|
Charles Dance once had the chance to become the screen's
James Bond. He turned it down. He has now accepted the challenge of
portraying the man who created the character of 007 Bond – lan
Fleming – in an expensive two-hour TV film, Goldeneye. It explores the
charisma of the adventure-seeking author, a wartime Intelligence
officer whose real-life exploits, and fantasies, found their way into his
classic Bond novels. Dance is a good choice to play the suave English
charmer who also apparently,  had his nasty side, an aspect of
Fleming's persona which Dance says,
also appealed to him as an actor. “He
could be most unfeeling at times. But
there are aspects of him I like,” said
Charles during location filming in
Jamaica where Fleming lived at
‘Goldeneye’, a cliff-top bungalow near
the village of Oracabessa. It was here
that Fleming first dreamed up James
Bond, a man styled very much around
his own image, but of course even
more colourful.
Why did Dance turn down the chance to be Bond on the screen? “Yes, I was offered a screen test, but I declined. One, I might not have been good at it, and two, it wasn't what I really wanted to do. Of course the money would have been nice!” Dance did once appear in a James Bond movie, For Your Eyes Only. Blink and you miss him. “A frogman came out of the sea at Corfu and put a harpoon in my back,” Charles recalled with a smile. “He didn't last for very long at all!” |