The actors who have played Bond villains come in all shapes and sizes, but not many can also claim to have played James Bond, too. Yet actor Toby Stephens holds that unique position in 007 history, given his role as MI6’s top spy in a series of radio adaptations of Ian Fleming’s novels. For many fans of the screen version of Bond, however, Stephens is best known as the man who played opposite Pierce Brosnan’s 007 in what turned out to be Brosnan’s final entry in the role.
Speaking to the London Metro newspaper recently, actor Stephens was asked at one point about his role as lead villain Gustav Graves in Die Another Day. The 57-year old star of stage and screen was asked whether he was proud to have played a Bond baddie? He responded: ‘Yes, I suppose! The whole thing was mad. It came out of nowhere. It was wonderful and terrifying at the same time, being part of that great machine’.
On 18th November, 2002, Pierce Brosnan’s fourth Bond adventure had its Royal Premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and was released to UK cinemas on 20th November. Determined to honour the EON franchise and make his mark on the series, the late Lee Tamahori (1950-2025) delivered both a typically ‘Bondian’ plot (dastardly villain, treason and betrayal, hi-tech weaponry, a gigantic ice-palace, and so on) and some spectacular action sequences. Although the over-use of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) in Bond 20 did not please critics, Tamahori’s movie nevertheless performed strongly at the global box-office and there was every expectation at the time that Brosnan would return as 007 for a fifth movie (as we now know, this did not happen).
Pierce Brosnan’s fourth and final adventure as 007 marked the 40th anniversary of the EON franchise, and the role of Graves was part of the ‘tradition’ of providing over-the-top villains that you love to hate. The JBIFC takes the opportunity to look back on the evolution of the character of Gustav Graves in (00)7 bullet-sized points. How did the writers develop a man who wanted to use a giant satellite reflective mirror to create havoc on earth and burn everything in its sight?
007 and Counting…
001: The first major challenge involved in realising a new James Bond movie is coming up with a basic storyline, something that will inevitably be subjected to numerous changes and developments over time (a pattern that also characterised the recent Daniel Craig cycle of Bond screen treatments). The pre-production writing duties on the 20th James Bond movie began very shortly after the release of The World Is Not Enough (1999). As early as the summer of 2000, screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, began the process of ‘brainstorming’ concepts for ‘Bond 20’, trying out new ideas with the then EON producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. Purvis and Wade quickly realised that the producers were looking for something very special to mark the 40th anniversary, a film that would tap into past 007 nostalgia but, at the same time, also deliver something fresh and distinctively 21st century. A memorable villain was one of the keys to this.
002: However, the veteran writing pair were under no illusions about the enormous challenges posed by Bond 20: they commented at one point: ‘People might think writing a Bond film is easy – you’ve got Bond, M, Q, Moneypenny, some beautiful girls and a villain. But that’s what makes it actually quite daunting. How do you make it all seem fresh and new?’ The talented screenwriting duo explained in later interviews that it was generally agreed in the year 2000 that Bond 20 would be on a grand scale, reminiscent of You Only Live Twice (1967), and drawing upon some characters and story themes inspired by Ian Fleming’s third 007 novel Moonraker.
003: In particular, Purvis and Wade both felt that there were some interesting aspects of Fleming’s third best-selling James Bond book that had not been fully utilised, especially the idea of a confrontation in the Blades Club, a gentleman’s club in London. Moreover, the central character of Sir Hugo Drax – a seemingly patriotic knighted industrialist who has secret plans for revenge using a hi-tech weapon (a new missile) in the Fleming novel – appeared ripe for further exploration.
004: Drax became ‘Gustav Graves’ in the final DAD script, of course: a seemingly philanthropic industralist with a concern for the world’s environment, and the hi-tech weapon became ‘Icarus’, an orbital mirror satellite, which is able to focus solar energy on to a small geographical area to provide year-round sunshine for maximum crop development. In reality, though, Graves is secretly plotting to use Icarus as a kind of laser-emitting weapon of war. Purvis and Wade wanted an ‘epic’ feel to their movie but also to keep it realistic and not comic-book in style.
005: On the other hand, in line with this big hi-tech and scientific dimension, the EON producers also felt that the movie would benefit from a ‘global’ backdrop, the story moving swiftly from country to country. As with all 007 movies, it was a challenge to find something a bit different, even quirky, but still recognizably ‘Bondian’. James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli had read a newspaper article about a small hotel in Sweden made completely of ice, and thought this would make an excellent story-point and sequence for the movie, so Purvis and Wade also integrated this into the storyline, providing the villain Gustav Graves with a snow-bound Ice Palace hotel and lair for the second half of the film.
006: To realise this big vision, the EON producers chose the New Zealand-born director Lee Tamahori. Although the main studio had reservations about Tamahori and saw him as a risky choice, Barbara Broccoli had been particularly impressed with Tamahori’s movie Once Were Warriors (1994). The new 007 movie was also given a $142m budget. But it quickly became evident that Tamahori was not keen to stick to Purvis and Wade’s emphasis on ‘realism’ – he saw the movie more in terms of spectacle and, indeed, a comic-book style approach. This included his conception of Gustav Graves. Through a process of gene therapy, Graves is really Colonel Moon, a Korean hardliner who wants to bring about war between North and South Korea. Although this was part of the Purvis and Wade script, it seems Tamahori wanted to pucsh things much further.
007: In fact, putting together the behind-the-scenes story of the evolution of Graves reveals that what was originally envisaged arguably lost some of its impact in Tamahori’s final version of the film. In his screen-tests, Stephens apparently tried out a number of different versions of how he could play a truly menacing and sadistic baddie, including a very scary and gritty interpretation. Tamahori, however, wanted a more extrovert and ‘snarly’ version of Graves, which is the one that mainly ends up on the screen, especially in the final climax to the movie. What Stephens originally wanted can be seen in the sword-fight in the Blades Club sequence, where Graves seems genuinely menacing. But, in the end, the Tamahori comic-book style of villain tended to dominate, and Stephens (perhaps reluctantly) went along with this. After all, Stephens was only too happy to have won the role in the first place – and to take his place in the honoured pantheon of James Bond cinematic villains.
Did You Know?
Many of the scenes for Die Another Day, including the ones with Toby Stephens, were shot at Pinewood Studios, a place Stephens has many fond memories of. Deeply connected to the studio, Stephens and his brother recently gathered at Shepperton Studios (part of the Pinewood Group) to unveil a massive new soundstage dedicated to their mother, the late acclaimed actress Dame Maggie Smith.
The Other Fella: Toby Stephens in his role as James Bond.