'Quantum' Questions Answered By Daniel Craig And Marc Forster
WARNING: Spoilers
Last week, a small group of correspondents from several popular websites were flown to London to take part in a special Question & Answer session with the makers of the 22nd James Bond film, Quantum of Solace.
Daniel Craig and director Marc Forster were available to answer questions (producer Barbara Broccolic chimed in on a few as well) fans had posted on the websites in the weeks leading up to the event.
A wealth of information regarding Quantum of Solace and what the future holds for 007 was revealed. Topics discussed included the story and stunts that went into the making of Quantum of Solace, the gunbarrel, the action sequences including the freefall and others, whether or not Miss Moneypenny, Q and the gadgets will eventually make a comeback, what will–and won’t–be back for Bond 23 and much more.
Scroll down for a snippet of some of Craig’s and Forster’s answers to the fans questions and click on the provided link for the entire article.
Quantum of Solace
Q: With regards to storytelling and characterization, how do you feel James Bond evolves as a character in this movie?
Craig: I hope kind of well. There’s no sort of clear answer. He’s a spy. I think he hardens. I think is slightly distressing. We touch upon it in Casino Royale and I don’t want to get all kind of deep and silly about it. But, he has his heart broken and suddenly you kind of see this broken man and I find that very interesting. But that can’t be James Bond, because he can’t be broken. He can’t, because if he was broken it wouldn’t work. It’s finding that person that we can trust but not and that’s something I wanted to make sure that we put into the first film that I don’t want. Someone just said to me, “well he’s a bit like a bad guy” and I was like, “Yeah, well he kills people for a living.” I mean where’s the ambiguity?
Q: A lot of people asked about Q, Moneypenny and the gadgets whether they might return in this movie or in the next series. If you don’t think so, why or why not?
Forster: Q and Moneypenny are not returning because it’s a continuation of Casino Royale so it wouldn’t have made any sense not to have them in Casino Royale and suddenly bring them back in here as it like picks up an hour right after. I think maybe in the future eventually, but it’s really up to (producers) Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli if they want to bring them back…
Daniel Craig is James Bond in Quantum of Solace
Q: …whether you prefer the more minimalistic approach to the new films?
Craig: I’m easy. If we find the plot right, and I just think that’s really, for me, the most important thing, we’ve got to get the story right. And if it becomes about other things, it becomes distracting, then I’m not into it. If it becomes part and stays part of the plot, then it’s, in. I’m open to anything. I mean, we can go into space; I don’t care…
Q: You’ve spoken about how one of the primary things that brought you to Quantum of Solace was the particular visual style and how much you loved the look of the early-60s Bond films. What was it about this look that was appealing to you and how did you try and incorporate it into this film?
Forster: I felt that in the early Bond films, like Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and so on, production designer Ken Adam’s production design was ahead of its time. It was really ahead of its time and, and I felt like it just had this really cool look from the sort of ’60s and early ’70s–the interiors and the furniture–so I felt that I wanted to have a bit of a retro look with Quantum of Solace…
Q: So the fans also wanted to know about the free fall sequence?
Craig: There’s this aeronautical testing facility which is a vertical fan and discovered…how they discovered it I don’t know. Someone jumped in one day, and, and you can actually fly and it’s as close to free falling as you can get, it’s really tricky and it’s really difficult because every movement is actually sends you off because there’s a two hundred mile and hour wind. So that’s great cause it looks like you’re free falling, but how the hell you film that is a different matter…
Q: Why do you think the Bond franchise has steered towards unknown or obscure actors to play the characters and not co-opt the big A-grade Hollywood actors?
Forster: I think, you know, it’s just so much more interesting, always, to introduce new faces and discover new faces…
Director Marc Forster
Q: How do you think your portrayal of James Bond reflects Ian Fleming’s original vision of the character?
Craig: 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…
Q: 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?
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…
Q: How does Quantum of Solace handle the moral quagmire that James Bond sort of he finds himself in more in the modern world?
Craig: Bond came out of a post war period into a cold war but came more out of the depression that [England] was feeling. I think that, with the knock on effect of losing our empire, [which] had crumbled, here was this sort of man who worked for the government but knew what was right. He knew what was right and did the job to save us all…
Q: You brought in several collaborators from prior films, most noticeably replacing Daniel Kleinman on the opening credits, what has been their response to working on such an expansive production, and have they brought something new to the way a Bond picture is made?
Forster: When I first met with [producers] Barbara and Michael [Broccoli] it was really key, very important for me that I were able to collaborate with my own crew and with the people I made my past movies with; we have a very close collaboration. I worked with MK12 on Stranger Than Fiction on the entire graphics, and I really loved their aesthetics, so I brought them first into reintroduce the graphics for Bond because I felt like the graphics are an important element of story…
Quantum of Solace
Q: Sean Connery once said the secret to playing Bond was to make everything seem effortless. This Bond is not that way at all, what changed and why?
Craig: It’s a different movie and that’s a simple answer to that. That’s a different movie. We’ve based the first one and we based that more in reality and running up scaffolding and making it look effortless … it would just be pointless. It’s just, it doesn’t tie into where we put it…
Q: How do you go about topping the action scenes in Casino Royale?
Forster: It wasn’t ever for me to top the action sequences, just because the opening sequence in CAsino Royale was pretty spectacular, and I felt like I’m not really here to top that. But I felt like for me it was important, the more intensity within an action sequence I can create with Bond, the stronger it will become, and the more the audience will be connecting with Bond in that action sequence, the more powerful it will become…
Q: What is by far and away the single greatest perk of being Mr Bond?
Craig: There are many and I would be lying to you if I said there weren’t. I tend to look at it in this way. We had success with the last movie. I’m hoping that we’ll have some success with this movie, and it’s a very fickle business. So I genuinely try and enjoy as much of what happens to me in these as possible. If I could think of one thing…
Stay tuned to the CommanderBond.net main page for the most complete and up-to-date coverage of Daniel Craig’s return as 007 in Quantum of Solace.