‘It's sad': Timothy Dalton opens up about the James Bond Amazon deal

Telegraph

25-02-2025

Timothy Dalton is perfectly happy to talk about James Bond, which is a relief. Our interview was arranged to discuss his role in 1923, Taylor Sheridan's latest TV epic about the American West, which is back for a second series. But news just in, to widespread dismay, is that Amazon has taken creative control of the Bond franchise. Many fans are saddened that the 63-year link to the Broccoli family – original producer Cubby Broccoli, followed by his daughter, Barbara – has effectively ended.
'I think it's sad as well,' says Dalton, who played 007 in The Living Daylights and Licence To Kill and is regarded by connoisseurs such as Christopher Nolan, the director tipped to helm the next instalment, as the actor who came closest to realising the character depicted in Ian Fleming's novels. 'Barbara is one of the best women in the whole world. I think she's fantastic. Around a Bond movie, everyone's got an opinion. That tends to make something less special, but if you keep it to people who know what they're doing and know what they want, then it will sharpen up and be good. Barbara had that.
'I have no idea what Amazon would do with it, and I have no idea what the relationship of Amazon to the Broccolis will be. But it is a damn fine series of movies. I was watching it when I was young, we all were. It's been part of our lives, so anything that threatens it is kind of sad.'
The concern, I suggest, is that Bond may lose its Britishness and become just another bit of Americanised Amazon 'content' (a term that reportedly made Barbara Broccoli shudder when she heard it applied to her films). 'I would agree with that,' says Dalton. 'It is one of the few wonderful stories we've got in film that is British. The leading character is British. We can call it our own.'
And is he of the mindset that the next actor to play Bond must be British? Emphatically so. 'Yes. Yes. Because that's where it was born, that's what the stories are. Definitely. One hundred per cent.'
He isn't too gloomy about it, though. 'Everyone who's got anything to do with it will be working very hard to make it a hit. Amazon are quite capable of making it a hit, I should think.'
Dalton isn't gloomy about anything today, although it's 9am in Los Angeles and he is feeling fragile because last night was the 1923 season premiere. 'We had a party that would have reminded you of being 17 years old,' he laughs, joking that he needs to get his brain in gear: 'Think of lots of very long questions that take two or three minutes…'
For logistical reasons, we're chatting over the phone rather than meeting in person, which he and I agree would be more enjoyable. He teases that he has all sorts of stories that he'd love to tell: 'I wish this wasn't an interview, we could have such fun. I've got to be very careful what I say!' Three publicists are silently sitting in on the call, as is the Hollywood way, but Dalton, 78, is a pro who can handle things just fine.
We get on with today's main order of business, discussing his role as the villainous Donald Whitfield in 1923. Whitfield, is a tycoon intent on buying up swathes of land in Montana. Filming took place on location and was not without its challenges.
'There was a wonderful moment last season where I had his very long speech to do, and I saw this grey mark on the horizon, this looming thing that was getting bigger and bigger and I realised was coming towards us. And a blizzard hit us,' Dalton recalls. 'We sadly knew that a couple of men had gone to hospital with early frostbite. So now we're not only taking on the challenge of making the scene work well, but also the challenge of staying alive. It was exciting.'
He signed up to the series before reading a script, on the strength of Sheridan's reputation. An astute decision: the first series of 1923 became Paramount's highest-rated launch. Like its sister shows, Yellowstone and 1883, it has been resoundingly popular in the Midwest and southern US states, where audiences have responded to a type of old-fashioned storytelling that stands in contrast to the archness of something like Succession, which is adored by the chattering classes. But Dalton doesn't put Sheridan's success down to politics.
'First of all, he's a damn good writer,' he says. 'And he's taking what has become tradition and he's knocking it for six. When I was young, we watched westerns with pure white Conestoga wagons and Ward Bond in charge; westerns where everybody was clean, their clothes somehow washed and ironed. It wasn't like that at all. Taylor Sheridan is exposing that. His shows have a touch of something where you can say, 'That, I believe.''
Whitfield is a very clever man. He's also a sadist, using and abusing two young prostitutes. In series two, one of them, Lindy, has become his lover and something of a partner in crime, and there is an unsettling early scene in which the pair share a bath. The 20-something actress who plays her, Madison Elise Rogers, is naked on camera. I ask if the scene was choreographed by an intimacy coordinator.
'Are you asking me, did I have a sex coordinator?' he says, amused. 'Yes. And not just then, there are other occasions as well [throughout the series]. It's very tough for a guy now, you know.' He stops. 'No, forget that. That's a losing line of conversation.' Are scenes like that difficult to film? 'Well, we are grown up, you know? We all know it's a movie. Madison is a terrific girl and she knows what she's doing, so it's all right. But we don't want the audience to know that, in a way. It's this man having his cigar and reading the newspaper in the bath, and a rather sexy, attractive young woman comes in and bathes with him. That's the kind of man he is. And a lot of people will probably be saying, 'Why not?''
There follows a brief conversation in which I muse that Dalton was probably clothed beneath the water, so it's not as if he and this young actress were both naked in a bath. 'What would you think I was wearing?' he splutters in mock indignation. Pants or swimming trunks, I venture, wondering what possessed me to get onto this topic. 'You're telling me that's what you were thinking whilst you were watching the bloody scene?!' he laughs. Luckily, Dalton has a well-tuned sense of the ridiculous. On his years in Birmingham Repertory Theatre, which he joined after dropping out of RADA, he tells a story about his first job in a production with Michael Gambon and Brian Cox. 'I was determined to make a mark and I came hurtling onto the stage like a bolt of thunder and lightning, and fell flat on my face. So I guess I was notable…'
He made his screen debut as Philip II of France in The Lion in Winter (1968), which starred Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. 'That's pretty remarkable for a first film job, isn't it?' Distinguished screen roles came thick and fast, mostly in period dramas, although he says that wasn't by design: 'It was just what was available. That's what we were doing then.' The kitchen sink era was over: 'I might have been better at kitchen sink, but we were done [with that].' Those brooding good looks no doubt helped him to be cast as two romantic heroes of literature, Heathcliff and Mr Rochester, and his many stage roles included Marc Antony in the West End and Romeo for the RSC.
His Bond restored the seriousness that had been missing during the Roger Moore years. But he has also had forays into comedy, including the hilarious supermarket manager in Hot Fuzz and voicing luvvie hedgehog Mr Pricklepants in Toy Story 3. 'It's true that I'm not generally thought of as someone who does comedy, but when it comes along I do like getting laughs. And Hot Fuzz was wonderful. I was very lucky to be in it.' He's not at all precious. When I tell him that I loved his performance as Prince Barin in Flash Gordon, and could watch him yelling: 'Freeze, you bloody bastards!' on a loop, he sounds delighted: 'Oh, you're an angel. Thank you. It was such brilliant fun to do.'
Dalton still carries the hint of a Derbyshire accent despite living mostly in Los Angeles. He also retains his love of Manchester City: 'We've got a little fan club here. Not an official one – that's my terminology for myself and the friends that sometimes get up at five in the bloody morning and cheer them on.' He watches some of the games with his son, Alexander, from a past relationship with musician Oksana Grigorieva. I don't get the opportunity to ask if there is currently a significant other in his life, or to ask how he spends the rest of his leisure time, although a newspaper cutting reveals that during his romance with Vanessa Redgrave in the 1970s-80s he 'instilled in her a lasting love of fly fishing'.
I tell him that our allotted interview time is up. 'How dare they? We're having a good time here!' he says. And it's a shame, because I think Dalton has plenty more to say.