Thursday, Nov. 07, 2002

Going Easy on an Icon

By JEFF CHU

Since coming back with GoldenEye in 1995, James Bond has switched directors on every outing. This time around, it was New Zealander Lee Tamahori's turn to try his hand at reinterpreting the genre. Best known for the 1994 Maori domestic drama Once Were Warriors and the Alex Cross thriller Along Came A Spider, Tamahori acknowledges that MGM was "a little nervous" when his name came up to helm Die Another Day. But producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli were enthusiastic. A Bond fan since he saw From Russia with Love at age 13, Tamahori didn't hesitate to say yes to the job, and he's promising a fresh, bold take on 007. TIME's Jeff Chu chatted with Tamahori on set in Cadiz, Spain. Excerpts from their conversation:

TIME: Making the 20th Bond film pretty much ensures pressure and extraordinary expectations all around.
Tamahori: You think about it, and you think you should be nervous, but I was too excited to get in and just do the movie. There's been no pressure at all from Michael and Barbara. To the extent that there is any pressure, it's myself that's been doing it. You don't want to go down as the guy who killed the genre.

TIME: Obviously it's a historic moment — 40 years, 20 films.
Tamahori: That's why I wanted to make a really good thriller but also a movie for all those who really know Bond. As we were writing, I said, 'What would happen if we put all those old gadgets from past movies together?' So we developed the idea of an old gadget room. Bond and Q have a scene in there, and sharp eyeballs can spot about fifteen props from different movies. It's a funny little scene. Then there's Halle Berry, who gamely waded into the water in a bikini pretending to be warm. That's an homage to Ursula Andress and Dr. No. Everyone still remembers that as one of the great iconic images. I also always thought the old movies were great when they introduced these almost-cameos, those great small characters like Kerim Bey in From Russia with Love. So Bond comes to Cuba and meets Raoul, this old guy, a kind of high-art collector.

TIME: The films have changed a lot over the years.
Tamahori: Yes, the genre has changed. Now the action is verging on escapist and unreal. I guess we love it because it's not real, because it's done with a wink and a nudge. I was a very big fan at the beginning. But I went off it, like a lot of people, during the Roger Moore years. Then you kind of grew to like it, because it wrote the book on big action. They also set the tone for outrageous, audacious, almost high-camp Bond, like Moonraker. When it changed to Timothy Dalton, we were all caught by surprise. I, like everyone else, thought the series was over.

TIME: Every director talks about adding something new. What's the Tamahori take on Bond?
Tamahori: You have to be careful. A Bond movie has a lot of conventions — girls, gadgets, action. It's not that you must stick with them, but if you don't, you may be doing the film — and the genre — a disservice. You don't want to do a Bergman-Bond movie. I did want to do this in a refreshing way that hasn't been done before. If you just work within the parameters, you can still give it a tough edge — but not undo the genre. So it's a hard-edged picture — Bond gets betrayed. He's working on his own outside MI6. He's tortured. This is kind of Cold War stuff. It's not normal for Bond to be incarcerated by anybody.

TIME: What now?
Tamahori: I can't go on to something this big. It's draining and exhausting, a relentless machine that keeps going. You have to have the stamina to keep doing these. These are tentpole pictures, the type of stuff studios put out for summer and Thanksgiving. It might be time to go from big picture to small picture, and I'll probably go back to New Zealand. I miss the country. I miss being around Polynesians and Maoris.