An Indian Bond girl — why not?

Skyfall producer doesn’t mind casting an Indian Bond girl.

MUMBAI:

The cast and crew of latest James Bond film Skyfall felt it was “too ambitious” to shoot certain action sequences for the movie in India, but producer Barbara Broccoli says they haven’t ruled out coming to the country for a new 007 installment, and won’t even mind roping in an Indian Bond girl in the future.

“We certainly are on a lookout for talented beautiful women. If we make a film in India, we will have an Indian actress,” Broccoli said during a web conference from New York with IANS.

Directed by Sam Mendes, the latest super spy thriller Skyfall, starring Daniel Craig, is set to release in India November 2. The movie features British actor Naomie Harris as the Bond girl, who is usually marked for her glamorous and sophisticated demeanour.

The choice of Bond girl for every 007 movie depends purely on the character, says Broccoli.”Normally when we are casting for a Bond woman, our casting director looks for Bond women all around the world, and then we go through several rounds of auditions for that. And then finally when we reach the finalists, we bring them into Britain to meet Daniel.”

“Lots of people are considered, it comes down to what the character requires and in Skyfall, we needed a British female agent working alongside Bond,” she added.

A key action sequence of Skyfall was due to be shot in India. The producers wanted to shoot high-speed stunts on the Indian Railways, and had requested for clearances to shoot on the rooftop of a moving train, as well as inside a tunnel. However, they faced a few stumbling blocks in getting permission due to safety and security issues and decided to shoot elsewhere.

Broccoli says the complexity of the scenes would have made it very difficult to shoot in India. “Typically, we do visit various countries when we are looking for locations. So we did come to India to look for locations,” she said. “Because of the complexities with the title sequence, we did have a big chase with the cars and the motorcycle and trains.”

“We looked at India as a possibility, but given the traffic, the complexities of having to shoot such a big scene, we would have had to shove off many roads and cause a lot of disruption. We felt it would be too ambitious to do the scene in India,” she added.

This wouldn’t have been the first instance of an India connect in a Bond film. Parts of the 1983 Bond film Octopussy, which featured Indian actors Kabir Bedi and Vijay Amritraj, were shot in Udaipur. 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2012.

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