10 | Sight&Sound | April 2020
JB: Presumably you immersed yourself
in the previous 24 Bond films. Were
there particular ones you looked to?
CF: There’s a lot of You Only Live Twice [1967],
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service [1969], and
probably a bit of GoldenEye [1995] in there.
They might sound pretty disparate [laughs], but
when you see the film it will make sense.
JB: Ben Whishaw [who plays ‘Q’] said
that at times it felt like working on an
independent film, in that you allowed
improvisation, used few takes...
CF: Well, it’s definitely not an independent
film! What he may have meant is that there
are certain principles to filmmaking that, no
matter how big a film gets, once you get on
to set and it’s just you, and the actors, and the
sound boom, the cameraman, and the focus
puller... you’re in this room together. For that
brief moment, it feels just like an indie film.JB: Neal Purvis has said that every Bond
film reflects Britain’s position in the
world at the time. So what does No Time
to Die reflect about Britain today?
CF: It’s difficult to ignore Brexit. It’s sort of been
an unspoken rule of the Bond universe that
you don’t directly reflect the times too much.
Part of that is the escapist necessity. There’s a lot
of uncertainty about the future, especially for
the British place in the world; but we tried to
nod to that rather than get too muddled in it.
JB: There’s been much attention on there being
a black woman ‘double 0’ agent in the film, and
that being a response to calls for diversity.
CF: There was no race or ethnic requirement
for these roles. It was more about a legacy to
the next generation of Bonds. For Barbara it
was a necessity in terms of starting a new story- Bond is very much a male-driven story, but
who are the women within these stories who
can start having a voice that isn’t just there
as a device or as a bit of sexual eye-candy?
JB: This is the first Bond to be shot using Imax
cameras, and you also shot on film, not digitally.
CF: Linus [Sandgren, the film’s cinematographer]
used Imax as a bargaining chip to get them to
shoot on film, and they said yes to Imax! I hope
this will be considered one of the more beautifully
shot Bonds. Linus was really in my corner fighting
for creative integrity. Even now I’m getting texts
from him about shots that have been taken out
that he wants to fight to have put back in.
JB: How much of an artistic challenge
did you find the action sequences?
CF: I’d never worked with second unit before, and
I found that challenging. The hardest part was
keeping clarity of vision when there are so many
voices involved. It’s difficult for that vision not to
go off rails by the time it gets down to execution. I
talked to Ryan Coogler before starting, and I asked
him, “On Black Panther, what was the hardest
thing?” He said, “Having the same meeting, over
and over again!” The amount you have to explain
things before the image you have in your head
is somehow transferred to someone else’s!
No Time to Die is released in UK cinemas on
2 April and will be reviewed in our next issue
By James Bell
Cary Fukunaga’s filmography didn’t immediately
suggest an appetite to wrangle the behemoth
that is a Bond production. His debut feature
Sin nombre (2008) was about migrants from
Central America trying to cross into the US; he
followed that with a fine adaptation of Jane Eyre
in 2011, then Beasts of No Nation (2015), a drama
about child soldiers in Africa. He has also been
behind two long-form TV shows – the original
True Detective (2014) and Maniac (2018).
But when Danny Boyle departed as director
from the 25th Bond film in 2017, citing that
old chestnut ‘creative differences’, Fukunaga
was brought in by Bond producers Barbara
Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson as both
writer and director – with a little help on
the script from Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
Few plot details about No Time to Die –
apparently Daniel Craig’s final outing in the
role – were known when I spoke to Fukunaga
in early February, beyond the fact that when
the film opens Bond is in retirement, living in
Jamaica. But he is brought back into the fold once
a new villain, played by Rami Malek, emerges
to threaten the world order. A regular day at
the office then, only now there is a new ‘00’
for this quintessential white male dinosaur to
contend with – and a black, female one at that.
James Bell: Incredibly, you’re the first director
of a Bond film to also have a writing credit. Was
having that input an important condition?
Cary Fukunaga: I’m not sure if it was an issue of
importance or of necessity. There was a very short
period of time to come up with a story, execute a
screenplay and pre-produce. The writing was going
all the way through production, which I don’t
think could have happened unless it was inside my
brain. There were times when production needed
answers to things when there was no script yet.
JB: So did the script from the Danny
Boyle project change fundamentally?
CF: The original script was completely thrown
away. It was important to Barbara [Broccoli] and
Michael [G. Wilson] to start from scratch. It felt
almost in the classic ‘artist-for-hire’ sense. I sat
down with Barbara, and Michael, and Daniel, and
they explained what they wanted. I went away
and worked with two writers [Neal Purvis and
Robert Wade, who have co-written every Bond
since 1999’s The World Is Not Enough] for a couple
of weeks, and I then wrote for the rest of the
year through production – with Phoebe [Waller-
Bridge] coming on board for some punch-ups.
JB: How extensive was her involvement?
CF: I wish it had been deeper, because she
is brilliant. We worked from afar. A lot of it
was conversation-based, and then she had a
bunch of passes on scenes, but those scenes
also got rewritten. She brings a feeling for the
imperfections of humanity that make us all
interesting and unique. It’s great to bring that
sort of imperfection into the world of Bond.BOND AMBITION
RUSHESNo Time to Die director Cary
Fukunaga talks about bringing 007
into the Brexit era and working
with Phoebe Waller-BridgeINTERVIEW‘ No matter how big a film
gets, once you get on to set...
for that brief moment, it feels
just like an indie film’
Daniel Craig, Cary Fukunaga and Lashana LynchAnd the Bond played on: Daniel Craig in No Time to Die