Bond 22 director Marc Forster

In an elaborate interview with Swiss newspaper Sonntagszeitung, Bond 22 director Marc Forster has revealed some tidbits about the upcoming Bond 22. While the first part of the interview mainly focusses on Forster’s latest project The Kite Runner, the second part is all about Bond.

Most importantly, Forster confirmed that French Mathieu Amalric and Swiss Anatole Taubman are signed for the roles of the two major villains of the film. Asked whether Switerzland was a shooting location, Forster said, "For a long time, there were two, three locations we could not decide on. But finally, the script developed into a direction where Switzerland would not fit, so it was not an option anymore. Still, I managed to cast Anatole Taubman as the second major villain".

Forster also commented on the question, if the casting of Taubman had anything to with his nationality, as both Forster and Taubman grew up in Switzerland. Forster: "Not at all. Anatole was really really good in the audition. I hadn’t even heard of him before."

Forster also said that he would have loved to have Bruno Ganz portray the main villain. Ganz is a Swiss actor, best known for his role as Adolf Hitler in the highly praised German film The Downfall (2004) about the last days of Hitler in his Berlin bunker. "Still, Bruno Ganz could only have been the main villain. But we already signed Mathieu Amalric for this role".

Asked about his first impressions on working on a Bond film, Forster said that "the producers have supported me in nearly everything I wanted to do so far. Some of my ideas were, however, too expensive. It’s not true that James Bond films have an unlimited budget." Forster also repeated his remarks from a recent New York Times interview. “When James Bond started in the 1960s, travelling was something really exotic. The world has become smaller. When Bond travels to a beach full of palm trees nowadays, it nearly looks banal. In a way, the most interesting remaining journey for Bond is the journey into his mind. We go deeper into Bond himself.” - So will Bond have a split personality? - Forster: "There will be some elements of this, yes."

Start of principal shooting is, according to Forster, January 3, 2008.

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