Former villains Kotto and Bean reflect on their brush with Bond
17-Dec-2006 • Bond News
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"Bond girls" and "Bond villains" are an elite bunch, indeed. When it comes to villains, even if you can't recall the actors' names, their screen personas are part of American pop culture: Ernst Blofeld (played by three different actors, Anthony Dawson, Telly Savalas and Charles Gray), "Oddjob" (Harold Sakata), Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe), "Dr. No" (Joseph Wiseman) and "Jaws" (Richard Kiel).
With the release of all of the Bond films (except for the latest, "Casino Royale") on DVD (MGM Home Entertainment), two of the actors who portrayed Bond villains -- Sean Bean (Alec Trevelyan/ Agent 006 in 1995's "GoldenEye") and Yaphet Kotto (Mr. Big/Dr. Kananga in 1973's "Live and Let Die") -- talked to the Sun-Times about their coveted roles.
Both Kotto and Bean are trained actors. Kotto was a member of the Actors Studio in New York, while Bean is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Bean has played both the bad guy and the guy who breaks your heart in films such as "The Lord of the Rings," "Troy," "National Treasure," "North Country" and "Patriot Games." Bean's next project is the role of the psychopathic killer John Ryder in the remake of "The Hitcher."
Kotto has amassed an impressive body of work with films such as "Midnight Run," and "The Star Chamber," as well as the television miniseries "Roots." He most recently starred on television in the groundbreaking series "Homicide: Life on the Street."
Q. How much fun is it to play a Bond villain?
Sean Bean: I love it. It's more fun to play the bad guy. 006 was such an interesting character and the film really explored his friendship with Bond and how it all went wrong, so it was a very personal journey for both characters. And to quell the rumors, I never auditioned for the role of Bond.
Yaphet Kotto: It's very cool to be known as one of the villains. It's great being a part of history in that sense. But they never really promoted my character when the film came out. They had never seen a black man chasing a white man across the screen like that, so it was a very odd situation.
Q. What were your respective James Bonds like?
SB: Pierce [Brosnan] was a good Bond. I think every actor who plays Bond brings his own qualities to the role. Daniel Craig, for example, is more violent and darker, but I always thought he'd be good. But my favorite Bond is still Sean Connery. He was a man's man. He wasn't a sissy.
YK: I didn't know much about Roger [Moore], so I really didn't have feelings about him one way or the other. He was doing his thing and I was doing mine.
Q. What's the coolest thing about playing a villain?
SB: A bad guy has to have unpredictability. You have to be able to make the audience sympathize with your character without being cheesy. I like playing intelligent bad guys. They have to have an agenda. Plus, I do think there's something sexy about them. They're driven, passionate, edgy. It's quite seductive for a character to achieve all that.
YK: The coolest thing for me was being a black American brother in England. I was making all kinds of mistakes when I'd be out on the town because I really didn't know the customs and such. So I met this wealthy English woman who befriended me and told me to stay in London for a while when the filming was done to get some polish. Here I was, this brother out of New York City living in this apartment in Kensington. (Laughs) Can you imagine how that was? But I came to love London. I still do. I went back there to do "Alien" and some theater work. I love being there.
Q. Were you insulted that your villain, Kananga, was a drug dealer?
YK: It didn't bother me because that's what Ian Fleming wrote. If somebody had just made that up, you know, like, hey, we need a black drug dealer, then I would have been really bothered. The role was the role that was created by Mr. Fleming. Not gonna argue with that. What bothered me was the movie's character of the [stereotypical Southern] sheriff [J.W. Pepper, played by Clifton James]. That character bothered me.
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