by Mark Edlitz
That’s right, yes. It’s especially important in a series like that, and one can make and carry over notes from book to book. These days it’s much simpler. I can take voice samples and just put them to one side in a separate file so I can come back and say, “Oh yes, that’s what it was.”
How did you come up with your Bond anchor?
That’s an interesting one. There’s a style to Bond. He’s cold. Hard. In my head, I see Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan. I use Roger Moore for the humor and his wry comments. But because Bond is the central character, I don’t necessarily need an anchor. I do have the picture of him in my head, but he’s me as a spy. He’s me as this tough, somewhat misogynistic male character. Very, very strongly male, no-nonsense. What he says goes. It just came out that way while recording the first book and I’ve kept that style all the way through. I just have to say “James Bond” and I can immediately see it in my mind.
Connery is Scottish and Brosnan is Irish. Are you playing with that? Are you doing some version of both of their accents?
No. I used a sort of standard British. When I visualize Bond’s movie counterparts—Connery, Brosnan, and Moore—I take a sense of their persona from them. It’s not all that precise. There are narrators who will make notes on everything and they will be precise and it’s rigid. I’m a little more laissez-faire; I throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks and that becomes it. It’s a looser approach but it works for me.
Thinking of Connery and Brosnan helped form your attitude toward the character?
Yes, certainly. I use their personas. It’s the best parts of all of them. I’m not doing Pierce Brosnan. I’m not doing Sean Connery. I’m doing me influenced by some of their elements. What comes out is unique.
Do you have a recording booth in your house or do you go somewhere else?
Apart from a few occasions, I’ve always recorded at home. Let’s quickly run through the history of audiobooks. At first, audiobooks were recorded primarily in New York and Los Angeles studios. Name actors would go in and be paid thousands and thousands of dollars to sit in a booth and be directed. There was also a sound engineer. When I came over from England to California [in the early ’90s], I had been doing books for the blind for a charity in London. When I came over here, I was attempting to get into theater, and though I did a lot of theater in the Bay area, getting theater work was inconsistent. I was looking around for other work.
A friend of a friend was recording audiobooks in Ashland, Oregon, for Blackstone, the people who published the Ian Fleming Bond [audio] books. I auditioned for them and got the job. They allowed you to sit at home and record. We used tape cassettes and I recorded my first few books in the corner of the garage, surrounding myself with a few [padded] moving blankets to improve the acoustics. Slowly, I got better at soundproofing the room. I was good at self-direction. They used a few narrators around the country like that and slowly the business grew.
When the iPod took off around 2001, audiobooks also began to take off because people didn’t have to change cassettes every forty-five minutes, turn them over or just swap them out—that was a cumbersome thing to do; iPods made it easier to listen to an entire audiobook in one go without having to change anything. The business started expanding and by that time I was recording digitally onto a computer. I think that’s when I invested in my first small booth for my home. Around the time I started doing the Bond books, I had the booth in my house and I do all my work here. It’s been working well for me.
Do you read from a manuscript or from a published edition?
At first, I read from the books themselves. I remember taking a razor blade to the pages of all the books so that I could take them all out. Then you could lay the loose pages flat and record from that. Sometimes they’d send photocopies of the books. Nowadays it’s digital. I read off an iPad in the studio. It’s more convenient. It gets quite hot in a studio if you have extra lighting. With an iPad, you can have dim lighting. Also, pages make a rustling noise, which has to be edited out. With an iPad, you just slide your finger to get to the next page.
How long does it take to record a Bond book?
About six or seven hours. Back in those days, I could do at least three hours a day. Sometimes I’d do four finished hours. A Bond book probably takes only two days in the studio. Three days at the most. That’s apart from the prep and reading the book on my own. I’ve slowed down a little—getting older. Today, I do about two or two-and-a-half hours.
What do you think someone gets out of listening to a Bond book that they don’t get from reading a Bond book?
It’s an interesting question and it varies from person to person. I don’t listen to a lot of audiobooks because I’m working on them all the time. It depends how detailed a reader you are. I know there are people who hate the idea of audiobooks and I’m sure those people probably read every single word on the page, or they analyze every sentence they’re reading, and they can create in their heads an authentic picture that the author was intending. However, with authors from a different era like Trollope and Dickens, where a reader may not be familiar with the phrasing, I can bring out the sense of those sentences. For those books, it’s often a lot easier for people to listen to an audiobook than to read it.
Fleming wrote in an easy style so I’m not necessarily bringing that extra aspect to the recording, but I am pulling it together. My sense of humor perhaps, my understanding of this style of writing may bring more out than somebody just reading the words and looking for the plot points. When some readers get to a long paragraph, they might say, “Oh, let me skip over this bit.” But with an audiobook, you’re forced to sit and listen to every word and that presents the greater picture. I’m not saying that’s true for everybody. Some people are good at pulling everything from the text. I know some people say that audiobooks are for lazy people, but I don’t think so. The listener still has to think.
What about the pacing as you are building to an exciting moment?
To be a good audiobook narrator, you don’t necessarily have to be an actor. But you have to have an actor’s sensibility and that feeling of the demands of the text. You need to know what the text needs in terms of emphasis, speed, pacing, and so on. It’s not necessarily true as a narrator that when you get to the exciting parts you talk more quickly.
I don’t want to do all the work for you. I hate it when American newsreaders put a lot of passion into what they’re reading. “This is a serious story. This is terrible. Oh my god.” Or “Here’s a bright story.” To me, that is doing the feeling for you.
With fiction, you have to go with the truth of the moment and at that moment you might be feeling passionate or sad or happy and so on, but I’m not going to suddenly change it up and emphasize, “Hey, here’s a funny bit” or “This is serious.” That’s for the listener to decide. You want to avoid over-emotionalizing the part you’re reading because not only does that do the work for the listener, but the listener can become less engaged. Listeners have to do the work and make those discoveries for themselves.
You don’t want it to come across like a radio play.
Right, it’s not a radio play. It can’t be a radio play with one person doing all the voices. That is something different.
I’ve listened to the audiobook edition and radio adaption of You Only Live Twice and they’re two different experiences. When you’re narrating, are you the voice of Ian Fleming?
As you know, there are different styles of writing. There’s the first-person narrator, the third-person narrator, and the voice of God. Now, is God Ian Fleming in this case? Yes, he’s the creator. In a sense, yes, I am Fleming. But I’m the neutral voice of God. So, yes, it’s Ian Fleming, but I’m not thinking Ian Fleming when I’m reading.
What is your impression of Fleming’s writing style? Clean and crisp?
Yes, it’s a very simple style. Ian Fleming was a very easy writer to read. That’s not to say he was a bad writer. There’s a facility to his work. He can write
very complex things in a very simple way that makes perfect sense. The sentences are well constructed and they flow from one to the other. I get to read such a broad range of writing styles. When I encounter bad writers, I find that narrating them is like walking through mud; it’s hard. It’s so convoluted and it takes an awful lot of work, and I come out of a day in the studio absolutely drained. And then there are other writers whose work you fly through.
In your mind, when you narrated Raymond Benson’s Bond novels, are you reading the same James Bond as Fleming’s?
Yes, it’s the same James Bond. That’s the short answer. I don’t think I went into it with an idea of rebuilding a character from scratch. When Glidrose Productions approaches a writer and says, “You’re writing the next Bond novel,” I don’t think the writers go away thinking that they’re supposed to create a new Bond. But there are subtle differences, obviously, as the years go by. In the movies, Daniel Craig is certainly very different from Roger Moore, so the writers are writing for a different Bond in that sense, and there will be appropriate changes. I did the Benson books before I did the John Gardner books, so they were recorded out of order [of the original publication]. As a side note, I loved the Raymond Benson books; I really enjoyed them, but I have to say I struggled with the John Gardner books.
Why is that?
Just didn’t like the stories, it’s as simple as that. I thought they were too outlandish. They were like the Roger Moore Bond movies; they were sort of silly. I don’t want to knock John Gardner, but I liked Raymond Benson. The Benson ones seemed more truly Bond to me.
Raymond Benson also wrote The James Bond Bedside Companion and spent as much time writing about Ian Fleming’s novels as he does the movies. He studied Fleming. You might be picking up on that.
That sounds like a book I would like to have discovered in the early days because I love it when people do analyses of whole series and the characters and so on because it does a lot of the work for me.
You’ve done so many books. Taken together, was Bond just one of many jobs—which is a completely fair answer—or does it hold a special place for you?
Oh, it does. It holds a special place. I’m a huge fan. Although I do love Daniel Craig, I’ve fallen in and out of love with the various movie Bonds. But I loved having the opportunity to do it. I’m very proud of what I did. I’m not sure I want to admit this, but it was during the early days of narrating and my American accents weren’t very good. I would love to have a chance to do them all again. I’m not going to. I know famous actors [including Tom Hiddleston, Damian Lewis, and Sir Kenneth Branagh] have redone them. I remain proud of what I did, and I love being somebody who had the chance to record them all.
Tim Bentinck, Andrew Bicknell, Maxwell Caulfield, and Jason Carter Are James Bond
It might surprise those who don’t regularly play video games, but three cinematic Bonds have lent their voice and likeness to 007-themed games. Two years after his last Bond film Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan voiced the spy in James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing (2004), and Sean Connery played Bond in the game James Bond 007: From Russia with Love (2005). Daniel Craig provided Bond’s voice in 007: Quantum of Solace (2008), GoldenEye 007 (2010) and James Bond 007: Blood Stone (2010).
However, it is the exception and not the rule to get the participation of a big-screen Bond. The movie star is usually unavailable or averse to submitting the time-consuming and often tedious task of recording lines and supplying the array of grunts, groans, and other vocal effects needed to simulate the sounds of intense physical exertion of running, jumping, and fighting, which is to say nothing of the exacting chore of producing and differentiating between the sound of a sock to the solar plexus versus a roundhouse kick to the head.
In most instances, voice-over artists are hired to play Bond even though the “official” Bond’s likeness is often used. Tim Bentinck, Maxwell Caulfield, Andrew Bicknell, Jason Carter, and Timothy Watson were all recruited to provide James Bond’s voice in different video games.
Tim Bentinck is the voice of Bond in The World Is Not Enough (2000) and 007 Racing (2000), and he supplied additional lines for scenes in Everything or Nothing when Brosnan, who recorded the vast majority of the game, was not available for an additional recording session.95
Andrew Bicknell plays Bond in Agent Under Fire (2001).
Maxwell Caulfield provides the voice of Bond in Nightfire (2002), a sequel to Agent Under Fire, which used Brosnan’s likeness in the game.
Jason Carter speaks Bond’s lines for the agent’s spy’s brief appearance in GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (2004). The game also features the return of classic baddies Dr. Julius No, Auric Goldfinger, Oddjob, Pussy Galore, Xenia Onatopp, and Francisco Scaramanga, for whom his movie incarnation, the formidable Christopher Lee, provided the voice.96
Timothy Watson creates an effective imitation of Daniel Craig’s no-nonsense Bond in 007 Legends (2012).
It’s worth mentioning that Kevin Bayliss and Adam Blackwood are often incorrectly credited with playing 007 in a number of video games. In separate written exchanges with me, both Bayliss and Blackwood set the record straight on their connection to the franchise. Bayliss, who is a voice artist for video games, told me that he had nominal involvement with the making of GoldenEye 007 and that he didn’t voice Bond’s lines. Blackwood wrote: “Whilst I have played villains in a number of James Bond games, I have never actually voiced James Bond himself. I hope this clears up a mystery and some misinformation out there on the internet.” For good measure, Blackwood playfully added: “Shaken not stirred!”
My interview with Bond actors Tim Bentinck, Jason Carter and Andrew Bick-nell were conducted separately and I have combined them. My interview with Maxwell Caulfield appears separately at the end.
How did you get the part of James Bond?
Bentinck: Well, I’m a professional actor who works in every medium—TV, film, theater, and voice—but the majority of my day-to-day work is voice related. I’ve been in the BBC radio series, The Archers. It’s the longest running drama series of any kind in the world—the first episode was in 1951, and it’s a kind of British institution. I have an agent for visual work, and another, Hobsons International, for voice stuff. One day a call came through, “Tim, how would you fancy playing Bond?” These were the words I’d been hoping to hear since I went to drama school, but when Timothy Dalton got the part, I knew it was never going to happen, Timothy Dalton, Timothy Bentinck—too similar. The joy was tempered slightly by the next question, “How’s your Pierce Brosnan?” Curses, [I get to play] Bond, but no one would know it was me. Boo!
Carter: I believe I had a voice-over agent at the time who would have put me up for the part. I had also previously worked for that game company before.
Bicknell: As far as I am aware, I was put forward by my voice agent and selected [by the producers listening to my reel].
What did the game makers tell you about how they wanted you to play the part? What was their direction?
Bentinck: I’ve voiced a large number of video games, so I know what’s required. The main thing they wanted was an exact voice match with Pierce, so it was not so much finding my Bond but finding his.
Bicknell: They gave me free rein to choose how I played each section and only commented if they needed more humor or drama.
Carter: The instruction was pretty much, “Play it like James Bond.”
How did you arrive at the voice you used for Bond?
Carter: I was born with it!
Bicknell: I played the voice as laconic and interesting as I could and always with a hint of “Bond irony.” Hopefully creating a character that was believable. There is a lot of my character in it.
Did you use the movies or Fleming’s book to inform your interpretation of the character?
Bicknell: I didn’t take anything from the films or books but was advised what the scene needed.
The Bond in your game looks like Pierce Brosnan. Did the producers want an exact soundalik
e or did they want you to simply evoke it?
Bentinck: Yes, they wanted it to sound like him. On each take, they would play me his voice through the headphones so I had a mental picture of his accent and delivery. Of course, he hadn’t said the lines that I was performing, but it kept me on track. Brosnan has a unique accent, part Irish, and part mid-Atlantic, so he’s hard to pin down.
Your video game came out during the Brosnan era. Did that influence your take on the character?
Carter: No, it did not. I grew up with Sean Connery and Roger Moore. However, I have just been made aware that I was voicing a likeness of Pierce Brosnan.
Bicknell: Not at all. I could not be as suave as he.
Andrew, can you talk about the look of your Bond in Agent Under Fire? Some believe he looks like you. Others say he is meant to resemble the cinematic Bond. Can you settle the debate?
Bicknell: As far as I am aware, the Bond game look is generic. I am not aware that it was modeled on me although there are similarities.
Talk about the process of recording dialogue for a video game.
Carter: I think I was there for three hours. There is a recording studio and you are watching video playback while you speak. There is an indicator line that moves along a path, which shows you the length of how long they want the audio.
Bicknell: The recording of the lines is directed by the team who made the graphics. They know what type of delivery is needed for the action on the screen when you often can’t see it [during the recording session because] it’s not finished. You keep doing takes slightly differently until one fits exactly.
What did you hope to bring to Bond?
Bentinck: Strength, charm, a raised eyebrow with hidden steel.
Do you have to find your inner James Bond to play him effectively?
Bentinck: Well, if I’d had the part for the movie, then, yes, I would have been in training for months and approached it differently. In this case, it was maybe two hours in a recording studio, so it was very technical with an emphasis on getting the accent right.