Pinewood 007 Fire – Wooden Acting Blamed
Wooden acting has been blamed for the fire that tore through Pinewood’s 007 soundstage yesterday. Fire crews battled for five hours to control the blaze that broke out during filming of the finale to the new James Bond film, Casino Royale. Initial reports suggest that the line ‘Ah! We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Bond’ was to blame.
A source within the crew told The Spine that ‘they were all hamming it up quite a bit and the first thing we saw was smoke coming out of the back of Judi [Dench]. The next minute, the whole bloody place had gone up. That’s always been the problem with these Oscar winners. If they go wooden on you, it only takes a spark to set them off.’
After a fire that had destroyed the first 007 stage in 1984, precautions had been taken to fireproof subsequent Bonds. Roger Moore wore asbestos suits throughout his whole time in the role, while both Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan were coated in a fire-retardant permo-tan to prevent spontaneous ignition. It is thought that budget restrictions had prevented the new Bond, Daniel Craig, from getting the same treatment, despite warnings from safety experts who had pointed to Craig’s wayward accent in Steven Spielberg’s Munich as a sign of things to come. The last major incident of this kind was caught before it developed into a major fire. During filming on Licence to Kill, Timothy Dalton’s Welsh accent crept out during the line ‘things were about to get a little nasty’. The resulting fire was contained within a small area of back lot and Dalton escaped with only moderate damage to his reputation.
August 2nd, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Apparently soap operas are so named because they had to coat all the furniture and scenery in a soapy liquid to prevent actors from chewing on them and to lower their fire insurance premiums.
August 2nd, 2006 at 5:57 pm
That is very true, MC, though I see Wikipedia is typically inaccurate about this sort of thing. Of course, the reason why sets wobble in the cheaper daytime soaps is because the soap loosens all the joints in the low quality wood used to build the sets. On the expensive American soaps, they no longer even use soap but beeswax, which gives a higher quality finish to the drama.
I’m really glad we can address these misnomers.
August 9th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
Very funny.
However Craig will answer his critics when he plays his new “BAD BOND” in Casino Royale
August 9th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Oh, I’m hoping he’ll be a great Bond, based on how good he was in Layer Cake. I was never a Brosnan fan, too posed and not natural enough, which is what I thought when I rewatched some of the Connery Bonds over the weekend. I’d forgotten what a mean soul he was. Great stuff.
And just to prove what a Bond fan I am, I’m starting to reread all the books, with my nice brand new copies of the Penguin Bonds (10 books for a tenner from http://www.thebookpeople.com).
December 21st, 2007 at 7:05 pm
[...] take on the fire which destroyed the set of James Bond.read more | digg story [...]