- Title: UK: Skyfall cast attend world premiere of latest 007 adventure.
- Date: 24th October 2012
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (OCTOBER 23, 2012) (REUTERS) ( ** BEWARE FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY **) WIDE OF SKYFALL RED CARPET WITH MILITARY BAND PLAYING DRUMS VARIOUS OF MILITARY BAND (ROYAL MARINES)
- Embargoed: 8th November 2012 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: United Kingdom
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Royalty
- Reuters ID: LVA5V9T5WBMB7PORW4BD8DO5K6X
- Story Text: Bond actor Daniel Craig is joined by his "Skyfall" director Sam Mendes and members of the leading cast at the royal world premiere of his latest 007 outing.
Marking 50 years after the first Bond film "Dr. No" was released, the latest 007 instalment, "Skyfall", celebrated its world premiere in company of Bond stars past and present as well as British royalty.
James Bond actor Daniel Craig was joined on the red carpet by his fellow leading cast members, including Dame Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris, Berenice Marlohe, Ben Whishaw and Ralph Fiennes.
Cast members from previous films included Sir Christopher Lee ("The Man with the Golden Gun"), Eunice Gayson ("Dr No" and "From Russia With Love") and Shirley Eaton ("Goldfinger").
The cast were cheered on by hundreds of fans, who lined behind barriers and waved from balconies adjacent to the Royal Albert Hall, where Tuesday's (October 23) premiere event took place.
"I mean this isn't bad really, sort of good ... way to spend an evening, is it?" Craig mused.
Director Sam Mendes, who makes his franchise debut with "Skyfall" agreed.
"It's a huge undertaking and when you see people lining the streets here and people excited to see it you know it's incredibly gratifying and people responding to it positively, which is lovely," the director said.
He added:
"I wanted to tell a great story and I felt that I had a lot of wonderful characters to play with and actors who are capable of taking them a little bit further than they've ever been taken before so that's really what I wanted to do."
"At the same time I wanted and needed to deliver everything that you hope for and expect in a Bond movie which is great action and you know amazing locations and a great piece of entertainment and I hope that I've done the two things at the same tim," he said.
The 23rd official Bond film, "Skyfall", brings together Craig on his third outing on Her Majesty's secret service where his loyalty to M is tested when her past comes back to haunt her, while MI6 comes under attack from an unknown threat.
Craig described the filming experience on set as "incredible fun."
"You know these movies are just one big collaborative process and we had the best in the business here so we had a lot of fun," he said.
His co-star, Javier Bardem, who plays the flamboyant villain, Raoul Silva, agrees.
"I would say this by far one of the most I would say in the top three of the most enjoyable and pleasant journeys, professional and personal, really I mean why, because the movie was great, the character was amazing and the people, it's always about the human nature of the people in the sense that you're working with human beings and that's what makes the difference and in this case was a great group of people," the actor told reporters.
"Skyfall" pays homage to the quintessentially Bond characteristics, Bond's gadgets, his taste in fast cars and beautiful women, but it also seeks to show why the modern Bond is still relevant in a world where technology is as important to international spy networks as human beings.
"Well I think it's a fiftieth anniversary film so the writers wanted to have some touches from the old Bonds, some ideas, like the Aston Martin and that. But it's really an up to date contemporary film with contemporary issues," Bond producer Michael G. Wilson told Reuters Television.
"Skyfall" also sees the return of Judi Dench as M, and puts her at the heart of the action this time.
Dench said she enjoyed that she had "lots more to do and more challenges and new things to learn."
Of her being the first and only female actor so far of taking on the role of M, she said.
"I think I realized eight seven Bonds ago that it was quite so honorous to take it on to take M on as a woman. Although Bernard Lee who played M originally was a huge huge hero of mine. And so he's always been in my mind about his whole attitude towards Bond. I took that on, so I copy him," she said.
The film also introduces or better say re-introducers some well-known Bond characters which were absent from the last two Bond movies.
Ben Whishaw was cast to play a younger and more contemporary Q.
"I grew up watching these films so that character in particular the way that Desmond Llewelyn played him is in my consciousness really. I didn't really have to think about it too much and I thought that the writers had done such a beautiful job of sort of bringing the character up to date and obviously he's much younger than he is in the past but it was keeping the traditional Q flavour in a way," Whishaw told Reuters Television.
The film suffered a delay due to financial troubles at studio MGM, allowing for several script rewrites.
But the eventual outcome has been praised by critics and it could potentially clear the path for a second Mendes-directed Bond adventure. But until this happens, the director says he is looking forward to a break at first.
"I honestly I need a holiday", he laughed.
Fifty years of Bond, 2012 has already seen exhibitions, auctions, a documentary and plenty of merchandising to mark the cultural phenomenon that is Bond.
"Skyfall" is released in Britain on Friday and on November 4 in the United States. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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