Sean Connery’s favourite James Bond movie: “You have to work very hard to make something look easy”
The longer his career went on, the less likely Sean Connery was to talk about his days as the figurehead of the James Bond franchise, but he was savvy enough to know that 007 was always going to be the defining role of his career.
The actor initially abandoned the tux because he was fearful of being typecast for the remainder of his days, although a lucrative payday did convince him to step back into the breach in Diamonds Are Forever when the ill-fated George Lazenby experiment ended at the first hurdle before he returned once again in the unofficial Thunderball.
It’s an accepted part of life that anybody who plays cinema’s most famous secret agent is going to spend their lives constantly being asked for their recollections, thoughts, and opinions on the past, present, and future of Bond, something successors Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig have all dealt with in their own way.
Connery was evidently growing bored of saving the world, getting the girl, and eliminating his enemies with an array of fancy gadgets long before he initially exited in the aftermath of You Only Live Twice, so it’s not really a shock to discover that the most enjoyable experiences he had as Bond came before that point.
Terence Young directed three of Connery’s first four outings as 007, with Connery crediting the filmmaker in playing a huge part in shaping how the character looked, acted, and carried himself. Admitting to Bill Desowitz that the wardrobe “was not that particularly interesting for me,” the star named Young as being key in dressing him in such a way that it “could get me to look convincingly dangerous in the act of playing it.”
From Russia with Love stood out as his favourite Bond, and to this day, it remains one of the most popular and beloved entries in the spy saga’s 25-film catalogue. Unfortunately, the downside for Connery as a performer was that reaching his own personal zenith at the second time of asking left him with nowhere to go but down.
“Once you had done the first two you just moved forward because the rules were established,” he said. “One wound up doing less and less as it were, because you did what you were expected to do and whatever else up to a point.” Not that he was phoning it in, but Connery nonetheless conceded that “you had to work very hard to make something look easy” in a role like Bond, which became increasingly reliant on what he called “absurd situations” as the franchise wore on.
For many, Connery remains the definitive 007, and he’s not the only one out there who views From Russia with Love as being the best-ever Bond.
