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Shortly before "Licence To Kill" opened across
America, Timothy Dalton conducted a series
of press interviews
in Hollywood...
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Dalton Raising Eyebrows
31st January 2012
"007 Still Raising Eyebrows" -
July 1989 (Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky)
Eyebrows raised when Timothy
Dalton, a noted Shakespearean
actor, agreed to take over the role of James Bond from Roger
Moore in the 1987 film "The Living
Daylights." But the
movie cleaned up at the box office, and many critics said Dalton
was the best Bond ever.
Dalton, 44, returns as the British
secret agent in "Licence
To Kill," a hard-edged thriller that pits Bond against a
Latin American drug lord. The English actor's previous training
and credits were an unlikely steppingstone for the blatantly
commercial Bond films. Dalton,
a bachelor, lives - unlike the sybaritic James Bond - in a middle-class
neighborhood in London, and drives a Toyota.
Q: You are considered one of England's
great Shakespearean actors. Why did you decide to play
James Bond?
A: That's a good question - one I've often asked myself.
Not all reviewers have said I'm a great stage actor.
I
thought the first Bond film I did was a good romantic
mystery thriller. Plus James Bond does offer the one major
international
film part that's available to an English actor.
I also
liked the challenge of knowing if I failed at playing
James Bond, it would seriously damage my career. So I
knew I
couldn't fail.
Q: When Sean Connery first dropped out of the Bond films
in the last '60s, you were offered the role. Why did you
turn is down then?
A: I though it would be professional suicide because I
felt Connery was brilliant in the role. I was too young,
and Connery at the time was indelibly identified with the
role. Since then, there have been two other Bonds. I'm
the fourth. The public is used to people taking over the
role.
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Q: When you accepted the role of James Bond, were you afraid
you might be typecast as Sean Connery was for so many roles?
A: I've got 20 years of doing other movies and
plays. Bond was Connery's first big film. Bond isn't my only
identity as an actor.
