{"id":8969,"date":"2017-05-24T16:38:18","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T16:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=8969"},"modified":"2017-06-20T13:21:44","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T13:21:44","slug":"being-a-nice-guy-is-acting-and-more-great-roger-moore-quotes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=8969","title":{"rendered":"‘Being a nice guy is acting’ and more great Roger Moore quotes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

LONDON \u2013 Roger Moore, who died Tuesday aged 89, spoke to me at Pinewood Studios on Dec. 10 1984 on the set of his last James Bond picture, \u201cA View to a Kill\u201d. Here are some highlights from my interview (see full story above):<\/p>\n

On Westerns<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018The Alaskans\u2019 was almost a Western: a frozen Western. I didn\u2019t want to do \u2018Maverick\u2019 at all. I didn\u2019t want to replace Jim Garner. They said I wasn\u2019t replacing him, that it was an entirely different character [cousin Beauregard] but I noticed all the trousers had J. Garner written inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

On blinking when guns go off<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody blinks, actually. You see Western stars, they\u2019re always squinting their eyes. That\u2019s because they\u2019re pinching the muscles to stop themselves from blinking. The trouble with me is that I blink before it goes off because I know it\u2019s going to go off. But there you are. I\u2019m getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n

On taking over as James Bond<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t suppose anybody else worked as cheap as me or turned up on time. I\u2019d been asked earlier when it appeared that Sean [Connery] would leave but he went back and did another one. When he finally took a powder, they came back to me. I have no pride whatsoever. Always ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Bond villains<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u201cChristopher Walken is a lovely fella. Very interesting. Good actor. Very pleasant to work with too. Mind you, all my villains that I\u2019ve had in Bond have been very good. I envy them all because they\u2019ve got the best part. They really do. Bloody villains!\u201d<\/p>\n

On playing villains<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt depends. You know, leading film actors have a persona when they play heroes so there are things they don\u2019t do. I would love to play villains but they won\u2019t let me. Nobody casts me as a villain. In a certain sense I can see why. There are people who go to see you for the type of thing you do and you might piss them off by being nasty. But being rotten, they\u2019re the best parts. That would be natural to me. This is acting. Being a nice guy is acting because really underneath, I\u2019m a shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

On not given credit for working hard<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t give a shit. I get paid. If acting shows onscreen then it\u2019s wrong. Film acting is listening and re-acting. Unless, of course, you\u2019re playing what I call the lovely character parts where you wear a a false nose and beard and hide behind things. As a leading man, you have no physical things to hide behind. You haven\u2019t got the hump, you know? You can\u2019t do, \u2018The bells! The bells!\u2019, all that crap. Which is fun, you know, fun to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

On having good luck<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been rather surprised, actually, that I was employed. I didn\u2019t expect not to be employed but I\u2019m always surprised when I am. I\u2019ve been very lucky. It\u2019s luck in the first place to be there at the right time. It\u2019s luck that the part comes along. It\u2019s luck that you\u2019re accepted in it. It\u2019s luck that they come back for more. And it\u2019s their bad luck because they\u2019ve got to watch it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On his career<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning of my film career, literally within the same week as I signed for MGM, I was offered The Old Vic. Well, I might have gone on carrying a spear for 40 years or I might gone on to be a classical actor. Who knows? I have a feeling I\u2019d have been carrying a fucking spear. But I only say things like that because I\u2019m modest.\u201d<\/p>\n

On self-confidence<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to be terribly timid. I would rather not eat than go into a restaurant on my own. Even now, I hate that. I sort of covered up my timidity by being ingratiatingly charming. Which is why I got away with murder with teachers at school. Smile a lot. I recall when I came out of the army and started in repertory, a director, or producer as we used to call them, said, \u2018You\u2019re not very good. Smile a lot when you come on.\u2019 So, I smile a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

On comedy\u00a0in his Bond films<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

“I always wanted more humour in the films. ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, I think had all the right ingredients to it. \u2018Octopussy\u2019 worked too in terms of the humour that I tried to get in. A lot of the time, it\u2019s impossible to get any humour in. There are moments when you have to be serious and they\u2019re the moments when I really want to laugh my head off. You think, \u2018This is a load of cobblers.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

On his political views<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI avoid expressing them.\u00a0I\u2019m slightly to the right of Attila the Hun, that\u2019s all. If everybody knew my views, I\u2019d make a lot of enemies. I believe in dictatorship as long as I\u2019m the dictator. A benevolent dictatorship. I suppose I started off, as most young people do when they start thinking of politics, they\u2019re communists. Then you become socialist. Then Labour. Then Liberal when you don\u2019t know which fucking direction you\u2019re going, and then you end up being Conservative.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it turned out, \u201cA View to a Kill\u201d was Moore\u2019s final appearance as James Bond so I was pleased to catch him before it all ended. Moore\u2019s first appearance in the role was in \u201cLive and Let Die\u201d (1963) followed by \u201cThe Man With the Golden Gun\u201d (1974), \u201cThe Spy Who Loved Me\u201d (1977), \u201cMoonraker\u201d (1979\u201d, \u201cFor Your Eyes Only\u201d (1981) and \u201cOctopussy\u201d (1983).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013 Roger Moore, who died Tuesday aged 89, spoke to me at Pinewood Studios on Dec. 10 1984 on the set of his last James Bond picture, \u201cA View to a Kill\u201d. Here are some highlights … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,1263],"tags":[4582,4583,668,4581,4580],"class_list":["post-8969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","category-memory-lane","tag-a-view-to-a-kill","tag-christopher-walken","tag-james-bond","tag-pinewood-studios","tag-roger-moore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8969"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9083,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8969\/revisions\/9083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}