Interview with John Cleese in TWISE Official Movie Magazine
The greatest gadget master in British intelligence, Q, has finally been given an assistant. Dubbed “R” by a sarcastic 007 (though that isn’t his real designation), the character played by John Cleese represents the newest addition to the Bond family. Cleese, who is best known for his work with TV’s Monty Python's Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers, as well as his big screen plunge into A Fish Called Wanda, was tickled to be considered for his role in The World Is Not Enough. He has been a James Bond fan since the very first film.
“I was delighted, because everyone in England has a real affection for the Bond movies,” says Cleese. “They’ve been around now for so long, and the people making them are a kind of family—some of the crew are even third-generation. I knew Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson a little bit through my wife Alyce Faye. She used to have a great friend, Maurice Binder, who designed those wonderful [007 film] titles. Alyce knew Maurice well, and knew the Bond people as a result much better than I did, which is funny considering I’m the one who's supposed to be in the film business.”
Ironically, Cleese had another connection to The World Is Not Enough: The director. “Mike Apted,” explains Cleese, “was an exact contemporary of mine at the same college at Cambridge—we were both at Downing College. We both went there in October 1960, so I’ve known this guy for 39 years. We've always wanted to work together, and we’re both dead keen West Ham United fans. There is something immensely reassuring about walking onto the set and finding that you’ve known the director for nearly 40 years.” Although Cleese only had to film for two days because his role in the movie is not a large one, he did get to work with most of the Bond regulars. Oddly, however, his two days on the film were shot six months apart. “I was very happy with the script,” he says. “It’s not a big part, just a couple of days’ filming. The first day was with Judi Dench, whom I had always wanted to meet and who everyone said is delightful. There was also an absolutely terrific girl named Samantha Bond there, who is very funny, and a lovely English actor called Michael Kitchen, whom I had known for years. So, it was a bit like a group of friends. “That was my first day, which was in January. That had to be shot then because Judi was leaving England for Broadway [in Amy's View].”
Cleese returned for his second day of shooting in June, and everything went all right—mostly. “The only problem for me was that it was a week before my hip replacement operation,” he says. “The hip was giving me quite a lot of pain, so I was on rather a lot of painkillers. I hope it doesn’t show on the screen. Bruce Feirstein had written a nice, funny scene with a couple of very good lines in it [for me], and I had known Pierce Brosnan for a long time because my daughter had gone to school years ago in Somerset with his daughter, so it all felt very comfortable.”
It was on Cleese’s second day on the set that he met the original Q, Desmond Llewelyn. “I met him, the legendary Q, who has been in 17 of the 19 movies, and we had an absolutely fascinating day,” says Cleese. “He was captured very early on in the Second World War and spent five years in a German prisoner-of-war camp, where he was, incidentally treated rather well.”
Cleese is glad that it was Llewelyn’s idea that Q now have an assistant. Desmond, told me that the idea of an assistant was all his. He had suggested it to Barbara and Michael a couple of movies ago. He said, ‘I think it’s time I had an assistant.’ So that’s how the whole idea arose in the first place. And it’s quite nice being able to say that, because that means he suggested me, and it’s not that he’s being maneuvered out. They genuinely love him, and he’s a very nice man. I've got to say, sitting there yarning with a guy who I’ve seen in 17 movies was lovely. That's one of the nice things about English actors—they don’t talk about acting much. No, we mainly talked about the Second World War, and how they used to get sent stuff in the POW camp from a department very much like the one that Q heads in the movies. He told me that they would receive these old records, and they would look at the records and see if there was a particular false stop in the numbering. If the false stop wasn’t there, they would break the record open and there would be a map in it. Isn’t that amazing? They had everything in those camps—radios, German uniforms—how ingenious they were.”
Fans of the veteran silly walker will be happy to hear that Cleese’s hip problem caused him no trouble during his shooting. “The filming was fine, once the painkillers kicked in,” says the actor. “Since then, I’ve been in and dubbed, and I was very happy with what I saw.”
Cleese was quite surprised at how ‘ comfortable it was to work on his first James Bond film. “I don’t think I had any particular expectations, oddly enough,” the actor says. “I just felt very comfortable because I knew so many of the people involved. For example, the lighting cameraman was Adrian Biddle and the sound man, Chris Munro, both from Fierce Creatures. There were so many familiar faces, it was like wandering into a party where you knew a lot of people. And Mike [Apted] has a very low-key style, there’s no tension around at all. There was a great sense of competence and a marked lack of anxiety—a very nice atmosphere on it.”
Very nice in fact. Cleese was delighted to become a part of the whole Bond experience. “I was particularly pleased, because they seemed very keen for me to do more of them, which is lovely,” he says. “I had always quite fancied playing a villain, but actually, this is much better, because if I was a villain I would only be in one movie. This way, I get to do several.”
Llewelyn often notes that while he plays the world’s greatest gadgetmaster on the screen, he is just the opposite in real life. Cleese is apparently following Llewelyn’s footsteps in that regard. “Machinery knows that I don’t like it,” the actor explains. “And it retaliates. I’m all right on basic machinery—I can do penknives, pencil sharpeners and wheelbarrows, but anything much more complex than that and I’m struggling. My common sense doesn’t mesh with the mechanical. I’m going to have to fake the technological competence.”
END OF INTERVIEW
I liked John Cleese in his role. Although it was typical “Cleese” it didn’t make you think “oh, what’s Basil doing there”.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,342Chief of Staff
That’s actually a pretty decent interview, although it should be as it’s for the official magazine…I quite liked Cleese in the role and wouldn’t have been averse to him carrying on as Desmond had…but he was obviously totally wrong Casino Royale.
I thought the material they gave Cleese in TWINE was a bit too broad, but in DAD it was just right (putting aside the gadgets). There wasn't much need for Q in CR, but Cleese could have worked in that film if role had kept to the DAD approach--give Q a dry, slightly combative sense of humor, with a bit of friction toward Bond's cavalier approach to gadgets, but don't make him cartoony.
It's a good interview. While I always like Desmond Llewelyn, I personally felt Cleese should have started in GE. A clean break like everything else. But there you go, can't turn back the clock
Comments
That's a good story about him teasing well known actors like Moses Gunn and (of course) Yaphet Kotto then having to do it himself!
And his mother castigating him too for not smiling 😁🤣
Interview with John Cleese in TWISE Official Movie Magazine
The greatest gadget master in British intelligence, Q, has finally been given an assistant. Dubbed “R” by a sarcastic 007 (though that isn’t his real designation), the character played by John Cleese represents the newest addition to the Bond family. Cleese, who is best known for his work with TV’s Monty Python's Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers, as well as his big screen plunge into A Fish Called Wanda, was tickled to be considered for his role in The World Is Not Enough. He has been a James Bond fan since the very first film.
“I was delighted, because everyone in England has a real affection for the Bond movies,” says Cleese. “They’ve been around now for so long, and the people making them are a kind of family—some of the crew are even third-generation. I knew Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson a little bit through my wife Alyce Faye. She used to have a great friend, Maurice Binder, who designed those wonderful [007 film] titles. Alyce knew Maurice well, and knew the Bond people as a result much better than I did, which is funny considering I’m the one who's supposed to be in the film business.”
Ironically, Cleese had another connection to The World Is Not Enough: The director. “Mike Apted,” explains Cleese, “was an exact contemporary of mine at the same college at Cambridge—we were both at Downing College. We both went there in October 1960, so I’ve known this guy for 39 years. We've always wanted to work together, and we’re both dead keen West Ham United fans. There is something immensely reassuring about walking onto the set and finding that you’ve known the director for nearly 40 years.” Although Cleese only had to film for two days because his role in the movie is not a large one, he did get to work with most of the Bond regulars. Oddly, however, his two days on the film were shot six months apart. “I was very happy with the script,” he says. “It’s not a big part, just a couple of days’ filming. The first day was with Judi Dench, whom I had always wanted to meet and who everyone said is delightful. There was also an absolutely terrific girl named Samantha Bond there, who is very funny, and a lovely English actor called Michael Kitchen, whom I had known for years. So, it was a bit like a group of friends. “That was my first day, which was in January. That had to be shot then because Judi was leaving England for Broadway [in Amy's View].”
Cleese returned for his second day of shooting in June, and everything went all right—mostly. “The only problem for me was that it was a week before my hip replacement operation,” he says. “The hip was giving me quite a lot of pain, so I was on rather a lot of painkillers. I hope it doesn’t show on the screen. Bruce Feirstein had written a nice, funny scene with a couple of very good lines in it [for me], and I had known Pierce Brosnan for a long time because my daughter had gone to school years ago in Somerset with his daughter, so it all felt very comfortable.”
It was on Cleese’s second day on the set that he met the original Q, Desmond Llewelyn. “I met him, the legendary Q, who has been in 17 of the 19 movies, and we had an absolutely fascinating day,” says Cleese. “He was captured very early on in the Second World War and spent five years in a German prisoner-of-war camp, where he was, incidentally treated rather well.”
Cleese is glad that it was Llewelyn’s idea that Q now have an assistant. Desmond, told me that the idea of an assistant was all his. He had suggested it to Barbara and Michael a couple of movies ago. He said, ‘I think it’s time I had an assistant.’ So that’s how the whole idea arose in the first place. And it’s quite nice being able to say that, because that means he suggested me, and it’s not that he’s being maneuvered out. They genuinely love him, and he’s a very nice man. I've got to say, sitting there yarning with a guy who I’ve seen in 17 movies was lovely. That's one of the nice things about English actors—they don’t talk about acting much. No, we mainly talked about the Second World War, and how they used to get sent stuff in the POW camp from a department very much like the one that Q heads in the movies. He told me that they would receive these old records, and they would look at the records and see if there was a particular false stop in the numbering. If the false stop wasn’t there, they would break the record open and there would be a map in it. Isn’t that amazing? They had everything in those camps—radios, German uniforms—how ingenious they were.”
Fans of the veteran silly walker will be happy to hear that Cleese’s hip problem caused him no trouble during his shooting. “The filming was fine, once the painkillers kicked in,” says the actor. “Since then, I’ve been in and dubbed, and I was very happy with what I saw.”
Cleese was quite surprised at how ‘ comfortable it was to work on his first James Bond film. “I don’t think I had any particular expectations, oddly enough,” the actor says. “I just felt very comfortable because I knew so many of the people involved. For example, the lighting cameraman was Adrian Biddle and the sound man, Chris Munro, both from Fierce Creatures. There were so many familiar faces, it was like wandering into a party where you knew a lot of people. And Mike [Apted] has a very low-key style, there’s no tension around at all. There was a great sense of competence and a marked lack of anxiety—a very nice atmosphere on it.”
Very nice in fact. Cleese was delighted to become a part of the whole Bond experience. “I was particularly pleased, because they seemed very keen for me to do more of them, which is lovely,” he says. “I had always quite fancied playing a villain, but actually, this is much better, because if I was a villain I would only be in one movie. This way, I get to do several.”
Llewelyn often notes that while he plays the world’s greatest gadgetmaster on the screen, he is just the opposite in real life. Cleese is apparently following Llewelyn’s footsteps in that regard. “Machinery knows that I don’t like it,” the actor explains. “And it retaliates. I’m all right on basic machinery—I can do penknives, pencil sharpeners and wheelbarrows, but anything much more complex than that and I’m struggling. My common sense doesn’t mesh with the mechanical. I’m going to have to fake the technological competence.”
END OF INTERVIEW
I liked John Cleese in his role. Although it was typical “Cleese” it didn’t make you think “oh, what’s Basil doing there”.
That’s actually a pretty decent interview, although it should be as it’s for the official magazine…I quite liked Cleese in the role and wouldn’t have been averse to him carrying on as Desmond had…but he was obviously totally wrong Casino Royale.
I thought the material they gave Cleese in TWINE was a bit too broad, but in DAD it was just right (putting aside the gadgets). There wasn't much need for Q in CR, but Cleese could have worked in that film if role had kept to the DAD approach--give Q a dry, slightly combative sense of humor, with a bit of friction toward Bond's cavalier approach to gadgets, but don't make him cartoony.
It's a good interview. While I always like Desmond Llewelyn, I personally felt Cleese should have started in GE. A clean break like everything else. But there you go, can't turn back the clock
I'd prefer if Cleese couldve written his own dialog