Post by Ace on Jan 4, 2005 0:52:56 GMT -5
Daily Mail: The fight to save my marriage, fears of cancer and why I'm saying
January 3, 2005 8:00pm
Europe Intelligence Wire
THE ROLE has brought her fan mail from all over the world and made her a household name. But now, after nine years as Miss Moneypenny - M's ice-cool blonde secretary who harbours a secret passion for James Bond - the actress who plays her is ready to quit.
The appropriately named Samantha Bond has decided that the thought of flirting with any actor, other than Pierce Brosnan, in the title role just wouldn't be the same.
'Call me old-fashioned, but as a 43-year-old mother-of-two, I would find it very odd flirting with a Bond who was younger than me,' she says. 'It just wouldn't feel right.' Many names, ranging from Ewan MacGregor to Dougray Scott, have been suggested for the next Bond, but no casting decisions have been made, although Samantha does let slip that Judi Dench has agreed to play M again.
'It's going to be incredibly difficult to replace Pierce. I think he was fantastic as Bond and I can't imagine anyone else playing him. I think I would feel - and certainly Miss Moneypenny would feel - very disloyal working with another actor in the role.
'There is one actor, who was in the frame for it years and years ago who, if he got it, might make me reconsider. I'm not going to say who it is, but I think the reality is that my days of playing Miss Moneypenny are over.'
Samantha first appeared opposite Brosnan in Golden Eye in 1995 and has starred in the past four Bond films. It brought her instant fame despite the fact that she was already a leading lady with the Royal Shakespeare Company by the time she was 30, and has starred in such award-winning plays as Amy's View in London's West End and on Broadway.
'It's quite incredible, really, that one role should have made such a difference. Each film has only ever involved two days' work for me, so it's not as if I'm going to miss the work. When I first took it on, I saw it as a double- edged sword.
'It certainly didn't help the careers of the two Miss Moneypennies before me. Caroline Bliss, who played her in two films opposite Timothy Dalton, has now given up the business. And the original Miss Moneypenny, Lois Maxwell, was typecast for ever.
'So I did wonder whether it would mean an end to the rest of the work I'd been doing, but fortunately that hasn't happened.' In the last Bond film, Die Another Day, Moneypenny and Bond finally got to kiss in a steamy clinch across the secretary's desk.
It was a fantasy scene played out in Moneypenny's head, but marked the first time in the Bond films that the lips of the two protagonists had ever touched.
'No other Miss Moneypenny has snogged Bond and they won't be able to do it again because it was a fantasy. So nobody can take that away from me. And my surname will still go on being "Bond".'
NOT LONG after she made the last Bond film, Samantha had an even steamier scene with Sean Bean when she played opposite him in Macbeth in the West End. Their sex scenes were so passionate that her lips were actually blistered.
Such realistic passion on screen and stage has been the cause of many a showbusiness divorce, but Samantha's 15-year marriage to fellow actor Alex Hanson seems to have weathered all make-believe infidelities.
Says Samantha: 'It's never been a problem for me, although it is a very weird feeling watching your partner kissing someone else on stage or screen.
'I can remember sitting between Alex and our son Tom, who will be 12 next month, at the premiere of Die Another Day. That kiss seemed to go on and on and, as it did, the two men in my life got tenser and tenser until, by the end of it, they were staring at me really hard.
'I think Tom finds its tougher to watch than his father and I know it's very embarrassing for him.' Samantha warned him about the scene before the film came out, so that he wouldn't get any hassle over it at school.
She is painfully aware of the cruelty that can be inflicted by school bullies on the children of actors as her own father, Philip Bond, starred in the TV series The Onedin Line, when Samantha was at school in the Seventies.
She was bullied from seven until her fourth year at grammar school and even now the recollection makes her feel sick. She recalls: 'I was bullied appallingly at my primary school.
Unfortunately, one of the leading protagonists went up with me to grammar school and it started again.
'The mental cruelty was unbelievable. I ended up sobbing most days. It stopped in my fourth year because the main protagonist left and I got a new circle of friends who protected me. I hope she reads this because she knows who she is.' Reluctantly, Samantha was separated from her family for five months last year on the Northumberland coast filming a new, sixpart primetime comedy drama series, Distant Shores, which begins on ITV on Wednesday.
She plays a woman who uproots her family from London to live on a remote island in a bid to save her crumbling marriage. Peter Davison plays her cosmetic surgeon husband who swops his London practice to become the island's doctor.
Before that, she was starring nightly in the West End hit A Woman Of No Importance, and by day was filming a two-part BBC crime thriller, The Murder Room, broadcast over the New Year.
She says: 'The two women I played are as different as two women could be. As Caroline Dupayne in The Murder Room, I played a very cold fish; whereas Lisa, in Distant Shores, is a slightly scatty, harassed mother who is trying desperately hard to keep everything together. She's more like me than anyone I have ever played.' Samantha knows all about keeping marriages and families together. Five years and two babies into her marriage with Alex, the couple split up for a year. But Samantha was determined not to give up her marriage without a fight, despite being told by one unhelpful marriage guidance counsellor that her marriage wasn't worth saving.
'That was a long time ago.
Marriage isn't easy - it takes work, commitment and time - and when you have young children, you don't always get a lot of time. But Alex and I try to slip away for romantic holidays at least twice a year so that we have a bit of "us" time.
'We also go out on dates together, even if it's just going to the cinema or out for dinner. It's important to do things together as lovers because the time will come when the children go off and leave you and if you don't know who it is you are living with any more then you could be in for a terrible shock.' Samantha's parents, Philip Bond and former actress Pat Sandys, who went on to produce the TV series The Bill, divorced when she was in her late teens. But she describes their break-up as amicable, leaving no lasting effects.
When she was 21, she starred in a play opposite Martin Clunes, who went on to become her first love.
They were together for a year. 'The last time we bumped into each other was when we were having dinner with Prince Charles at Highrove - we are both ambassadors for the Prince's Trust.' FOUR years ago, Samantha's mother died of bowel cancer.
Around the same time, Samantha discovered a lump in her breast which turned out to be benign. But doctors warned her that her mother's cancer had a genetic component, putting her and her own children, Tom and 13-year-old Molly, at risk.
She says: 'You have to have a pair of genes for it to be a problem. And my children would only be affected if Alex was carrying as well. It is worrying, but I keep a close check on it and bowel cancer is incredibly curable if it is caught soon enough.' Samantha is now deeply involved with cancer charities, particularly the Teenage Cancer Trust, which aims to create special wards in hospitals for teenage cancer sufferers.
She is one of a number of celebrities who have written a collection of poems and short stories for a book called Christmas Stories to raise money for the charity.
She adds: 'I'm glad that I can help people, but it doesn't take away the tragedy of my own mother's death. People say it gets better with time. It doesn't - you just get better at dealing with it.'
Copyright © 2004 Daily Mail. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire
January 3, 2005 8:00pm
Europe Intelligence Wire
THE ROLE has brought her fan mail from all over the world and made her a household name. But now, after nine years as Miss Moneypenny - M's ice-cool blonde secretary who harbours a secret passion for James Bond - the actress who plays her is ready to quit.
The appropriately named Samantha Bond has decided that the thought of flirting with any actor, other than Pierce Brosnan, in the title role just wouldn't be the same.
'Call me old-fashioned, but as a 43-year-old mother-of-two, I would find it very odd flirting with a Bond who was younger than me,' she says. 'It just wouldn't feel right.' Many names, ranging from Ewan MacGregor to Dougray Scott, have been suggested for the next Bond, but no casting decisions have been made, although Samantha does let slip that Judi Dench has agreed to play M again.
'It's going to be incredibly difficult to replace Pierce. I think he was fantastic as Bond and I can't imagine anyone else playing him. I think I would feel - and certainly Miss Moneypenny would feel - very disloyal working with another actor in the role.
'There is one actor, who was in the frame for it years and years ago who, if he got it, might make me reconsider. I'm not going to say who it is, but I think the reality is that my days of playing Miss Moneypenny are over.'
Samantha first appeared opposite Brosnan in Golden Eye in 1995 and has starred in the past four Bond films. It brought her instant fame despite the fact that she was already a leading lady with the Royal Shakespeare Company by the time she was 30, and has starred in such award-winning plays as Amy's View in London's West End and on Broadway.
'It's quite incredible, really, that one role should have made such a difference. Each film has only ever involved two days' work for me, so it's not as if I'm going to miss the work. When I first took it on, I saw it as a double- edged sword.
'It certainly didn't help the careers of the two Miss Moneypennies before me. Caroline Bliss, who played her in two films opposite Timothy Dalton, has now given up the business. And the original Miss Moneypenny, Lois Maxwell, was typecast for ever.
'So I did wonder whether it would mean an end to the rest of the work I'd been doing, but fortunately that hasn't happened.' In the last Bond film, Die Another Day, Moneypenny and Bond finally got to kiss in a steamy clinch across the secretary's desk.
It was a fantasy scene played out in Moneypenny's head, but marked the first time in the Bond films that the lips of the two protagonists had ever touched.
'No other Miss Moneypenny has snogged Bond and they won't be able to do it again because it was a fantasy. So nobody can take that away from me. And my surname will still go on being "Bond".'
NOT LONG after she made the last Bond film, Samantha had an even steamier scene with Sean Bean when she played opposite him in Macbeth in the West End. Their sex scenes were so passionate that her lips were actually blistered.
Such realistic passion on screen and stage has been the cause of many a showbusiness divorce, but Samantha's 15-year marriage to fellow actor Alex Hanson seems to have weathered all make-believe infidelities.
Says Samantha: 'It's never been a problem for me, although it is a very weird feeling watching your partner kissing someone else on stage or screen.
'I can remember sitting between Alex and our son Tom, who will be 12 next month, at the premiere of Die Another Day. That kiss seemed to go on and on and, as it did, the two men in my life got tenser and tenser until, by the end of it, they were staring at me really hard.
'I think Tom finds its tougher to watch than his father and I know it's very embarrassing for him.' Samantha warned him about the scene before the film came out, so that he wouldn't get any hassle over it at school.
She is painfully aware of the cruelty that can be inflicted by school bullies on the children of actors as her own father, Philip Bond, starred in the TV series The Onedin Line, when Samantha was at school in the Seventies.
She was bullied from seven until her fourth year at grammar school and even now the recollection makes her feel sick. She recalls: 'I was bullied appallingly at my primary school.
Unfortunately, one of the leading protagonists went up with me to grammar school and it started again.
'The mental cruelty was unbelievable. I ended up sobbing most days. It stopped in my fourth year because the main protagonist left and I got a new circle of friends who protected me. I hope she reads this because she knows who she is.' Reluctantly, Samantha was separated from her family for five months last year on the Northumberland coast filming a new, sixpart primetime comedy drama series, Distant Shores, which begins on ITV on Wednesday.
She plays a woman who uproots her family from London to live on a remote island in a bid to save her crumbling marriage. Peter Davison plays her cosmetic surgeon husband who swops his London practice to become the island's doctor.
Before that, she was starring nightly in the West End hit A Woman Of No Importance, and by day was filming a two-part BBC crime thriller, The Murder Room, broadcast over the New Year.
She says: 'The two women I played are as different as two women could be. As Caroline Dupayne in The Murder Room, I played a very cold fish; whereas Lisa, in Distant Shores, is a slightly scatty, harassed mother who is trying desperately hard to keep everything together. She's more like me than anyone I have ever played.' Samantha knows all about keeping marriages and families together. Five years and two babies into her marriage with Alex, the couple split up for a year. But Samantha was determined not to give up her marriage without a fight, despite being told by one unhelpful marriage guidance counsellor that her marriage wasn't worth saving.
'That was a long time ago.
Marriage isn't easy - it takes work, commitment and time - and when you have young children, you don't always get a lot of time. But Alex and I try to slip away for romantic holidays at least twice a year so that we have a bit of "us" time.
'We also go out on dates together, even if it's just going to the cinema or out for dinner. It's important to do things together as lovers because the time will come when the children go off and leave you and if you don't know who it is you are living with any more then you could be in for a terrible shock.' Samantha's parents, Philip Bond and former actress Pat Sandys, who went on to produce the TV series The Bill, divorced when she was in her late teens. But she describes their break-up as amicable, leaving no lasting effects.
When she was 21, she starred in a play opposite Martin Clunes, who went on to become her first love.
They were together for a year. 'The last time we bumped into each other was when we were having dinner with Prince Charles at Highrove - we are both ambassadors for the Prince's Trust.' FOUR years ago, Samantha's mother died of bowel cancer.
Around the same time, Samantha discovered a lump in her breast which turned out to be benign. But doctors warned her that her mother's cancer had a genetic component, putting her and her own children, Tom and 13-year-old Molly, at risk.
She says: 'You have to have a pair of genes for it to be a problem. And my children would only be affected if Alex was carrying as well. It is worrying, but I keep a close check on it and bowel cancer is incredibly curable if it is caught soon enough.' Samantha is now deeply involved with cancer charities, particularly the Teenage Cancer Trust, which aims to create special wards in hospitals for teenage cancer sufferers.
She is one of a number of celebrities who have written a collection of poems and short stories for a book called Christmas Stories to raise money for the charity.
She adds: 'I'm glad that I can help people, but it doesn't take away the tragedy of my own mother's death. People say it gets better with time. It doesn't - you just get better at dealing with it.'
Copyright © 2004 Daily Mail. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire
