WHAT WAS THE FIRST BOND FILM YOU SAW?
"'Dr No', I was a little kid. My grandmother took me to the movies a lot in Times Square. You'd get
three movies, two kung fu films, then your James Bond movie. I remember 'Dr No', cos that was dope! There was all that Caribbean shit goin' on! And the soundtrack was so dope! There was the song (
Sings in 'Caribbean' accent) 'Underneath the mango tree'! That was my first introduction to Bond and his many ways."WHAT DID YOU LIKE ABOUT BOND?
"The surrealness of it all. I liked the fictitious
bearing that all the criminals had, like they had some real weight. There was such a rich seam of ridiculousness to the whole thing."
DID YOU THINK THE BOND GIRLS WERE SEXY?
"I always appreciated their sensuality. The girls were hot, but it wasn't like Russ Meyer. It was a little classier than that. All the girls I knew loved James Bond, so going to see the movies
was like going to a party full of girls. Ladies' night! Hell, its ladies' night every night when Bond's in town!"
DID YOU LIKE THE GADGETS? YOUR FAVOURITE?
"I liked the pen that you could shoot like a gun. You can get those, so look out! Next time you mess with some corporate dude, he might pull out a Mont Blanc 9mm and blow you away!"
WHO WAS THE BEST BOND?
"Sean Connery. Hands down! No diss on Roger Moore, he did a great job – 'The Spy Who Loved Me' is a great film – but Sean is the definitive Bond. Timothy Dalton was a bit lame! George
Lazenby gets his props from me. 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' is an underrated film."
THE BEST BOND GIRL
"Britt Ekland. She epitomised the whole 'Blonde Bombshell' thing. She was a great-looking girl, enough to make any guy want to be Bond."
BEST BOND FILM?
"'Goldfinger'. It had all the elements we like about Bond in one film. I had a kickin' Shirley Bassey theme, the imagery of the golden woman and the golden gun. Christopher Lee was
incredible as the intelligent bad guy, Scaramanga. It's the film I always love seeing."
BEST BOND BADDIE?
"Christopher Lee as Scaramanga. He had such style and played the part so skilfully.
Scaramanga was a bad guy you could really believe in. He was less cartoon-line and way more real. That made him all the more terrifying, of course."
WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE IN A BOND FILM? AND WHAT WOULD YOU BE?
"I'm not really sure I'd like to be in one, it might strip too much of the mystique away for me.
The producers are unlikely to pick a guy with an accent like mine to play Bond, so I'd probably end up playing 'Belligerent Bad Guy, 2, With Gun'."
IF YOU WROTE A BOND FILM, WHAT WOULD THE PLOT BE?
"There is something in the works here. I'm not at liberty to discuss that we're having talks with Spielberg. I can't say any more! In my other Bond film. I'd have a realistic contemporary bad
guy. Let's make it Bill Gates! I'd have him as a mad scientist who's built this doomsday device, a Y2K device!
"Q has to give Bond a computer manipulator in the shape of a cigarette. So, Bond's walking around with this cigarette hanging out of his mouth and it turns all bad things in these
computers to good. I may have to go away and work on this a bit!"
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE DRESSED AS BOND?
"It feels great! I love wearing a tux. The one I'm wearing is double-breasted which is not really my style, but in my film, I'm golden! Catch me later tonight, I'll be wowing the ladies!"
WHO DO YOU THINK SHOULD BE THE NEW BOND?
"The Brosnan guy is doing pretty well. He's got
some pretty good elements to his character. He has this crazy edge, which is cool. The one he did where he killed a whole bunch of people after they killed his old girlfriend, that was real cool.
"Its always great when Bond gets off the hook, waxing people! If a new one had to be chosen I'd go for a good-looking English guy, the accents important… maybe Ralph Fiennes. I can't see
Brosnan giving it up though. He's lovin' it. He's got a couple more years in him, easy."
BOND IS A SEXIST XENOPHOBIC, ANACHRONISM. DISCUSS.
"Yeah, all that true and he probably pulls all those
girls hair, too! I guess Sean Connery was the last Bond to smack a girl up, right? 'Sir, would you like a dr…' Smack! Bond is a sexist, he objectifies women, but in a lot of ways the
character is objectified by women also. James Bond is an icon, not a person. When he first appeared, that kind of behaviour was, if not slightly more acceptable, the certainly more common.
"Anyways, the guy has a licence to kill and a licence to thrill! If you're living on the edge – like James does- then you need some good lovin', and he's just man enough to ask for it! If that a
bad thing then all of us who love James Bond are guilty too!"
Interview by Rob Fitzpatrick
