Slightly spoilery news about Quantum of Solace

The London Times has an extensive interview with Mathieu Amalric, mostly about the demands of starring in The Diving Bell and Butterfly, but he also discusses Quantum of Solace.

Before accepting the role, he asked the veteran actor Michael Lonsdale, who played the villainous Sir Hugo Drax in Moonraker, how it had affected his career. “It didn’t change his life,” Amalric says. He adds that the film is “very dark” and the role extremely physical – anything might seem physical after playing Bauby – because of a big fight with Bond at the end. “I’ll have to be in shape for it,” he says.

By the way, Lonsdale played Amalric’s father in Munich (and former Blofeld Max von Sydow—who got it wrong about Amalric in QOS—plays his father in The Diving Bell…

Meanwhile, MI6 quotes Gemma Arterton about her character:

Arterton said, “she’s an MI6 agent call Agent Fields and she works for the British Consulate in Bolivia trying to keep Bond under control. But obviously, he’s Bond, so… She sort of comes to a sticky end.”

Finally, CBn has got Daniel Craig talking about Bond’s flaws:

Flaws are important in the character and flaws make for more interesting watching, so there will be mistakes, but hopefully he’ll win the day.

RT interviews Daniel Craig

In an exclusive interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Daniel Craig tells considerably less than all, but still plenty.

When it came to the specifics – the title for example – Craig was being cagey, telling us, with a wry grin, that no, there was no title yet, and laughing as we put to him the suggestion that it was The Lady Expects Too Much. “Really, is that the rumour? That’s quite good,” he laughed, “I should write that one down…”
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But he was willing to let slip some details about the plot. “It carries on from where the last one stopped,” Craig told RT, “We set up in the last one that there’s this organisation that is destabilising the world’s economy because they want to take it over, and that’s his job now, to go out and stop them.”
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Casting news has recently revealed a potential villain in Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly star, Mathieu Almaric. “I’m over the moon with his casting,” Craig told us, “I met him very briefly on Munich but I didn’t do any scenes with him. Now I’ve got to know him on Bond and I saw the Schnabel movie and thought it was amazing.”
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And that line is interesting enough on its own – Bond 22 has only recently started principal photography, perhaps suggesting that if he’s already gotten to know Almaric, his character may be featured heavily in the film. On the suggestion that he was the Algerian boyfriend of Vesper Lynd, Eva Green’s character in Casino Royale, we again saw the wry smile as Craig hinted, “there is a connection there, yes…” …
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“I’m no less nervous than I was but I’m very happy with what we’ve put together for this one. The fact that Marc Forster’s come in to direct it just makes my job a lot easier. He’s taken care of a lot of stuff that I just don’t have to think about and I’m just getting on with acting.”
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And, he says, the pressure of taking on the mantle of James Bond gets no easier the second time out of the gate. “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable with it,” he said, “I mean, it’s James Bond. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to that place and get Zen about it; it’s not that kind of role. But I’m enjoying what we’ve shot so far and I’m planning to enjoy as much as I can of this filming process. Because, otherwise, why do it?”

Amalric Confirmed for Bond 22

According to Digital Spy,

French actor Mathieu Amalric has confirmed that he is to play the villain in the next James Bond film

Of course, I had Max von Sydow’s comment on this on Sunday, and rumors have been swirling for a week or three, but this is the first report I’ve seen that claims Amalric himself said so.

Interestingly, Amalric has played the son of former Bond villains twice. He’s currently in The Diving Bell and Butterfly as the son of Max von Sydow: NSNA’s Blofeld. In 2005, he was in Munich (with Daniel Craig) where he played the son of Michael Lonsdale: Moonraker’s Hugo Drax.

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