Quotes

Paramount backed Alfie (1966) because it was going to be made for $500,000, normally the sort of money spent on executives' cigar bills.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) was the highlight of my career.

If I have any claim to fame, I believe I've shot the three biggest sets ever built for motion pictures.

[on Michael Caine in Educating Rita (1983)] Over the years I'd lost touch with Michael personally, but I kept tabs on his work. It's been so varied--he's never been particularly typed. The characters in Alfie (1966) and "Rita" couldn't be more opposite, but there was no doubt in my mind that he should be the professor.

[in a 1983 interview on the Bond films] What [Sean Connery] did, really, was to make James Bond in his own image--because he was not the Bond of the books. Of course, he was a very sexy, attractive, macho man--he still is. He also gave Bond a cynical edge. When his Bond shot someone, they were really dead. [Roger Moore], on the other hand, is more like the character in the books. He also gets along on a great deal of charm and friendliness. I don't think audiences ever believe Roger really kills anyone.

[in a 1983 interview] In the Bond films characterizations are non-existent. Nobody's worried about what Bond did as a child or how his mother treated him--we don't even know if he had a mother! That's not what the Bond films are about. They're all action and fun. But with a film like [Educating Rita (1983)], it's you and the actors and the words. It depends on the characterizations and the interplay. You don't get to rely on exciting ploys--like a bomb going off. Instead, you rely on two people talking, so those people better be saying the right things at the right time.

[on Kenneth More] I was very fond of Kenny as an actor, although he wasn't particularly versatile. What he could do, he did very well. His strength was his ability to portray charm; basically he was the officer returning from the war and was superb in that role. The minute that kind of role went out of existence, his popularity as a box-office star began to go down.