With such a varied list of actors portraying secret agent James Bond, it’s up to the star to leave their style in the role.
For some, it would be a chance to see Sean Connery or Daniel Craig give the Ian Fleming character a serious portrayal. Others, like Roger Moore, opted for a lighter side to the character, which has fans split decades later. Moore would share why he decided on a more “tongue-in-cheek” approach in an intervew given decades after he had last portrayed 007. He would suggest reading the books was of little use, and that he found no deeper meaning behind the character from Fleming’s novels. Despite this, he found a line in the books which helped inform his character. Moore would play the secret agent across a decade, with Live and Let Die marking his first time portraying the legendary character.
Moore would suggest the little details fans love, like the shaken martini and Aston Martin vehicles, are nothing more than a big joke to play around with. He said: “I tried to find out what Bond was all about, but you can’t tell much from the books.
“There’s the line that says ‘He didn’t take pleasure in killing, but took pride in doing it well.’ So that’s what I did. But the other side of me was saying, This is a famous spy — everyone knows his name, and every bartender in the world knows he likes martinis shaken, not stirred. Come on, it’s all a big joke! So most of the time, I played it tongue-in-cheek.”
It’s a decision which would define Moore’s time as James Bond, with the characterisation succeeding in films like The Man With the Golden Gun. But by the time of his final film, A View to a Kill, Moore seemed to think he was too old for the part.
The major reason for his return to the series was reportedly due to a “nice deal” struck between the production company and his agent, sealing a return to the series for the at-the-time 57-year-old actor.
Moore would say: “Well, the leading ladies were young enough to be my granddaughter, and it becomes disgusting.” Bond’s love interest in A View to a Kill was Stacey Sutton, played by Tanya Roberts, who was thirty-five at the time. Moore was fifty-seven at the time of making A View to a Kill.
Later, he would say he felt too old to be “hanging around women in their early twenties without it appearing creepy” and that Roberts’ mother remembered watching him on television as a child.
He would later say: “I became very conscious that I was getting long in the tooth to play the great lover. Not that I ever needed Viagra. I was fifty-seven in the last one. You can see I was getting a little scraggy around the neck.
