Timothy Dalton gives candid interview about his 007 tenure

27-Feb-2025 • Bond News

Share the Story

Two-time James Bond actor Timothy Dalton, who is promoting his new series of '1923' for Paramount+, gave a candid interview to Vanity Fair this week. For a large portion of the interview, Dalton is quizzed about his stint as 007 and how he looks back at it now.

That brings us close to the 007 era. The Broccolis approached you again about playing Bond in the mid-’80s.

I was doing The Taming of the Shrew and Antony and Cleopatra at the Haymarket Theatre in the West End of London. I wasn’t chasing it. I remember being in a hotel room thinking, What the fuck am I going to do about this? And then I thought, Well, it’s a once in a lifetime, isn’t it? Does good sense say, “Go and do something else,” or does good sense say, “Take a once-in-a-lifetime and then go and do something else”? So you go and do it.

Your Bond was very distinct from the previous ones.

I tried. But then that’s what a lot of people did not like.

I don’t know if that’s true. Do you feel vindicated now that Daniel Craig has finished his run and many people now compare the way he plays Bond to the way you played Bond?

Is that so?

There’s an aspect to your Bond that has more gravitas. I’d say he’s still playful. In The Living Daylights, he still lands on that boat and pops the Champagne…

And goes down the mountain in a cello case.

But you delivered a grimmer aspect to him: This is a guy who does dirty work sometimes. There are many comparisons between your Bond and Daniel Craig’s that are very favorable and say essentially you laid the foundation for that type of character.

Nice to think so. You’re confronted by a lot of problems. You’re taking over from someone. You don’t copy them. So that’s dangerous. And one of the things you have to remember is almost every person in the world who’s ever seen a Bond movie has a point of view about the Bond movies. It’s astonishing.

Are you generally happy with how your Bond movies turned out?

Some of it works very well. I like a lot of it.

Have you ever had a conversation with any of the other actors who’ve played Bond?

No. Well, I’ve spoken, yes, but not about Bond. Roger Moore, I met in the South of France and he was delightful. A really kind, nice, generous sort of person. Sean Connery, believe it or not, I met in a toilet. But no mutual recognition. I mean, one is discreet in a men’s room.

But you and Roger really never spoke about this character you both shared?

No, that’s a pain in the ass. “Can I talk to you about Bond, please?” “Fuck off.” [Laughs.]

Doesn’t it feel like an elephant in the room, though?

It is very much! But he was great. I know Pierce Brosnan a little bit, and I don’t know Daniel Craig, but I think I’ve met him once.

Do you wish there had been more Bond movies for you?

I don’t wish there was more.

My understanding is that a third film with you was delayed by a lawsuit over the rights, then when the parties finally came around to making another one years later, it was your choice to not return.

I would say so. Or it may have been that timing was involved.

Once you let it go, was there any regret?

No, not in the slightest. I have some good friends from the Bond days, some really good people, but they’re trapped. Everyone’s trapped by it in a way. I never really wanted to do more than three, but he wouldn’t accept that.

You mean Cubby Broccoli?

Yeah—who I thought was a terrific man. I really liked him. I think I’m just getting to the point where, “Why the hell am I talking about James Bond?” We should forget it.

I think 007 means something to people.

It does. It means a lot to a lot of people…. Let me ask you a question: What value do you think something like James Bond has? It has entertainment value, of course. But does it have any real serious value?

I think it does. You have to think about what people get out of these movies. There’s something about the precision of Bond, the elegance of Bond that people wish they had. Most of us are just bumbling and fumbling. The way you played him, he was suave, but also dangerous.

That to me would be right. I think it ended up being like that because it’s much more attractive—but it’s a nasty fucking job.

You mean being a spy in real life?

Betraying people, killing people, and risking your own life. If it’s really important, then it’s worth doing. But you wouldn’t want your son or your friends doing it. You are betraying everybody around you because you’re deceiving them in order to get what you want.

That’s the reality of espionage, but the romantic version of it is Bond.

How romantic do you think those first James Bond films were? If you remember that fight on the train [in From Russia With Love], there’s nothing romantic about that. That was a fabulous fight. But I think they’ve all gone way into fantasy now.

Maybe, but I’ll give you an example from The Living Daylights. You just said, “These are characters who betray each other, they lie,” but he has the opportunity to shoot Maryam d’Abo in the opening scene and he chooses not to. And that makes him different from someone who just follows orders, because in real life he would’ve just shot her.

Spot on. That is the moment!

As a viewer you think, “I’m on his side because he has a moral code.”

Yes, I’d forgotten that.

Everybody lies to Bond in that movie. He’s the only honest one.

[Nods.] Everybody lies to everybody.

I think that’s why I’m so fond of that film and your performances. That’s why people still want to talk about it.

Also, because 007 affected all of us from a very young age. One of the first movies all of us ever saw.

Cubby Broccoli’s family, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, oversaw the Bond franchise for many years after his death in 1996, but the news just broke that they’ve stepped back from creative control in a deal that gives those rights to Amazon. Have you followed that?

I have read about it and I find it very, very surprising. Whether it will work or not, who knows? Barbara is a wonderful woman, a wonderful person with James Bond very much in her heart. She’s learned so much from her dad. Her dad was like iron about the Bond shows. He’d got it started in the first place, and he made sure that what was in the films were what he wanted. I thought he was a terrific man. Now, what can you say? You just have to say that you hope Amazon does a damn good job. You can’t say anything other than good luck and make it well. Follow the master.

Do you have anything you would say to whomever ends up playing 007 next?

Well, whoever does it has got to have a very clear sense of what they want to achieve, because everybody in the world has got a different opinion about it.