GoldenEyeactor Alan Cumming recalls filming the 1995James Bondmovie and worrying that he was going to ruin it by not nailing one crucial detail. Directed by Martin Campbell,GoldenEyemarks Pierce Brosnan’s first outing as 007and it comes six years after 1989’sLicence to Killstarring Timothy Dalton. The soft rebootfollows Bond as he faces off against a rogue MI6 agent, played by Sean Bean, to stop a satellite attack against London. Cumming appears in the film as Boris, a tech whiz, who has one standout story beat involving Bond’s exploding pen.
In a recent video forVanity Fairin which he rewatches his past performances, Cumming reveals that the pen inGoldenEye, which he has to twirl and click to accidentally trigger the explosive inside, was the source of a great deal of worry. The actor explains that, while he practiced a great deal in order to convincingly twirl the pen, the prop used on set ended up being different from the one he had rehearsed with. Check out Cumming’s recollection of filming the scene below:
“That f**king pen. So, I remember I got the script, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, the pen thing, that’s kind of complicated.’ And I tried to do it. I practiced. Could not get the hang of it. And I remember saying to my friend Dixie, ‘Will you look at the script and see… I could do something else, couldn’t I? I could do something else instead.’ And she read it, she went, ‘Alan, it is the crux of the entire plot of the movie. You have to learn how to do this.’
“And so I got my friend Jason Isaacs, he used to be a magician. Like, he would subsidize himself by doing kids magic parties. I got him to help me learn it. So I was like, boom, nailed this, nailed this.
“And then when I came to do it, they had the special, you know, Parker James Bond’s pen that I had to use, which was not like a pen like that, all the same [diameter] all the way along. It came down like this to a sort of little point, which totally screwed up my form. And so I just, I blew it.
“I was, at first I had it, and then I just like [mimes dropping the pen]. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The entire crew of like 7,000 people. And so basically, I had to learn on the spot how to do it again with a different pen. And I did it.”
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Bond’s Use Of Gadgets Changed Drastically Over The Next 15 Years
Purely from a story perspective, the pen is a fairly crucial part ofGoldenEye. The moment Cumming describes comes after Bond has been captured, andBoris activating the explosive inside the pen gadget is ultimately what allows Bond and Natalya (Izabella Scorupco) to escape. Twirling and clicking the pen is something of a nervous habit for Boris, and the moment serves as an interesting bit of setup and payoff.
11 James Bond Gadgets From Pierce Brosnan’s Movies Ranked
The James Bond gadgets were no more prevalent than during the Pierce Brosnan era of 007 movies, and all of them are great gadgets in their own right.
The pen inGoldenEyeis also a sign of an earlier era for Bond in terms of gadgets.Bond’s gadgetsbecame more elaborate and outlandish over the course of Brosnan’s run as 007, culminating with an invisible Aston Martin inDie Another Day(2002), Brosnan’s poorly-received final outing.Casino Royalekicked off a more grounded era for Bond, and Q (Ben Whishaw) even jokes inSkyfall(2012) about theGoldenEyegadget:“Were you expecting an exploding pen?We don’t really go in for that anymore,“he says.
GoldenEyehas an 80% score onRotten Tomatoesand was a box office hit, grossing $352 million worldwide.
Our Take On GoldenEye’s Exploding Pen Gadget
The 1995 Movie Remains A Pierce Brosnan Highlight
From the scene as it appears in the final film, one would never guess that Cumming had any trouble at all with twirling the pen in his fingers.The moment, while poked fun at inSkyfall, fits within the world thatGoldenEyepresents, and it’s a clever way of getting Bond out of trouble in that moment.
GoldenEyeremains, perhaps, the best ofBrosnan’s 007 films, striking a perfect balance between the seriousness of Dalton’s movies and the camp of earlier installments. Unfortunately, Brosnan’s tenure as Bond goes downhill after this, and his final outing is ultimately a bit of a let down.
