Wow! That was excellent. Thanks so much for sharing it.
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This may seem like I’m bashing Dalton, but nonetheless this is what I felt while reading his responses. He is right about every person having a point of view about the Bond movies. It was absolutely right for Dalton to break from the Moore template and do something else. However I feel he wants the movies to be something they really weren’t, or is exaggerating certain elements.
I agree with the interviewer. Espionage may be dirty in real life, and there are aspects of that in the movies, but Bond is a glamourised reality which gives the franchise its identity, whether one likes that or not.
Bond can be nasty but he’s also charming. To me it’s that contrast which makes it all so good. I don’t think it’s ever been this pitch black, dirty thing. During the Everything or Nothing documentary Dalton says he brought “his reality to it” and Bond murdered in cold blood (possibly referring to the original Connery films). There’s obviously Dent, after an attempt is made on him. Is there anything else?
Bond slept around in the original Connery films but I do feel he cared for the leading women even if he wasn’t looking for long term commitment, especially the likes of Tatiana on the train when she’s drugged. There’s nuance.
I understand the feeling about being ‘trapped’ by Bond, but this is why I appreciate the likes of Roger Moore and Adam West. They accepted their character is how they will be remembered and embraced it. Bond is escapist fantasy and I don’t think that’s something we should forget about. We all need it to some degree.
I’m a fan of Dalton’s acting and like his two films. I’m glad he got to do things his way, especially with LTK. I can’t deny he was a pioneer in wanting the films to strive for something more real, even if I think that philosophy can leave the confines of the Bond world at times. It’s good to see him talking about his tenure again.
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He must carry regret and disappointment with him, even if he also must deny it in interviews. So he does what every human being does: he distances himself from those feelings and tries to appear unburdened by it.
But I agree: he was a great Bond, an interesting one, and for the times his films were made they were the best they could be.
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The impression I got from the interview is that Dalton moved on from Bond a while ago, and while he’s willing to indulge interviewers who want to talk about 007, his interests are elsewhere. So when the interviewer brings up Bond’s fantasy appeal, Dalton (currently playing a nasty villain in 1923) notes that spying is a nasty business. That’s probably the more interesting topic for him nowadays. Moving on is in Dalton’s nature—after all, he only wanted to do three Bonds.
Roger Moore and Adam West embraced their roles, but in Roger’s case it’s because he was winding down his acting career, and West decided to put aside any bitterness about Batman when he was heading into old age and realized he would never escape typecasting. Like Connery, Dalton wanted to do plenty of other things besides Bond, and indeed he has and will likely go on doing so. Bond is just one of many old roles to him, to be treated with with respect but not reverance.
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Good points y’all.
Thanks for the interview Revelator. There was some good responses from Timothy Dalton there, and I thought the interviewer did a terrific job both in questions and in interjecting his own opinions to get some more thoughtful responses from Dalton.
I agree with secretagentfan that Dalton has to have some regret over how his tenure turned out–both in its shortness and the relative lack of success he had at the time. But fortunately, it hasn’t seemed to hurt his career–or caused him to be typecast–and he’s even been able to play off the James Bond fame a little bit without it being intrusive in his roles. He seems like a good guy who puts a lot of thought into Bond and his other roles. I hope he is aware that he does have Bond fans out there and that he is gaining/re-gaining an appreciation for his 007 efforts.
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I hope so too. I can tell he’s a deep thinker with genuine respect of Cubby and the Fleming creation, the very roots of each iteration of the character.
I like how the limited run Bond actors (Lazenby and Dalton) appear in movies that are spy centric and focused on relationships. They didn’t have long eras but they followed a template that is closer to Fleming than not, and of good movies in general. Strong soundtracks, especially OHMSS and TLD, and great casting.
LTK gave him the opportunity to be as ruthless as he wanted to be, case in point “compliments of Sharkey.” I’m willing to buy certain circumstances can send Bond over the edge, making his actions seem more rebellious than usual.
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