MOVIE NEWS – Daniel Craig: “I strip more than women” in No Time to Die. The world moves on, you have to move with it.

Coming up, No Time to Die will be, or could be, an important stage in the James Bond mythos in more ways than one. On the one hand, it is Daniel Craig’s farewell to the franchise, which he himself recently relieved, and on the other, it is questionable in what direction the producers will move with Barbara Broccoli at the helm, since there is no female Bond, but there may yet be a black Bond. In any case, both Charlie Higson, author of The Young Bond books, and Craig think the time has come for a serious change.

The Young Bond series, which began with 2005’s Silver Moon, takes readers back to the 1930s and introduces us to a teenage James, still at school but already poking his nose into things no one else would dare. According to Higson, Craig has changed a lot, refined the character, made him more politically correct, more progressive (‘woke’ in English), ‘subtle, crying and even entering the shower in a tuxedo so as not to scare women’. “Would the original Bond triumph in our modern world, or would the culture of obliteration succeed where Spectre has often failed and finally kill him off?” the writer asked with no little irony.

According to him, Ian Fleming, the original creator of the 007 novels, would be absolutely pissed if he saw the many changes in society. “He would be perfectly able to shoot the right temperature at which champagne should be served, but he would have to throw everything he had at it if he got into a dispute about the correct use of pronouns,” said Charlie Higson.

“There are certain things that we associate with Bond and we say about them, ‘No, they wouldn’t work’. We’re very aware of what’s happening in the world today, but we’re still storytellers, we’re still trying to entertain the audience. […] [I practically] strip more than the women [in No Time to Die] […] That’s how I designed it,” said Daniel Craig, who even in 2006, when he appeared in Casino Royale in blue swim trunks, was consciously intended to counterpoint the Bond girls in bikinis, which, according to the writer of Young Bond, made sure that it was not Eva Green but the actor himself who was the “mysterious object of desire”. “Daniel has given Bond an intimacy. He allowed his Bond to be portrayed as vulnerable,” says producer Barbara Broccoli.

However, Charlie Higson said that Ian Fleming would have been happy with the way Bond women are portrayed in contemporary films, as he was also against the patriarchal stereotype of women as having a place in the kitchen and raising children, because in his novels women are athletic and independent, just as they are in modern James Bond films.

Progress is the keyword then, ladies and gentlemen and in this spirit, we await No Time to Die, which will be released in cinemas on 30 September.

Source: The Guardian