The James Bond scene Sean Connery refused to shoot: “I was panicking”
Most fans of the James Bond movies argue that the first actor to ever portray the iconic British double agent, Sean Connery, was the best of the bunch. Connery is, after all, mostly known for his work as 007 and played the legendary spy on seven glorious occasions, including Dr. No, Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever.
Connery came back and made his final appearance as Bond in 1983 in the non-Aeon-produced movie Never Say Never Again, directed by Irvin Kershner. Connery was known for his cool demeanour on screen as Bond, his final effort as 007 proved that the Scottish actor still had a thing or two that he was fearful of.
For the majority of his career as 007, Connery had projected a sense of unflappable sternness that allowed the brief moments of Bond-like brevity to truly hit home. Connery looked tough, and he didn’t seem afraid to lean into the brutish character. It allowed him to flourish as perhaps the ultimate ideal of machismo incarnate. But every man has their weakness.
In fact, there was one scene from Never Say Never Again that Connery refused to shoot. It’s a moment in which he was expected to get underwater in a scuba suit with a huge and dangerous shark, but bravery was not at the forefront of the actor’s spirit during production, as he refused to get in the water without proper protection.
“The underwater stuff, I’m not very good at it and was very, very nervous about going under,” Connery once told Johnny Carson when appearing on his talk show. “To go down into the interior of the boat, about 50-60 feet, I was getting through twice as much air as everybody else, and the place was covered in bubbles because I was panicking all the time.”
So even someone with the dominating on-screen presence of Connery has his inner fears and turmoil, and it proved that his personal terror surrounding getting under the wet stuff to be surrounded by a swarm of sharks, which, considering the dangers on offer, is more than understandable, even for an actor of his prowess.
Still, Connery gave the scene at least one try and explained that it was because he could not control his breathing that led to its increasing difficulty. “The guy was trying to explain to me that if I would just breathe somewhat normally, they would be able to film it easier, and they could see who it was,” he said. “Even in the film, there is a certain note of panic in my eyes; you can see it.”
One thing that James Bond should never be is panicked. The character and the stories that followed him, rely on Bond being an unshakable presence. He is, by all accounts, the smoothest man on the planet, so to see Connery blowing bubbles like he’s at a West Ham match would have left producers scratching their heads.
The actor continued: “I kept thinking, ‘If there’s no more air, where do I go?’ I could see the bottom of the other boat that I came from, and the guy said to me, ‘One thing I have to admit, you’re the fastest going up.” Connery had initially expressed his dismay at the prospective scene when he had first read the script, and it was only after safety measures were put into place that he decided to give it a go at all.
Plexiglass was placed around Connery so that the sharks could not actually get at him, but there wasn’t enough of the material to fully protect him, with a small gap still left. The scene did not come out as the greatest moment of Never Say Never Again, most notably because Connery refused to shoot the scene without proper safety measurements, which is more than understandable.
