James Bond: it’s hair-raising in more ways than one, says No Time To Die director

Can you give me a moment to be envious – okay, jealous – of Cary Joji Fukunaga? The guy is model-grade handsome, is fluent in French and Spanish, is conversational in Portuguese, Italian and Japanese, is an accomplished writer, director, producer and cinematographer, is annoyingly athletic (in his youth he came close to being a professional snowboarder) and to cap it off (so to speak) has seriously good hair. He is, of course, also the director of the new James Bond film, No Time to Die, which for about 18 months we thought might be in for a name change: No Time to Be Released. In this it’s possible to have a skerrick of sympathy for the award-winning director, who received critical acclaim for the first season of the groundbreaking HBO series True Detective.

As we all know, Bond’s latest film – the 25th in the franchise that began way back in 1962 with Dr. No – had its wings clipped by COVID-19, the release date postponed three times since its original launch set in April last year. What followed was perhaps a Guinness World Record in stop/go/stop media junkets for the $US250 million ($338 million) film, and heated speculation that No Time to Die would join a long list of other big-screen films to be streamed online early throughout the long lockdowns of 2020.

But there is some good news for the franchise and the survival of struggling cinemas: since premiering in London on September 28, the film has become Britain’s highest-grossing title of 2021. It opened in early October in the US with respectable, if slightly disappointing takings, and ahead of its planned November 11 Australian release has to date topped $US470 million in box-office revenue worldwide.

The first glimpse I have of a post-COVID celebrity interview is when, 15 minutes in advance of my scheduled video chat with Fukunaga, I’m put into a kind of electronic holding pattern with a small army of other Australian journalists, our faces popping up on screen like The Brady Bunch, all waiting our turn with a No Time to Die star, producer or director.

“Lisa Millar, you have a five-minute wait for Rami [Malek] and Lashana [Lynch],” says the head publicist in traffic control. “Rosemary, we are going to send you through to Daniel [Craig] and Barbara [Broccoli] now ... Greg, sorry for the delay, we are moving you in with Cary now ...”

Since I’ve already interviewed the director by phone – the story postponed last year along with the film – I decide that this time I’ll risk it with at least one left-of-field question (for this, you will have to read to the end of the story). But first I channel my 16-year-old self: did Fukunaga’s love of a good race – whether on snowboards or motorbikes – help him design better action sequences? “You might think so,” smiles the 44-year-old.

“But I think we’ve all seen movies that try to use extreme sports as an action device, and it usually doesn’t end well. Most of the action in Bond was driven by good old-fashioned cars and fists.” There’s a sheepish pause. “I did want to join in with the stunt team now and then, but I had the responsibility to keep myself healthy.”

Fukunaga, who grew up in the San Francisco/Oakland area to a Japanese-American father and a Swedish-American mother, remembers being mesmerised by films from a young age. “I saw Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor when I was, like, seven or eight, and that really moved me,” he says. “It made me read the book, although I couldn’t read really well.” (Fukunaga struggled with reading in his early years because of undiagnosed ADHD, but went on to become an avid reader and top-level student.)

By the time he was 12, Fukunaga was deconstructing films like Dances with Wolves, trying to work out how scenes were crafted and scrutinising sequences for mistakes like modern tyre marks in a western’s streets (“it was the first film I watched as something constructed rather than something to be swept away by”). Fukunaga grew up with Bond – “A View to a Kill [1985] was the first Bond film I saw” – but “sort of drifted away” around the time of GoldenEye (1995). He became a fan again after seeing Casino Royale (2006), captivated by the “raw energy” and “brooding” charisma Daniel Craig brought to the character, and by Martin Campbell’s gritty direction.

When I tell Fukunaga that my favourite scene in Casino Royale is the sparkling, sexy exchange between HM Treasury agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) and Bond (Craig) when they meet in a Montenegro-bound train carriage, he enthuses that it’s his favourite scene in the film as well. That’s as much because of the quick-witted dialogue as the skilful execution of the scene, he explains.

“I’m the money,” purrs the exquisite, swan-necked Vesper. “Every cent,” Bond shoots back admiringly, before the pair engage in a meal and a round of
beguiling banter.

Vesper: “As charming as you are, Mr Bond, I will be keeping an eye on our government’s money, and off your perfectly formed arse.”

Bond: “You noticed.”

Vesper: “Even accountants have imagination. How was your lamb?”

Bond: “Skewered. One sympathises.”

Fukunaga tells me he was on a mission to bring dialogue like this – where the sex is all in the talk – to No Time to Die. After building the storyline with veteran Bond scriptwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, Fukunaga brought in Phoebe Waller-Bridge, creator, head scriptwriter and star of the Emmy award-winning Fleabag, to brighten up the dialogue and instil more wit. “Great dialogue can really make a scene,” he says.

Rami Malek (left) and Cary Joji Fukunaga on the set of No Time to Die. Credit: Nicola Dove

I ask Fukunaga to rate, on a scale of one to 10, the stress of making a Bond film. “Definitely a 10,” he says without hesitating. “From the moment I came on board in September 2018, through shooting in 2019, through post [production] in early 2020, it was a race. We were working around the clock, late into the night, weekends, through Christmas and New Year.”

“I did want to join in with the stunt team now and then, but I had the responsibility to keep myself healthy.”

Stories on the film now seem to be everywhere. As I’m writing this, the latest breathless headline is around Daniel Craig’s admission to the host of the American Lunch with Bruce podcast, Bruce Bozzi, that – gasp! – he’s been going to gay bars since he was young to avoid the typical punch-ups and “the aggressive dick-swinging in hetero bars”.

Daniel Craig and Ana de Armas in No Time to Die.Credit: Nicola Dove

Craig’s final outing as Bond (no gay pun intended) after five films has led to frenzied speculation about his replacement. Of one thing you can be sure: Bond will continue to be male, as long as producer Barbara Broccoli and her half-brother, Michael G. Wilson, are in control of the franchise. “He can be of any colour, but he is male,” she told Variety last year.

Fukunaga agrees with the sentiment: the James Bond character’s DNA “shouldn’t change”, he says. “You can change the world around him to keep up with the times, and you can certainly change the way he adapts and functions in the world, but not the basic character.”

Fukunaga is now faced with an enviable career choice: whether to direct another Bond film after this one. He’s already made sounds about not doing another 007 adventure because they’re simply so exhausting, but we heard the same from Daniel Craig before he agreed to come back for his swansong in No Time to Die.

“You can change the world around him to keep up with the times, and you can certainly change the way he adapts and functions in the world, but not the basic character.”

As the interview wraps up, in a feeble attempt to unveil a small corner of his personality, I tell Fukunaga I read somewhere that he believes in ghosts. “It’s not whether I believe in ghosts, I have seen ghosts,” he says.

“You can call me crazy, but people who have seen ghosts know what I’m talking about. I have seen, smelt and heard ghosts.” Our time now up, another journalist about to be clicked in by video conveyor-belt, Fukunaga looks down with a smile. “Where did you hear the ghost thing? Where is that going to go?”

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