The inexperienced actor Sean Connery called a “prize shit”
Spending decades as a big name in the industry provides a certain amount of leeway to speak in unfiltered terms about almost any subject, which allowed Sean Connery to pour a not-insubstantial amount of scorn on several colleagues, contemporaries, and peers.
When director Stephen Norrington failed to attend the red carpet premiere of the infamous comic book adaptation The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a production so disastrous it ended the careers of both the filmmaker and Connery, the star was asked for his whereabouts. In response, he asked the gathered throng to “check the local asylum”.
Even the character of James Bond, the very role that turned Connery from a virtual unknown into a certifiable superstar, wasn’t immune from his wrath. The original 007 originally vacated the part because he was increasingly wary of being typecast, but his self-imposed exile didn’t last for long after he was convinced to step back into the tux when his successor didn’t pan out.
Finding someone capable of filling Connery’s shoes as the definition of MI6’s finest secret agent in the eyes of the general public and Hollywood at large was always going to be a risky endeavour, and settling on first-time feature actor George Lazenby hardly worked out in the long run when he decided that he wasn’t interested in carrying on after debuting in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Although the statuesque Australian looked the part, a combination of bad advice and negative rumours ended up making Bond both the defining role of his entire career and its peak. Lazenby is adamant his agent warned him against signing a six-picture deal, but stories from several parties emerged claiming that he was often difficult to work with, arrogant, and overconfident in his abilities to embody 007.
There’s a whole lot of pressure that comes with being one of cinema’s most prominent characters, especially when Connery’s stint was so iconic, with the Academy Award winner admitting that when it came to walking the path he’d carved out for everybody else to follow in his wake, “Poor Lazenby couldn’t do that because he just didn’t have the experience.”
Continuing to break down what went wrong with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the Scotsman suggested his replacement “couldn’t do a good job because you have to have technique to get the character right”. Lazenby simply didn’t have it because he wasn’t even a professional actor when he was hired.
Alluding to the tales of his ego getting the better of him, Connery said he’d heard “he behaved like a prize shit, alienating people.” However, he did acknowledge the information was second-hand, which came from “what they tell me”. It was far from a full-blown character assassination, to be fair, and not only because Connery had never even met the man, with the first Bond also suggesting it wasn’t entirely Lazenby’s fault things ended up going so awry.
