If I could rub a genie and anything could happen? Truthfully, my other love, and this is a complete 180, but I'd love to do a spy or an espionage pic, like a James Bond movie.

That James Bond movie? The one where Bond skis off a cliff, shucks his skis, and parachutes to the ground? That's for me. That's what I want to be. A stuntman in a Bond movie.

When I was shooting 'The Bourne Identity,' I had a mantra: 'How come you never see James Bond pay a phone bill?' It sounds trite, but it became the foundation of that franchise.

When I was a kid, I wasn't looking at the small-budget films myself. I was looking at 'James Bond' and all the major films, so I still have that energy. I still love those films.

One would think that it would be very easy, with an iconic character like James Bond, to keep making the films, but it hasn't been. But, it sure has been entertaining and rewarding.

Peter Jennings was the James Bond of evening news, and I always wanted to be that. His evening news was really a conversation with America, and I hope that's something I can achieve.

James Bond was an early favourite, although I didn't understand much of it. I read the Bible a lot, too. You might say that this was my favourite, since I seemed to read it so often.

There's only so long you can play the silent type standing in the background. 'GoldenEye' was good for that. I was the villain: James Bond was doing all the heavy lifting. I liked that.

The truth of the matter is roles like James Bond are the ones that I look up to as probably the best roles ever to play. So that's probably my ultimate goal one day: to play James Bond.

I always wanted to make a 'James Bond' film, and they only seemed to hire British directors, and I'd made 'Swingers' - they were never going to hire me for a 'James Bond' film off 'Swingers.'

I would say the main thing is, don't just copy yourself, which is what a lot of sequels do. And in some cases, it works. Like James Bond movies. But James Bond is a different type of character.

I came into music kind of late in life - until I was 17 I wanted to be a spy, wanted to be James Bond, so I had to learn rather quickly and practice longer than most people did to play catch up.

There have been so many 'James Bond' movies, 'Spiderman' films, 'Mission Impossible' series, etc. Is there any difference in the basic story? Yet, each time there's a release, people are excited.

Everyone wants to be James Bond, and there's a queue of guys ahead of me - but I will throw my hat into the ring. Bond is such an iconic role, you would have to seriously think how to approach it.

Daniel Craig is brilliant as Bond: there is no question about that. But it's a different Bond. It's the cross pollination of 'The Bourne Identity' and 'James Bond;' that kind of style of filmmaking.

I don't like James Bond. They made him a super hero, but he is just an agent, a human being. In my movies, secret agents are more realistic, I didn't want to portray them in the most glowing colours.

I started my career wanting to make a 'James Bond' movie, and I couldn't get hired! I made 'The Bourne Identity,' and ultimately the impact of that film was that it changed the 'James Bond' franchise.

All I did as a child was pretend to be James Bond or Marlon Brando. When I was about four, I put on my dad's work boots and went up and down the street with his walking stick pretending to be Charlie Chaplin.

I have always weirdly seen myself as more of a character actor. I have never been suave. I could never see myself playing James Bond. I suppose I could fake it, but I am certainly not James Bond in real life.

There's a passion about this because people take it very close to their hearts and they have grown up with James Bond - and so have I. But I was being criticized before I had presented anything, so it was name calling.

People do connect me with James Bond simply because I happen to like scrambled eggs and short-sleeved shirts and some of the things that James Bond does, but I certainly haven't got his guts nor his very lively appetites.

We don't ask the actor playing James Bond what his sexual preference is. So I don't know what it is, really, with trying to out actors who portray gay characters on television. But it is some sort of fascination in society.

I always read a lot as a kid and I'd spend long periods of time in my room reading... I wasn't reading anything great until I got older, but I used to read Agatha Christie mysteries and all of Ian Fleming's 'James Bond' novels.

Whatever you say to yourself about it being just another movie, and you're going to do the job you always do, it ends up being a 'Bond' movie and a sense of what it is to put music to James Bond and to honor the music that exists.

I've never been more terrified than when I learned how to paramotor. They attached this machine to my back, as if I was a stuntman in a James Bond movie, and I had to fly over all these trees and patches of concrete in Cirencester.

Who actually enjoys skiing? Come on, even Olympic ski masters, even James Bond, think that dressing up in all that fluorescent, insulated kit and having to manoeuvre down a mountain in the freezing cold is no way to spend leisure time.

I totally heard by chance that they were doing the casting for a James Bond movie, and that one of the auditions was taking place in Paris. So I tried myself to contact every name involved in the movie I could possibly find on the IMDb!

On one level, I would prefer never to hear the words 'James Bond' again, but on another level, it is part of my blood and my life. And it's the only movie in the world that offers a British actor the chance of international recognition.

When I was playing James Bond, it was the best job in the world. I mean, it was hard work, all that filming and travelling and tedium on set, but I earned a lot of money, and it was not a taxing job. I just had to say, 'Shaken, not stirred.'

You eventually come to the conclusion that there's only so much you can do with these established characters, and you start wondering who among us will be the one to create the next 'Superman' or 'Batman' or 'James Bond' or next 'Lone Ranger.'

When James Bond presses the watch and the car explodes, the writer doesn't go into the science of it. One should leave it to the leap of faith. I have tried to explain as much as possible, and what I can't, I have left it to people's imagination.

I can bore for England on the subject of James Bond. But I knew I couldn't do it frivolously; I had to take it very seriously, however much fun I was having. And I had to make myself, you know, absolutely steeped in Bond and in Fleming and that world.

I never felt that I was a leading-man type in high school. I was always the goofy guy who was getting attention from girls who could make them laugh by doing impersonations of, like, 'Saturday Night Live' sketches... I was more James Stewart than James Bond.

Once a date asked me what I do, so I said that my company empowers women in their dating lives. Her response? 'Aw, that's so cute!' Cute is how my babysitter described me when I was 7 years old. Simple fix: Replace cute with hot and he'll feel like James Bond.

The appeal of the paranormal bad boy - or James Bond super-spy, as one example of male escapism - can sometimes make everyday problems seem less dire. Thus, a few hours spent immersed in the world of the wicked yet alluring hero is the equivalent of a mini-vacation.

Whether you're writing a horror show or a James Bond film, I think what bubbles beneath is interesting characterization. The colors that emerge through storytelling is what a dramatist does. There's always got to be something bubbling underneath that will erupt at some point.

My family loves movies. My dad and I used to eat a huge breakfast, and then we'd just go hang out at the theater all day together. We loved movies like 'Indiana Jones' and 'James Bond.' We were both big action-adventure movie fans. So I kind of grew up with an appreciation for film.

I'd say Jordan Henderson's got some good clothes. I call Stevie G 'James Bond' because he looks good in everything, and he's got the lot. I called him James Bond at the weekend, and I don't think he liked it, but that's what I'm calling him! Martin Skrtel's got some good clobber as well.

'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' was a movie that I repeatedly turned down. The movie's producer, Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli, known for his tight-fisted control of the James Bond movie franchise, desperately wanted to re-team Julie Andrews and me after the success we'd enjoyed with 'Mary Poppins.'

A role I grew up with and always loved was James Bond. I'd even say, in some ways, that he served as a creative role model for me as a kid in terms of roles I would want to play. I watched all of the movies growing up with my dad, so to be Bond himself would, without a doubt, be my dream role.

I drove from Naples to the Amalfi coast in an Alpha Romeo 1969 Spider, which was lovely. There have been lots of movies made down there, and I felt a bit like James Bond - the driving is quite hairy. The locals have mopeds, but you wouldn't catch me on a bike on those roads. A tank would be safer!

'Codename Baboushka' is an action-packed modern pulp spy thriller, in the sort of British tradition of 'Modesty Blaise', New Avengers and of course James Bond. It's a book about Contessa Annika Malikova, the last of a noble Russian line and an enigmatic, mysterious figure in New York high society.

My advice is this. For Christ's sake, don't write a book that is suitable for a kid of 12 years old, because the kids who read who are 12 years old are reading books for adults. I read all of the James Bond books when I was about 11, which was approximately the right time to read James Bond books.

I took the first James Kelman novel, 'The Bus Conductor Hines', home to my dad. I thought, 'My dad will like this; it's written in Scots.' But my dad said: 'I can't read that.' He was reading James Bond and John le Carre. That was part of what attracted me to crime - the idea of getting a wide audience.

One of the bibles of my youth was 'Birds of the West Indies,' by James Bond, a well-known ornithologist, and when I was casting about for a name for my protagonist I thought, 'My God, that's the dullest name I've ever heard,' so I appropriated it. Now the dullest name in the world has become an exciting one.

In the '80s, when I was watching Bond films in the cinemas, Roger Moore was the man. I'll always have a soft spot for him. His Bond films were light-hearted and silly as well as action-packed. For me, this spoke volumes. It meant that, someday, maybe someone like me with a whacky sense of humour could be James Bond.

A James Bond film can be artistically fulfilling. Absolutely it can. It can be complex, and it can be interesting. I consider Bond movies to be an extension of popular theatre, a kind of modern mythology. You see the same sort of action in 'Punch and Judy' or in the folk theatre of various cultures, like 'Grand Guignol.'

Who would have thought that a tap-dancing penguin would outpoint James Bond at the box office? And deserve to? Not that there's anything wrong with 'Casino Royale.' But 'Happy Feet' - written and directed by George Miller - is a complete charmer, even if, in the way of most family fare, it can't resist straying into the Inspirational.

There are a lot of dream roles that I couldn't do, like James Bond and Indiana Jones; I'd never get a look in there, but actually, Doctor Who is probably the only one that I could because he's quite quirky, and the fact that he regenerates he can actually be anyone. So one day, who knows, I might have a chance. I'd love to play that part.

Movies always are open to being remade because times change so much, and the tempo of movies changes. I think of it like a James Bond. They can have different actors play the same role... I've had people come up to me and say, 'We want to remake 'The Jerk' with so and so.' And I say, 'Fine.' It just doesn't bother me. It's an honor actually.

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