But the ring, seems so much bigger. A solitaire. And then there's the plaster. Someone wrote perhaps they're even married although I doubt it. More like engaged which is possible because I think she may want some security and he may feel it is time to give a bit of security but by his responses in recent articles, commitment by marriage may still take some time.
I must admit, he does look sulky like he did in BAFTAs. Maybe he was just tired since he had to attend to many interviews. And he seems so much slimmer.
News tidbits
Moderator: Germangirl
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Germangirl
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I don´t think he is much slimmer compared to his usual self. Just slimmer compared to his last Bond and he said, he didn´t want to build up as much in order to be more agile to get hurt less.
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Stupid stuff this, I know. But I like it:
craig no do 4 more?
*goes back to bed*
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I wonder if someone will be able to chart the average proportion of swear words per interview given by DC. I suspect the proportion is going down... slowly.
He always comes across as a bit snarky in interviews.. but then again if I were smoking hot and could kill a man 3 times before he hit the ground, I don't suppose I'd care how I came off in interviews either
_______________________________________________________________
Stupid stuff this, I know. But I like it:
craig no do 4 more?
*goes back to bed*
_____________________________________________________________
I wonder if someone will be able to chart the average proportion of swear words per interview given by DC. I suspect the proportion is going down... slowly.
He always comes across as a bit snarky in interviews.. but then again if I were smoking hot and could kill a man 3 times before he hit the ground, I don't suppose I'd care how I came off in interviews either
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..
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Germangirl
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http://www.hisdarkmaterials.org/news/th ... te-awardsA
Golden Compass Nominated For 5 Satellite Awards
November 30, 2007 16:56 by Sachith Nilaweera
Tagged with The Golden Compass 2 comments
Hollywood's award season begins with the announcement of the nominees for the 2007 Satellite Awards given by the International Press Academy. The Golden Compass has snagged 5 nominations in the following categories:
• Best Animated or Mixed Media Feature
• Best Cinematography (for Henry Braham)
• Best Visual Effects (for Michael Fink)
• Best Sound (for Mike Prestwood-Smith, Mark Taylor and Glenn Freemantle)
• Best Original Song (for "Lyra" by Kate Bush)
Golden Compass Nominated For 5 Satellite Awards
November 30, 2007 16:56 by Sachith Nilaweera
Tagged with The Golden Compass 2 comments
Hollywood's award season begins with the announcement of the nominees for the 2007 Satellite Awards given by the International Press Academy. The Golden Compass has snagged 5 nominations in the following categories:
• Best Animated or Mixed Media Feature
• Best Cinematography (for Henry Braham)
• Best Visual Effects (for Michael Fink)
• Best Sound (for Mike Prestwood-Smith, Mark Taylor and Glenn Freemantle)
• Best Original Song (for "Lyra" by Kate Bush)
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..
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Anglophile
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Lost in the fog of controversy
Escapist epic? Feminist adventure? Critique of Catholicism? As Nicole Kidman continues to defend the dogma-defying film, Elizabeth Renzetti sits down with stars Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott and Dakota Blue Richards to get their take on all the fuss
James Bond is less steely eyed in person than onscreen; he has a surprisingly flighty giggle. On this afternoon, Craig is wearing a brown, shawl-necked cardigan, not a garment you might imagine Bond slipping into for a night at the baccarat tables. He's already started work on the film he is only allowed to call Bond 22, lest his chair fly back and send him into a fiery pit. He says the script, by Paul Haggis, is "great," and that the only drawback of donning the double 0s once again is that it leaves him only so much time to drink beer in pubs before he's recognized. "And that's a shame, because I really like drinking in pubs."
Asked if he's worried about getting caught up in two high-profile franchises, Craig says, essentially, that he's damned lucky to have these two. He's left a space in his schedule for the sequels to the Golden Compass, should they come to pass. And what's he looking forward to in the next Compass? He says, with a laugh, "the relationship with Mrs. Coulter," but he also knows that his character, the rational man in a dogma-bound world, will get a lot more screen time.
Lord Asriel is the scientist and explorer whose radical discovery threatens to shake his world; he's the one, at the beginning of the film, whom the Magisterium is trying to silence. His ambition is to rip holes in the universe, to create dialogue between worlds. "He's a kind of revolutionary thinker," Craig says. "He believes the more knowledge you have, the freer you can be."
The whole article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... nt/Movies/
Escapist epic? Feminist adventure? Critique of Catholicism? As Nicole Kidman continues to defend the dogma-defying film, Elizabeth Renzetti sits down with stars Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott and Dakota Blue Richards to get their take on all the fuss
James Bond is less steely eyed in person than onscreen; he has a surprisingly flighty giggle. On this afternoon, Craig is wearing a brown, shawl-necked cardigan, not a garment you might imagine Bond slipping into for a night at the baccarat tables. He's already started work on the film he is only allowed to call Bond 22, lest his chair fly back and send him into a fiery pit. He says the script, by Paul Haggis, is "great," and that the only drawback of donning the double 0s once again is that it leaves him only so much time to drink beer in pubs before he's recognized. "And that's a shame, because I really like drinking in pubs."
Asked if he's worried about getting caught up in two high-profile franchises, Craig says, essentially, that he's damned lucky to have these two. He's left a space in his schedule for the sequels to the Golden Compass, should they come to pass. And what's he looking forward to in the next Compass? He says, with a laugh, "the relationship with Mrs. Coulter," but he also knows that his character, the rational man in a dogma-bound world, will get a lot more screen time.
Lord Asriel is the scientist and explorer whose radical discovery threatens to shake his world; he's the one, at the beginning of the film, whom the Magisterium is trying to silence. His ambition is to rip holes in the universe, to create dialogue between worlds. "He's a kind of revolutionary thinker," Craig says. "He believes the more knowledge you have, the freer you can be."
The whole article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... nt/Movies/
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Thanks for that! 
You forgot the best part though:
Daniel Craig is on the same message track: The books and the movie, he says, as he sits down for an interview, are "not anti-religious. I think that mainly they're anti-misuse of power." Besides, he says, the controversy is a good thing; it opens the issue up for debate. He spies a magazine with his face on the cover and jokingly slams a notebook on top of his sultry mug.
You forgot the best part though:
Daniel Craig is on the same message track: The books and the movie, he says, as he sits down for an interview, are "not anti-religious. I think that mainly they're anti-misuse of power." Besides, he says, the controversy is a good thing; it opens the issue up for debate. He spies a magazine with his face on the cover and jokingly slams a notebook on top of his sultry mug.
The more joy we have, the more nearly perfect we are. ~Spinoza~
I agree with you. It seems unusual to me that the tabloids seem to be quite curious about Sats. Many celebrities show up in events with their partners but we don't hear questions about them much. Most of the time the media focus on the partners if they are also in the entertainment business (actors or singers, etc.). Sats is not an actor nor a singer so why can they just leave her alone?Ang wrote:yeah and the reasoning behind it is ridiculous. That if someone walks down a red-carpet with you you have to be willing to give their life story to whoever asks. Maybe if he was selling his life to Hello magazine and OK magazine, fair enough, those people bring it upon themselves, but he's not. She's there at these functions as his guest not as the main attraction, the media don't have any right to her life.tigerheart wrote:Elaine_Figgis wrote: Ouch!
The classic story, put 'em up on a pedestal and then tear 'em down.
This is what annoys me about the tabloids... we have no idea from this story what question was put to Daniel (whether it was about Satsuki or his daughter or something else)...
Compass points all-action hero in new direction
The edge may have come off the 007 body, but the mystique of Daniel Craig remains, writes Donal Lynch
IF I mentioned to anyone that I was meeting Daniel Craig last weekend their reaction was usually some version of an envious swoon. One girl begged to be smuggled into the interview room as my "assistant". Another friend texted, exhorting me to "(names sexual act too explicit to repeat here) him on behalf of gay men everywhere". Everyone, it seemed, wanted a bit of Bond.
And yet, in person, I couldn't help feeling a bit underwhelmed by the current 007. The personal trainer-honed body (which he sheepishly admits to having "neglected a bit recently") is hidden beneath a woolly brown cardigan and with the dark circles around his eyes, flecks of grey in his copious stubble and his sunken mouth -- up close it almost look as if he's wearing dentures -- he looks a little too craggy to be mentioned in the same breath as Brad Pitt or George Clooney. He looks more like real person 39 than film star 39. In fact, it's as though he's some bloke from down the rugby club rather than a world-renowned heartthrob.
Of course, he was once just the bloke down the rugby club, in the sleepy home county village he grew up in before he left for London with stars in his eyes. A trickle of television and film work followed his graduation from drama school with his most notable moment in those early years, his full-frontal nude scene in an adaptation of a Minette Walters novel. The plus side of those not-exactly-pretty-boy features is that they lent themselves to greater versatility as an actor. He had a few quietly acclaimed performances behind him before he donned the famous black tuxedo and his fears of being typecast by it don't appear to have been realised as yet. In The Golden Compass -- a Lord Of The Rings-ish fantasy film based on the first of a series of novels by Philip Pullman in which he co-stars with former Bond Girl Eva Green and Nicole Kidman -- he is credible as a ruthless and somewhat mysterious scientist. You never for a second wonder what James Bond is doing stalking around an otherworldly castle with a white leopard.
The film has already generated something of a hoo-ha stateside with the seemingly permanently hysterical Catholic League calling for a boycott because of a supposedly anti-Catholic sub-text to the novel -- the book features a church, which has gone wildly astray from its roots. "It's really silly actually," Craig begins, leaning forward in his chair, "I know that Pullman didn't mean them (the books) to be anti-religious per se. They're anti-misuse of power, be that political or religious power. This is a debate and maybe there needs to be more of that. Debate can only help the church."
Craig is, of course, well used to dealing with the outrage of those who don't know what they're talking about diplomatically. His baptism of fire in the Big Time came with his coronation as James Bond, an appointment that so incensed the blogosphere that a website sprung up with the aim of lobbying the studio to reverse the move (it's since been quietly disabled). Craig was, critics sniped, too short, too ugly and (according to the Sun) too crap with gadgets and cars and not suave enough by half to be considered as a viable successor to Pierce Brosnan. History records that in the end he did rather well as Bond, helping to reinvent him as an action hero with a bit of grit and depth. The film garnered high praise from most critics and did healthy business at the box office. More outings as Bond are planned for Craig although he remains bashful about his success.
"The story has not yet been told about it as far as I am concerned. We'll look back in a few years and we'll only really know then. I'll be a producer on the next one, which is basically me trying to convince people to put their hands in their pockets but also to influence the process so that it's not just a film about huge explosions and sultry women."
Although the part launched him as a leading man and made him a household name he has not thus far achieved either the ubiquity or the tabloid interest of his fellow Brit brat packers, Jude Law and Clive Owen, and this may have much to do with his ability to keep his love life mostly under wraps. Flings with Sienna Miller and Kate Moss were one-day media wonders, although he was distraught at the press interest in the latter relationship, saying "my personal life is personal and I'll cling to that as aggressively as I can." For the past two years he has been dating American film producer, Satsuki Mitchell.
He is affable in person (especially compared to his Golden Compass co-star, Eva Green, who generally treats press queries with chilly disdain), quick to laugh and only becomes slightly rattled when he notices a mini-camera on in the corner of the room -- he's not in the mood to be filmed today. Even journalists' barking mad questions, including "if your personal demon was an animal which animal would that be?" are dealt with gentle good humour.
But in the end, he's only ever going to get so real with a cluster of microphones hovering under his nose and gamely turns every softball question into a neat little marketing soundbite. By the time he leaves I don't feel I've learned too much more about Daniel Craig. Except that as he stood up I saw he was quite a bit taller than I expected. Which is good. Short and craggy would be hard to pull off.
From: http://www.independent.ie/entertainment ... 34629.html
The edge may have come off the 007 body, but the mystique of Daniel Craig remains, writes Donal Lynch
IF I mentioned to anyone that I was meeting Daniel Craig last weekend their reaction was usually some version of an envious swoon. One girl begged to be smuggled into the interview room as my "assistant". Another friend texted, exhorting me to "(names sexual act too explicit to repeat here) him on behalf of gay men everywhere". Everyone, it seemed, wanted a bit of Bond.
And yet, in person, I couldn't help feeling a bit underwhelmed by the current 007. The personal trainer-honed body (which he sheepishly admits to having "neglected a bit recently") is hidden beneath a woolly brown cardigan and with the dark circles around his eyes, flecks of grey in his copious stubble and his sunken mouth -- up close it almost look as if he's wearing dentures -- he looks a little too craggy to be mentioned in the same breath as Brad Pitt or George Clooney. He looks more like real person 39 than film star 39. In fact, it's as though he's some bloke from down the rugby club rather than a world-renowned heartthrob.
Of course, he was once just the bloke down the rugby club, in the sleepy home county village he grew up in before he left for London with stars in his eyes. A trickle of television and film work followed his graduation from drama school with his most notable moment in those early years, his full-frontal nude scene in an adaptation of a Minette Walters novel. The plus side of those not-exactly-pretty-boy features is that they lent themselves to greater versatility as an actor. He had a few quietly acclaimed performances behind him before he donned the famous black tuxedo and his fears of being typecast by it don't appear to have been realised as yet. In The Golden Compass -- a Lord Of The Rings-ish fantasy film based on the first of a series of novels by Philip Pullman in which he co-stars with former Bond Girl Eva Green and Nicole Kidman -- he is credible as a ruthless and somewhat mysterious scientist. You never for a second wonder what James Bond is doing stalking around an otherworldly castle with a white leopard.
The film has already generated something of a hoo-ha stateside with the seemingly permanently hysterical Catholic League calling for a boycott because of a supposedly anti-Catholic sub-text to the novel -- the book features a church, which has gone wildly astray from its roots. "It's really silly actually," Craig begins, leaning forward in his chair, "I know that Pullman didn't mean them (the books) to be anti-religious per se. They're anti-misuse of power, be that political or religious power. This is a debate and maybe there needs to be more of that. Debate can only help the church."
Craig is, of course, well used to dealing with the outrage of those who don't know what they're talking about diplomatically. His baptism of fire in the Big Time came with his coronation as James Bond, an appointment that so incensed the blogosphere that a website sprung up with the aim of lobbying the studio to reverse the move (it's since been quietly disabled). Craig was, critics sniped, too short, too ugly and (according to the Sun) too crap with gadgets and cars and not suave enough by half to be considered as a viable successor to Pierce Brosnan. History records that in the end he did rather well as Bond, helping to reinvent him as an action hero with a bit of grit and depth. The film garnered high praise from most critics and did healthy business at the box office. More outings as Bond are planned for Craig although he remains bashful about his success.
"The story has not yet been told about it as far as I am concerned. We'll look back in a few years and we'll only really know then. I'll be a producer on the next one, which is basically me trying to convince people to put their hands in their pockets but also to influence the process so that it's not just a film about huge explosions and sultry women."
Although the part launched him as a leading man and made him a household name he has not thus far achieved either the ubiquity or the tabloid interest of his fellow Brit brat packers, Jude Law and Clive Owen, and this may have much to do with his ability to keep his love life mostly under wraps. Flings with Sienna Miller and Kate Moss were one-day media wonders, although he was distraught at the press interest in the latter relationship, saying "my personal life is personal and I'll cling to that as aggressively as I can." For the past two years he has been dating American film producer, Satsuki Mitchell.
He is affable in person (especially compared to his Golden Compass co-star, Eva Green, who generally treats press queries with chilly disdain), quick to laugh and only becomes slightly rattled when he notices a mini-camera on in the corner of the room -- he's not in the mood to be filmed today. Even journalists' barking mad questions, including "if your personal demon was an animal which animal would that be?" are dealt with gentle good humour.
But in the end, he's only ever going to get so real with a cluster of microphones hovering under his nose and gamely turns every softball question into a neat little marketing soundbite. By the time he leaves I don't feel I've learned too much more about Daniel Craig. Except that as he stood up I saw he was quite a bit taller than I expected. Which is good. Short and craggy would be hard to pull off.
From: http://www.independent.ie/entertainment ... 34629.html
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Germangirl
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ad78472 wrote:I'll be a producer on the next one, which is basically me trying to convince people to put their hands in their pockets but also to influence the process so that it's not just a film about huge explosions and sultry women."
He is affable in person (especially compared to his Golden Compass co-star, Eva Green, who generally treats press queries with chilly disdain), quick to laugh and only becomes slightly rattled when he notices a mini-camera on in the corner of the room -- he's not in the mood to be filmed today. Even journalists' barking mad questions, including "if your personal demon was an animal which animal would that be?" are dealt with gentle good humour.
Except that as he stood up I saw he was quite a bit taller than I expected. Which is good. Short and craggy would be hard to pull off.
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..
Daniel Craig is lord of 'The Golden Compass'
BY COLIN BERTRAM
Sitting in a tufted chair amidst the plush surroundings of the London hotel Claridge's, Daniel Craig alternates between easy, relaxed chatting and furrowed-brow deep discussion. Topics include his controversial new film, "The Golden Compass," the state of media intrusion on people's lives - both public and private - and how to make the next James Bond film as good as the last, 2006's "Casino Royale."
Clad in a fitted gray cardigan over white shirt, black tie and trousers, Craig, 39, is more animated, friendly and, thankfully, less intense than his Bond persona. At Claridge's to promote "The Golden Compass," opening Friday, the actor is enjoying a break from rehearsals of the as-yet-unnamed 22nd cinematic outing of unkillable British secret service agent 007.
In "Compass" - the first installment of a planned movie trilogy based on the hugely successful "His Dark Materials" novels by Philip Pullman - Craig plays Lord Asriel, an explorer who is uncle to feisty Lyra Belacqua (played by newcomer Dakota Blue Richards), the young girl on whom the epic tale of self-discovery and self-realization centers.
Though some critics accuse Pullman's novels of having anti-religious undertones, the popularity of the books among readers both young and old helped attract a stellar cast to the reported $180 million movie retelling, including Nicole Kidman as the mysterious Mrs. Coulter, Eva Green as the witch Serafina Pekkala and Sir Ian McKellen as the voice of the brave armored Polar bear Iorek Byrnison.
And while Lord Asriel and James Bond share a similar taste for danger, the same can't be said for the actual time each character spends on screen. Though brief, Craig's appearances in "Compass" are crucial to the plot.
You're not actually in the film for very long, are you?
Daniel Craig: [Laughing] No, no. It's not my story - it's Lyra's. She's the star of this movie. We actually did shoot a little bit more that never made it into the finished film, though.
Were you aware of the books before they approached you to do the movie?
I'd read them when they first came out. [They're] not your typical fantasy novel. And I started reading these and thought, "Oh, this is something really different."
Were you worried that the novel's themes would be diluted?
Adapting a book is a minefield. I've been a fan of books and seen the adaptations and thought, "F-, they've screwed this up!" But that's different for everybody, and you can't go into making a movie without saying, "We have to make this clear, and clear to a lot of people that haven't read the book." Otherwise, what's the point of doing it? Saying that, I'm sure there will be some disappointed people.
The ending of the movie is different from the book.
Yes. We actually filmed it as it is in the book, but it didn't make the cut for a number of reasons. One, it would have been a pretty downer way of ending the film. And two, they want to make another two films, so better to leave [this] with a cliff-hanger. But I think the film works as an entity on its own, because it gets across all the key ideas that Pullman put into the books.
Was Philip Pullman heavily involved with the production?
Heavily enough, yes. But he was cool with it 'cause it had already been adapted for the stage - London's National Theatre did it. So he'd already given this up as a story to somebody else. And I think he has a confidence about him - which he should have, because obviously he is very skillful - to do that. And it was no longer about writing, it was about filmmaking.
It's a reunion of sorts for you with Green [Craig's co-star in "Casino Royale"] and Kidman [who acted with him in last summer's "The Invasion"].
And the costume designer, and the set designer and the lighting cameraman - I'd worked with them all before. But I think that's 'cause I've been around a bit. [Laughs]
How was it working with director Chris Weitz ("American Pie," "About a Boy")?
He was great. He'd done a huge amount of work beforehand - and needed to. And I think he did a lot of fighting about what stays in, [as] the filmmakers had been very nervous about the religious content - for good reason. You don't want to alienate the audience, but on the other hand you have to address it because it is an integral part of the story.
My personal opinions about it are that the books raise a great and very interesting debate. ... I think the books have a very high moral standard, I really do. And Chris had to deal with all of that and find clever ways of making it work and keeping people happy.
So now it's back to Bond?
Yes, I'm rehearsing now. Actually, I've been sitting here picking the calluses off my hands as we speak. That part of the process has started again!
You did a lot of your own stunts in the last one.
Tried to do, yeah.
And this one?
That's the plan.
Are you ready for all the media scrutiny again? Can you ever be?
I doubt that you can be because you're constantly sucker-punched. The privacy thing for me is the key. But it's not about protecting myself, because you can't come and give interviews without talking about your movies and saying, "This is what I am and who I am." But family and friends - they didn't choose my career. Their privacy is sacrosanct.
Aside from the personal intrusion, the general media scrutiny was very high for your Bond debut, and you proved yourself - the film was a huge hit, the biggest Bond ever.
It's done all right. [Laughs] But therein lies the rub.
Because now it's double the pressure?
Weirdly enough, it doesn't feel much different than the last time around. I'm not getting quite so much abuse from the English tabloids - but that could still change! [Laughs]
But the pressure is there. If I only make a couple of Bond films, I'd like to be able to look back on at least one of them and think "Oh, that was a good [one]."
I know that sounds like a simplistic way of looking at it, but in terms of moviemaking, we want to make something that looks beautiful, looks stylish. I want this to be a Bond movie, and Bond movies, to me, are "Dr. No" and "From Russia With Love" - they had a style about them that was amazing and different.
Can you look back at "Casino Royale" and enjoy it as a "good Bond film," or are you still too close to it?
I was very happy with the outcome. I saw it on the small editing screens with no sound effects, no music of any sort and watched it from beginning to end and thought, "The story works." At that point I thought that we were going to be okay. 'Cause when you start adding the music and the special effects, the movie starts expanding out - and it did. [It] pulled together in a way that I don't think people were expecting.... That was where we set the bar. Now we have to go for it again. And hopefully go higher.
BY COLIN BERTRAM
Sitting in a tufted chair amidst the plush surroundings of the London hotel Claridge's, Daniel Craig alternates between easy, relaxed chatting and furrowed-brow deep discussion. Topics include his controversial new film, "The Golden Compass," the state of media intrusion on people's lives - both public and private - and how to make the next James Bond film as good as the last, 2006's "Casino Royale."
Clad in a fitted gray cardigan over white shirt, black tie and trousers, Craig, 39, is more animated, friendly and, thankfully, less intense than his Bond persona. At Claridge's to promote "The Golden Compass," opening Friday, the actor is enjoying a break from rehearsals of the as-yet-unnamed 22nd cinematic outing of unkillable British secret service agent 007.
In "Compass" - the first installment of a planned movie trilogy based on the hugely successful "His Dark Materials" novels by Philip Pullman - Craig plays Lord Asriel, an explorer who is uncle to feisty Lyra Belacqua (played by newcomer Dakota Blue Richards), the young girl on whom the epic tale of self-discovery and self-realization centers.
Though some critics accuse Pullman's novels of having anti-religious undertones, the popularity of the books among readers both young and old helped attract a stellar cast to the reported $180 million movie retelling, including Nicole Kidman as the mysterious Mrs. Coulter, Eva Green as the witch Serafina Pekkala and Sir Ian McKellen as the voice of the brave armored Polar bear Iorek Byrnison.
And while Lord Asriel and James Bond share a similar taste for danger, the same can't be said for the actual time each character spends on screen. Though brief, Craig's appearances in "Compass" are crucial to the plot.
You're not actually in the film for very long, are you?
Daniel Craig: [Laughing] No, no. It's not my story - it's Lyra's. She's the star of this movie. We actually did shoot a little bit more that never made it into the finished film, though.
Were you aware of the books before they approached you to do the movie?
I'd read them when they first came out. [They're] not your typical fantasy novel. And I started reading these and thought, "Oh, this is something really different."
Were you worried that the novel's themes would be diluted?
Adapting a book is a minefield. I've been a fan of books and seen the adaptations and thought, "F-, they've screwed this up!" But that's different for everybody, and you can't go into making a movie without saying, "We have to make this clear, and clear to a lot of people that haven't read the book." Otherwise, what's the point of doing it? Saying that, I'm sure there will be some disappointed people.
The ending of the movie is different from the book.
Yes. We actually filmed it as it is in the book, but it didn't make the cut for a number of reasons. One, it would have been a pretty downer way of ending the film. And two, they want to make another two films, so better to leave [this] with a cliff-hanger. But I think the film works as an entity on its own, because it gets across all the key ideas that Pullman put into the books.
Was Philip Pullman heavily involved with the production?
Heavily enough, yes. But he was cool with it 'cause it had already been adapted for the stage - London's National Theatre did it. So he'd already given this up as a story to somebody else. And I think he has a confidence about him - which he should have, because obviously he is very skillful - to do that. And it was no longer about writing, it was about filmmaking.
It's a reunion of sorts for you with Green [Craig's co-star in "Casino Royale"] and Kidman [who acted with him in last summer's "The Invasion"].
And the costume designer, and the set designer and the lighting cameraman - I'd worked with them all before. But I think that's 'cause I've been around a bit. [Laughs]
How was it working with director Chris Weitz ("American Pie," "About a Boy")?
He was great. He'd done a huge amount of work beforehand - and needed to. And I think he did a lot of fighting about what stays in, [as] the filmmakers had been very nervous about the religious content - for good reason. You don't want to alienate the audience, but on the other hand you have to address it because it is an integral part of the story.
My personal opinions about it are that the books raise a great and very interesting debate. ... I think the books have a very high moral standard, I really do. And Chris had to deal with all of that and find clever ways of making it work and keeping people happy.
So now it's back to Bond?
Yes, I'm rehearsing now. Actually, I've been sitting here picking the calluses off my hands as we speak. That part of the process has started again!
You did a lot of your own stunts in the last one.
Tried to do, yeah.
And this one?
That's the plan.
Are you ready for all the media scrutiny again? Can you ever be?
I doubt that you can be because you're constantly sucker-punched. The privacy thing for me is the key. But it's not about protecting myself, because you can't come and give interviews without talking about your movies and saying, "This is what I am and who I am." But family and friends - they didn't choose my career. Their privacy is sacrosanct.
Aside from the personal intrusion, the general media scrutiny was very high for your Bond debut, and you proved yourself - the film was a huge hit, the biggest Bond ever.
It's done all right. [Laughs] But therein lies the rub.
Because now it's double the pressure?
Weirdly enough, it doesn't feel much different than the last time around. I'm not getting quite so much abuse from the English tabloids - but that could still change! [Laughs]
But the pressure is there. If I only make a couple of Bond films, I'd like to be able to look back on at least one of them and think "Oh, that was a good [one]."
I know that sounds like a simplistic way of looking at it, but in terms of moviemaking, we want to make something that looks beautiful, looks stylish. I want this to be a Bond movie, and Bond movies, to me, are "Dr. No" and "From Russia With Love" - they had a style about them that was amazing and different.
Can you look back at "Casino Royale" and enjoy it as a "good Bond film," or are you still too close to it?
I was very happy with the outcome. I saw it on the small editing screens with no sound effects, no music of any sort and watched it from beginning to end and thought, "The story works." At that point I thought that we were going to be okay. 'Cause when you start adding the music and the special effects, the movie starts expanding out - and it did. [It] pulled together in a way that I don't think people were expecting.... That was where we set the bar. Now we have to go for it again. And hopefully go higher.
Great interviews! Thanks so much for posting them. I do wonder how the information about 4 Bond films got started. It sounded so credible when it was first published and no one denied anything, so....???
sigl
"For the ones who had a notion
A notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive!"
Bruce Springsteen, "Badlands"
"For the ones who had a notion
A notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive!"
Bruce Springsteen, "Badlands"
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StarryDannyFan
- Posts: 4187
- Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2007 5:04 pm
- Location: Bristol,UK
This portion of the interview tells me that he is a man who has fully embraced his celebrity status and is attempting to keep grounded despite the minefield that it is. The first outing has toughened him up with regard to how he plans to handle the media....he has a strategy I believe for himself as well as those close to him. Lovely interview....thx Addie.
Are you ready for all the media scrutiny again? Can you ever be?
I doubt that you can be because you're constantly sucker-punched. The privacy thing for me is the key. But it's not about protecting myself, because you can't come and give interviews without talking about your movies and saying, "This is what I am and who I am." But family and friends - they didn't choose my career. Their privacy is sacrosanct.
Aside from the personal intrusion, the general media scrutiny was very high for your Bond debut, and you proved yourself - the film was a huge hit, the biggest Bond ever.
It's done all right. [Laughs] But therein lies the rub.
Because now it's double the pressure?
Weirdly enough, it doesn't feel much different than the last time around. I'm not getting quite so much abuse from the English tabloids - but that could still change! [Laughs]
But the pressure is there. If I only make a couple of Bond films, I'd like to be able to look back on at least one of them and think "Oh, that was a good [one]."
I know that sounds like a simplistic way of looking at it, but in terms of moviemaking, we want to make something that looks beautiful, looks stylish. I want this to be a Bond movie, and Bond movies, to me, are "Dr. No" and "From Russia With Love" - they had a style about them that was amazing and different.
Can you look back at "Casino Royale" and enjoy it as a "good Bond film," or are you still too close to it?
I was very happy with the outcome. I saw it on the small editing screens with no sound effects, no music of any sort and watched it from beginning to end and thought, "The story works." At that point I thought that we were going to be okay. 'Cause when you start adding the music and the special effects, the movie starts expanding out - and it did. [It] pulled together in a way that I don't think people were expecting.... That was where we set the bar. Now we have to go for it again. And hopefully go higher.
Daniel's buff bod
Guys, take note - Daniel Craig's buff body is a result of jogging.
The next Bond instalment starts filming in January and lean-looking Daniel told me: "I'm pounding the streets at the moment - I am working on the body."
But we won't see Dan's firm bod in the famously tight trunks he sported for Casino Royale. He said: "They have been burned."
Guys, take note - Daniel Craig's buff body is a result of jogging.
The next Bond instalment starts filming in January and lean-looking Daniel told me: "I'm pounding the streets at the moment - I am working on the body."
But we won't see Dan's firm bod in the famously tight trunks he sported for Casino Royale. He said: "They have been burned."