgusting and off-putting”.
Elba was speaking on the SmartLess podcast about the continued speculation linking him to the role, saying: “I was super complimented for a long time about this. We’re all actors and we understand that role is one of those coveted [roles] … Being asked to be James Bond [would be] like: ‘OK, you’ve sort of reached the pinnacle’. That’s one of those things the whole world has a vote in.”
Continue reading...Denham Place in Buckinghamshire, which once housed M’s office, being sold by multimillionaire Mike Jatania
A 13-bedroom grade-I listed stately home that featured in the James Bond films Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun has been put up for sale with a price tag of £75m – which would make it one of the most expensive properties ever sold outside London.
Denham Place, which is set in 17 hectares (43 acres) of Buckinghamshire parkland designed by the 18th-century landscape architect Lancelot “Capability” Brown, is being sold by the multimillionaire cosmetics tycoon Mike Jatania.
Continue reading...With no Moneypenny and no M, a previously unpublished script reveals the author’s original ideas for Moonraker
In the action-packed film Moonraker, James Bond escapes from Jaws, the metal-toothed villain, on a hang-glider that ejects from a speedboat just as he drives over the precipice of a waterfall. It is one of numerous outlandish scenes in the film that Ian Fleming never wrote in his original 007 novel. And it could not be more different to the author’s own version of the film, according to a previously unpublished script.
In 1956, a year after the Moonraker novel was published, Fleming wrote his own 150-page film treatment with a plot that is as serious as the 1979 film is lightweight, despite Roger Moore’s charm as the fictional spy.
Continue reading...Britain’s spy chief has thanked China’s state news agency for 'free publicity' after it posted a James Bond spoof that mocked the western intelligence community’s growing focus on threats posed by Beijing. The rare response by the head of MI6, Richard Moore, on Thursday comes as China and Britain clash over Beijing’s treatment of its Uyghur minority and creeping authoritarianism in the former British colony of Hong Kong
Continue reading...Rare response from Richard Moore comes after state news agency posted video mocking western intelligence
Britain’s spy chief has thanked China’s state news agency for “free publicity” after it posted a James Bond spoof that mocked the western intelligence community’s growing focus on threats posed by Beijing.
The rare response by the head of MI6, Richard Moore, on Thursday comes as China and Britain clash over Beijing’s treatment of its Uyghur minority and creeping authoritarianism in the former British colony of Hong Kong.
Continue reading...With his final turn as James Bond in No Time to Die filling cinemas, the actor takes questions from readers and fellow actors about the role, from being smacked around his nether regions to getting over his fear of heights
Most movie stars look tiny up close. Action lads especially. You can’t stop thinking: Vin Diesel is dinky! Statham’s a titch! Am I actually taller than Fassbender?
Daniel Craig is different. He doesn’t loom, but he is bulky. Stonehenge legs, whacking hands, just right for killing a man or mending a washing machine.
Continue reading...The long-awaited 25th outing for Ian Fleming’s superspy is a weird and self-aware epic with audacious surprises up its sleeve
The standard bearer of British soft power is back, in a film yanked from cinemas back in the time of the toilet roll shortage, based on a literary character conceived when sugar and meat rationing was still in force, and now emerging in cinemas as Britons are fighting for petrol in the forecourts.
Bond, like Norma Desmond, is once again ready for his closeup – and Daniel Craig once again shows us his handsome-Shrek face and the lovable bat ears, flecked with the scars of yesterday’s punch-up, the lips as ever pursed in determination or disgust.
Continue reading...No Time to Die brings a 007 era to a close amid fever-pitch speculation and changed sensibilities
“I always joke, how many Bond fans does it take to change a lightbulb?” said Ajay Chowdhury, spokesperson for the James Bond international fan club, the oldest established 007 fan organisation in the world. “One. But 10 to complain how much better the original was.”
As Daniel Craig’s incarnation of Bond draws to a close with the release of No Time to Die next week, rumours over who will replace him have reached fever pitch.
Continue reading...Cary Fukunaga cites scene from Thunderball that ‘wouldn’t fly today’ as new film aims to redress franchise’s gender politics
The director of No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film, has said that Sean Connery’s version of the character was “basically” a rapist.
Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Cary Fukunaga appeared to refer to a scene in 1965’s Thunderball in which Connery’s Bond forcibly kisses a nurse (played by Molly Peters) who has spurned his advances. In a later scene, Bond suggests he will keep quiet about information that could cost her her job if she sleeps with him. “I suppose my silence could have a price,” he says.
Continue reading...Lashana Lynch knew she was on a very short shortlist. She had taped a couple of auditions for Barbara Broccoli, the producer of the James Bond films since 1995. She met and read with Daniel Craig, who would be making his fifth and final appearance in No Time To Die, the 25th 007 adventure, a new release that you may have caught wind of by now. Then, finally, there was the stunt test, overseen by the Bond stunt and armoury teams (yes those are actual departments).
Is that like circuit training? “Deeper than that,” Lynch replies. “They hand you a bunch of weapons and they teach you a routine for a few seconds or a minute and then you basically have to copy the routine. So it was like, ‘OK, grab the gun! Shoot! Get down on your knees! Shoot! Roll on your back! Land on your feet! Shoot! Run, run, run! You’ve run out of ammo! Throw that away! Assemble this gun! Shoot!’ And that was the first out of five routines they taught me.”
Continue reading...Whether acting in Chekhov on stage or a Bond film, the star – who has died aged 52 – was incredibly exciting to watch, remembers the Skyfall director
Most actors are liked by those they work with. A few are loved. With Helen it was unquestionably the latter. People would light up at the mention of her name. I was one of those people.
When I was directing Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night as my final productions as artistic director of the Donmar in 2002, I asked Helen to play the role of Sonya in Uncle Vanya. Word came back that she would love to have a chat about it. She strode into my office, sat on the sofa and immediately told me I had it all wrong. She told me she should be playing Yelena – the other young female role – and then proceeded to spend the next hour telling me exactly why. She left the room with the part. This has never happened to me before or since. All I can say by way of explanation is that it just felt inevitable. She was clearly already half way to giving a superb performance, I simply had to get out of the way and let her complete the job. Which, of course, she did – with utter brilliance.
Continue reading...Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 hit by coronavirus disruption, along with Ghostbusters sequel and Cinderella
James Bond film No Time To Die has been delayed again as Hollywood grapples with the continued disruption caused by the pandemic.
Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 will now arrive on 8 October, the official Bond Twitter account announced. It had been set to be released in April following multiple pandemic-enforced delays.
Continue reading...Apted made his name with the brilliant Up TV series that examined people’s lives every seven years, before going on to become a film-maker of distinction, whose influence cannot be overstated
Michael Apted, who has died aged 79, was a British movie director who – like Ken Loach and Ken Russell – earned his stripes working on TV. But it was his destiny to help create an epic ongoing masterpiece for the small screen with truly cinematic scope and beyond: current-affairs television which had the scale of cinema, combined with the Mass Observation Project and the Roman census.
Granada Television’s Seven Up! from 1964, was, to quote a comedy of the era, not so much a programme, more a way of life. It took 14 British children at the Jesuit age of seven (that is, the age at which the Jesuits’ St Ignatius of Loyola famously said he could “show you the man” if schooled early enough) and interviewed them about their lives and opinions – seven from a working-class background and seven from a posher caste. Then it was updated every seven years, finally spanning 56 years.
The former Bond girl was mistakenly reported dead after being hospitalised following a fall at her home
Tanya Roberts, who played Roger Moore’s love interest in A View to a Kill and later starred in the sitcom That ‘70s Show as Midge Pinciotti, has been hospitalised after falling at her home.
Her publicist, Mike Pingel, mistakenly reported the 65-year-old dead on Monday, leading multiple outlets, including the Guardian, to publish stories saying she had died. Pingel later told the Associated Press that Roberts was still alive as of 10am in California but was in a poor condition.
Continue reading...Daniel Craig hands in his licence to kill, Frances McDormand delivers her best ever performance, Carey Mulligan unsettles in a rape-revenge drama and Tom Cruise reaches for the skies … this year’s must-see films
Paul Greengrass’s latest film is based on the western novel by Paulette Jiles, about a girl returning to her family in 1860s Texas after being kidnapped by the Kiowa tribe. Helena Zengel plays the girl, Johanna, and Tom Hanks plays the man who must look after her: Captain Kidd, an ex-army veteran who makes a living reading aloud from newspapers to illiterate townsfolk, and who is now in the middle of a very big news story.
• Released in the UK on 1 January
The Scottish actor enjoyed a long and varied career but will for ever be associated with the role of James Bond
Sean Connery, one of Britain’s greatest screen stars, has died at the age of 90. The Scottish actor, forever linked with the role of James Bond and regularly saluted as the best to play the famous part, was mourned by the entertainment industry and his many fans on Saturday as the news broke.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said she was “heartbroken” to learn of the loss of the actor, also one of the most prominent campaigners for an independent Scotland: “Our nation today mourns one of her best loved sons. Sean was born into a working-class Edinburgh family and, through talent and sheer hard work, became an international film icon and one of the world’s most accomplished actors.”
Continue reading...The César-winning actor appeared in films by François Truffaut and Alain Resnais, and played religious figures in Of Gods and Men and The Name of the Rose
Michael Lonsdale, the French-British actor whose best known role was the villain Drax in Moonraker but who also appeared in a string of films by auteur directors such as François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette and Alain Resnais, has died aged 89. Lonsdale’s agent, Olivier Loiseau, confirmed to Agence France-Presse that the actor had died at his home in Paris.
Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson said in a statement: “He was an extraordinarily talented actor and a very dear friend. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this sad time.”
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