Sean Connery on James Bond (film series)

“Yes, I do identify with him. I too enjoy drinking, women, eating the physical pleasure – smells and tastes living by my senses, being alive. And as far as Bond is concerned, he has no past.”

“His is a sort of parody of the character, as it were, so you would go for the laugh or the humour at whatever the cost of the credibility or the reality. I think that's basically the difference.”

“I feel that Roger - which I think he may have inherited in part from after Diamonds Are Forever, where they were already getting into that area of too much hardware - that that was more important.”

“Bond makes his own rules, and that’s fine as long as you’re not plagued by doubts. But if you are—and most of us are—you’re sunk. That’s why Bond is so attrac­tive to women. By their na­ture they’re indecisive, so a man who is absolutely sure comes as a godsend.”

“With James Bond, people are sure there's gonna be a bit of sex, a bit of fun, a bit of action, a bit of drama and it's gonna be a bit of a joyride. My personal choice is From Russia With Love because that's got all the glamour and the locations and the twists and the humor and rather good storytelling, and places like Istanbul. The Bond pictures will continue on, I suppose.”

“Hitherto, whenever I’ve tangled with a beautiful spy, have you noticed what in­variably happens? Even if I know the girl is a nasty and dangerous little snake, I’ve still had to kiss her first and kill her later. That’s the persona Ian Fleming and the film producers built up for me as James Bond. Every time I see a girl, I have to give. One of my producers, Cubby Broccoli, said to me: ‘It’s like this, Sean. James Bond is a nut for girls. Even if he hates her, his amor­ous instincts die hard – and she dies soft see?”

“He (Bond) is really a mixture of all that the defenders and the attackers say he is. When I spoke about Bond with (Bond creator, Ian) Fleming, he said that when the character was conceived, Bond was a very simple, straightforward, blunt instrument of the police force, a functionary who would carry out his job rather doggedly. But he also had a lot of idiosyncrasies that were considered snobbish–such as a taste for special wines, et cetera. But if you take Bond in the situations that he is constantly involved with, you see that it is a very hard, high, unusual league that he plays in. Therefore he is quite right in having all his senses satisfied–be it sex, wine, food or clothes–because the job, and he with it, may terminate at any minute. But the virtues that (Kingsley) Amis mentions–loyalty, honesty–are there, too. Bond doesn’t chase married women, for instance. Judged on that level, he comes out rather well.”

““Immoral? I’ve never seen him steal anyone’s wife, anyone else’s woman, or betray his own; he doesn’t have one. He likes women all right, but he never rapes them; it’s they who worm their way into his bed. He kills people, he has to; if he doesn’t, they’ll kill him. He abides by no laws, but nor is he protected by the laws that protect others; society does nothing to defend him, he isn’t known to society. He’s rather ignorant, O.K., but he doesn’t exactly have the time for reading Joyce. His struggle for survival obliges him to be practical, functional, to reduce everything to the verbs sniff, look, listen, taste, think. His safety depends on this and not on Joyce. He doesn’t fight for old people and children, but who said he couldn’t? Have you any proof? Your accusations wouldn’t be valid in any court of law. Yes, sure, it would be interesting if I spoke badly of Bond. But I’ve got nothing at all against Mr. Bond, and I’m only too sorry he has to die.””