The Many Lives of James Bond

by Mark Edlitz

  What motivates your Bond?

  Bentinck: I recently went back and reread all the novels. The astonishing number of cigarettes he manages to get through. [In Casino Royale, Fleming writes that Bond] “lit his seventieth cigarette of the day,” combined with slapdash preparation and a willingness to throw himself into ridiculously dangerous situations suggests a death wish above all else. He lives for the adrenaline rush and hang the consequences. This may be why he became such a hugely popular hero; he exemplifies a life that no normal person leads, and so he is the ultimate male fantasy character.

  Carter: He is focused on completing the mission.

  Who is your preferred James Bond?

  Bicknell: Bond for me will always be Connery. [He played Bond as] a devil-may-care maverick who knows no rules.

  How did you approach saying, “Bond, James Bond?”

  Bentinck: Listening to Brosnan saying it, over and over! I’m a good mimic.

  Bicknell: As an actor, you always play the script in the most believable way you can; it must sound authentic.

  What parts of yourself did you bring to Bond?

  Bicknell: I have a slightly maverick nature and, I hope, a good sense of humor.

  Do you get a kick out of telling people that you’re James Bond?

  Bentinck: Oh, a huge kick. It’s on the bucket list of every actor. I’m David Archer in The Archers, I was the voice of the [London Underground safety warning] “Mind the Gap” on the Piccadilly Line, and I’ve played James Bond. Three icons of England.

  Carter: A gentleman came up to me at a convention recently and asked me to sign his game, telling me I was his first Bond. That was neat. Otherwise, I don’t think most people who are my fans for sci-fi reasons are aware of my involvement with the Bond franchise. [Jason Carter played warrior Marcus Cole on the sci-fi show Babylon 5 (1995–1998).]

  What place do the video games have in the Bond franchise? How do you think they contribute to the Bond legacy?

  Bentinck: That’s really hard to answer. I’ve never played the games, although my sons have, and I’ve heard myself in context. I think the books and the films are the real deal; the games are less interesting really.

  Carter: It’s a cool way for Bond fans who also enjoy video games to be able to inhabit and/or play alongside their hero interactively.

  Bicknell: I think the games are an integral part of the Bond [legacy] and keep the spirit of Bond alive.

  What does it mean to you to have joined the group of official Bond actors?

  Bicknell: Even when you are a small section of the Bond marque, it still sends a sense of pride through you to utter, “My name is Bond.”

  Carter: It’s nice to sneak my way onto a list that includes Sean Connery, David Niven, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig. I feel privileged that the video game voice-over I did has forever associated me with James Bond. That makes me smile. I didn’t see that coming.

  Bentinck: It’s too late for me now to ever get the film gig, but no one can take away from me that somewhere in the world, someone is hearing me say, “The name’s Bond, James Bond.” I can die happy.

  Maxwell Caulfield, who played Bond in Nightfire, set aside my questions and wrote the following illuminating response: I feel that to get my opinion of the experience of playing the fabled James Bond as a voice-over actor is a stretch. There’s nothing really to it. You’re reading lines off a tightly formatted script in tandem with the structure of an intricately constructed video game. Of course, you have to have the suitable tone and inflection and bring a certain nuance of character to the recording booth, but you are hardly living out a Bondian fantasy. Far better to be narrating an audiobook of one of the original Ian Fleming novels, all of which I read as a very early adolescent.

  [Video game producer] Electronic Arts booked me to come into the hired studio in Burbank over the course of a long hot summer. I recall going in and picking up a standard fee on several occasions, with each recording session lasting no more than maybe six hours. I remember being pleased that fellow actor friends Samantha Eggar [who plays M] and Ian Abercrombie [who plays Alexander Mayhew, an employee of villain Raphael Drake, who helps Bond], were onboard for the project and it was nice to catch up with them whenever our sessions overlapped. The producers were quite sure of what they required from each line of dialogue, for what they felt would bring intensity and impact for the gaming experience. But this was not the same as being flown to multiple exotic locations around the world, bedding beautiful women, ripping off bullets, slugging heavies, tearing around in turbocharged supercars, and utilizing state-of-the-art gadgetry to foil villainous megalomaniacs hell-bent on global domination.

  No, the closest I came to getting into the real mix was taking a meeting at Eon’s front office on Piccadilly in London with their long-standing casting director Debbie McWilliams [who cast fourteen Bond films].97 I didn’t go on tape or even read any scripted lines as I recall. It was her mission to always be aware of potential candidates for the coveted “license to kill.” Naturally, I was excited to have had respected agent Jeremy Conway submit me for consideration for a role that any red-blooded British male thespian with an inclination towards adrenaline-pumping, image-enhancing athleticism and displays of derring-do would naturally jump at. But we both knew I was almost certainly too young and frankly probably lacked the mettle at that point. It certainly never went any further and I never met a director or either Albert or Barbara Broccoli. I probably fit a certain profile during the time between Pierce Brosnan having been asked to do the role and Timothy Dalton being drafted in his place because of contractual issues [preventing the release of] their first choice from an existing television contract.

  Double-O-Seven is a fantasy character and his staying power in the public’s imagination and the seemingly ever-increasing success of the franchise at the box office is a tribute to the principal architects at Eon charged with sustaining their incredible run. It is their careful choice of directors, screenwriters, designers, composers, stunt coordinators, and myriad other departments that have been recruited from the ranks of Britain’s finest film personnel that has made it what it is and hopefully what it will continue to be. But ultimately and crucially it is the selection of the man himself that truly determines if it works or not. I could elaborate on whom I feel has been most compelling and believable at being MI6’s most lethal and suave superagent but that would be one actor’s passing judgment on another—never a great idea, particularly as I’ve met almost all of them over the years, and terrific guys they are, too. You do require a combination of genuine cool, a wry sense of humor, and latent menace to make the character really click.

  For my part, it was really brought home to me that I’d never get to chamber the Walther PPK, slip into the Aston or require a martini prepared in a specific way when I got a call from my Los Angeles voice-over agents, the same ones who’d booked me on the first one, to see if I’d be prepared to record an audition for Electronic Arts’s very next installment of their best-selling Bond video game. Naturally, I declined.

  Dietmar Wunder Is James Bond

  “Mein name ist Bond, James Bond.” That’s how Bond’s classic introduction is uttered in German-speaking countries. The actor who has dubbed all of Daniel Craig’s Bond’s lines from English into German is Dietmar Wunder.98

  But Dietmar’s voice work isn’t limited to the Eon films. Wunder has spoken Bond’s lines in the German edition of the Craig-era video games, James Bond 007: Blood Stone and 007 Legends. He is also the narrator for the German releases of the audiobooks of the Bond continuation novels, Jeffrey Deaver’s Carte Blanche (2011) and William Boyd’s Solo (2013).

  When German fans curl up to a book on tape narrated by Wunder, they are listening to the voice of an official Bond reading to them.99 Hearing a Bond actor narrate a book must be a pleasurable experience, even if it also results in a slight case of cognitive dissonance, as the Bond in question is reading a different ver
sion of the character from the one we know in the movies. It can be as delightfully disorienting as it would be to find Sean Connery reading Raymond Benson’s High Timeto Kill or Roger Moore narrating Anthony Horowitz’s Trigger Mortis.100

  As the voice of James Bond in movies, audiobooks, and video games in the German-speaking world, Dietmar Wunder is a full-service Bond.

  How did you get cast as the German-speaking voice of James Bond?

  There was a voice casting for the part of James Bond for almost half a year. They listened to actors whose vocal range was similar to Daniel Craig’s. Then in September 2006, I received a call from the dubbing company Interopa Film GmbH and they said, “Sony Pictures decided; you are working for Her Majesty’s secret service. The production company decided that your performance and your voice match the performance of Daniel Craig, aka James Bond.”

  How does the recording process work?

  We watch the entire movie before the recording so we have an idea of the performance. Then we watch a short clip, known as takes, of each scene. Then we re-create the moment. We work intensely in the studio during the recordings.

  How did you settle on the voice you used? Of course, it’s your voice but you could have used a different timbre.

  As an actor, I have my voice range from a high to deep. When I dub an actor, I use the timbre from my voice that best matches the original. It’s important that it has to be believable. I used the deeper range of my voice with Daniel Craig. With Adam Sandler, I use the higher range. [Wunder has dubbed many of the comedian’s movies.]

  Dietmar Wunder, the German voice of Bond.

  COURTESY OF DIETMAR WUNDER, © INGRID THEIS

  What are you trying to convey about Bond and his character through your voice?

  To the best of my ability, I want to transmit the coolness, the calmness, and self-confidence of his character.

  What aspects of Ian Fleming’s Bond do you use in your performance?

  Fleming created a man with a lot of baggage from his upbringing. Bond is also a [fiercely] loyal agent to MI6. But at the same time, he also follows his instincts with no mercy.

  What do you think motivates Bond?

  Daniel Craig’s Bond is really close to Ian Fleming’s books. He’s a man who is driven by his job and by his duty. He’s sometimes cold, with no mercy. Then he’s fragile. He’s always alone. But when the moment is right, he is the most charming man on Earth. After all, he is looking for love and the one woman in his life.

  If you were voicing a different Bond actor, would you have used a different voice?

  With my wide vocal range, I always try to match my voice to the original actor. That means that I probably would sound different under those circumstances. But those great actors before Daniel Craig already had brilliant German actors as their German voices.

  You mentioned other German actors who have dubbed other Bond actors. It made me think about the other countries that are also listening to Bond in their own languages, as opposed to reading subtitles. For them, Bond’s voice isn’t necessarily exclusively English. Do you think that it’s important for Bond fans to hear Bond in their native tongue?

  Dubbing is always a wonderful way to transform a foreign-language film into a language that is your own. This way, you not only understand the words but you might also understand the culture a little bit better.

  When you think of Sean Connery’s Bond do you think of him with his Scottish accent or with the voice of a German voice actor?

  For me, Connery’s Bond with Gert Günther Hoffmann’s voice is my Bond from my youth. Of course, later I heard Connery’s original voice and I really like his Scottish accent, but when I think of Connery’s Bond, he speaks German.

  What was your approach to saying Bond’s classic line, “The name’s Bond, James Bond?”

  First of all, it was a wonderful experience to say one of the most famous and coolest lines in film history. My approach was to listen to the original version and transport it with my feelings and soul into German. The most intense work is during the recording of that moment.

  Has your approach to the part changed over the course of the films that you voiced?

  Every movie is different, so my approach is always a little different. Also, my acting process has also changed over the years. Like Craig’s voice, my voice has aged a little. But these [adjustments] happen unconsciously. At the same time, every time I go back to playing Bond, it is a little bit like meeting [an old] friend.

  When viewers see a Daniel Craig Bond movie that is voiced by you, are they experience the same James Bond character as an English-speaking audience? Or are they experiencing a different Bond?

  The original language of the film is English and our language is German. By their nature, the feeling is different. It has to do with how you experience the German language as compared to the English one. What I hear from the German audience is that the German version of the film conveys the charm, elegance, and coolness of James Bond very well. So I would say it is not a different Bond.

  You’ve also played Bond in video games and narrated the Bond books Solo and Carte Blanche. When you narrate the Bond books, which are not based on Craig’s interpretation, are you nevertheless playing the Craig Bond from the movies?

  In all the books and video games, I always have Craig’s interpretation of Bond in my head. Even if the books are set in a different time or Bond has a different hair color than Craig, I always think of Craig. So, for the audience, it may sound like the actual Wunder/Craig Bond.

  How would you describe the Wunder/Craig Bond?

  First of all, this is up to the audience, but I try to perform as believably as possible so that the performance that Daniel Craig [gives] is transported into German and everybody thinks, wow, James Bond can speak German.

  When you play Bond, do you feel like Bond?

  I am like a boy, so it is always so much fun to play one of the coolest agents in the world.

  Are you recognized as Bond?

  Yes, it happens often that people come up to me and say, “You sound so familiar.” Sometimes they even say, “Aren’t you the voice of Bond?” and “You know what? You sound like James Bond.”

  Do fans ever ask you to record their cell phone messages as Bond?

  Yes, they do.

  Have you met Daniel Craig?

  No.

  What is your favorite memory of playing Bond?

  Actually, the whole experience, but to say the line, “My name is…,” is just awesome. In English, it’s “The name is…” Also, the scene in Casino Royale on the train with Vesper. [In that memorable four-minute dialogue-driven scene, Bond and Vesper verbally flirt, joust, and jockey for dominance as they delve deeply into each other’s psyches.]

  What does it mean to you be Bond?

  As a teenager, I wanted to become an actor after watching Sean Connery as James Bond. It means a lot to me. Who doesn’t want to be James Bond and try to save the world?

  Has playing Bond changed your life in any way? Not professionally, but personally?

  One of my dreams came true. I am part of James Bond history in the German-speaking world.

  Kai Martin Is James Bond

  The first time that audiences saw the movie version of James Bond was during the now-iconic gun barrel sequence that jump-starts Dr. No. In it, Bond confidently walks to the center of the frame, turns, and shoots at an unseen threat. The bright red blood that fills the screen indicates that Bond’s aim is true. The entrance immediately and forcefully announced the arrival of a new hero. Two-time Bond director Sam Mendes referred to the sequence as a series highlight: “It’s almost the best bit. Everything is possible in that moment.”101 But it wasn’t Sean Connery who movie-goers first saw as Bond; it was Bob Simmons, Connery’s stunt double.102

  Stuntmen play a vital role in the success of the Bond movies. The series’ audacious stunts function beyond mere spectacle; they also reveal aspects of 007’s character. The dangerous maneuvers highlight Bond�
��s ingenuity, his expertise, his athleticism, his penchant for risk-taking, his ability to improvise and adapt, and his unwavering need to do whatever it takes to accomplish his mission.

  After all, only Bond could bungee jump off a dam and into enemy territory; ski off a cliff to his apparent doom only to narrowly escape death by employing a parachute decorated with the Union Jack; drive his car on railroad tracks to catch up with a moving train or on two wheels to fit through a narrow alley; or launch his car off a ramshackle bridge in order to perform a midair flip; run over the backs of snapping alligators; fly through the air while wearing a jetpack; speed down a mountain in a cello case; or drive his motorcycle off a mountain in order to board an plane in flight.

  Due to the different skills required, it takes a coterie of stuntmen to double Bond.103 One stuntman couldn’t be expected to be proficient at fighting, running, jumping, skiing, snowboarding, parachuting, scuba diving, surfing, mountain climbing, bungee jumping, horseback riding, driving cars, motorcycles, rickshaws, and tankers, navigating speedboats and hovercrafts, and flying planes, helicopters, hang gliders, microjets, and gyrocopters, to name but a sampling of the requisite abilities on display throughout the series.

  As the series’ stunts help define the character, I wanted to interview one of the courageous professionals who performs them. To that end, I spoke with Kai Martin, who has doubled for Daniel Craig. Martin’s dazzling work is on display during the parkour chase and in the tanker sequence at the airport in Casino Royale, during the foot chase and high-wire fight in the pre-title sequence of Quantum of Solace, during the opening credits of Skyfall, where an injured Bond sinks to his apparent death, and in its finale during Bond’s underwater fight at his childhood home. In the thrilling pre-title sequence in Spectre, Martin played the helicopter pilot who Bond battles and then throws to his doom.