Skyfall Trivia: 10 Facts About Daniel Craig’s Third 007 Outing
MGM
Marking the 50th anniversary of James Bond in cinema, 2012’s Skyfall was full of nostalgia. Directed by Sam Mendes, it is one of the greatest entries into the Bond series, and follows 007 as he comes up against a dangerous enemy from M’s past. Here are 10 surprising pieces of Skyfall trivia…
1) Coca Cola was sprayed onto the road
During the impressive opening sequence of the film, which was filmed in Turkey, the bikes kept sliding during the chase. To stop them from sliding, someone on the crew had the strange but brilliant idea of spraying Coca Cola onto the road to make it sticky, and to give the tyres more grip.
2) M’s home was filmed at John Barry’s house
When Bond visits M in her home, that was actually the former house of legendary Bond composer John Barry. Barry had passed away in 2011, so the filmmakers decided it would be a fitting tribute. He came up with the iconic Bond theme, and score eleven of the movies.
3) CGI hands
During the scene in the komodo dragon pit, Daniel Craig was wearing a pair of gloves that he’d bought himself, and that he thought fitted the character. Director Sam Mendes agreed that he could wear them for the scene. However, during editing, Mendes realised that Bond’s gun would fire once reading his finger print, so the gloves had to go. Refilming would have been way too expensive, so Mendes had bare, gloveless CGI hands added onto Craig.
4) Bond has an official passport in Skyfall
The passport Daniel Craig uses in the film isn’t actually a prop made by the props team. Instead, it’s an official passport created by the British Home Office, for maximum authenticity. However, there are hidden markings on the passport that would quickly alert the airport security if you tried to use it for real.
5) Craig was really on that train roof
As in his first two 007 movies, Daniel Craig performed most of the stunts himself – including the scene where he’s fighting a villain on the roof of a train that was travelling at 50 kilometres per hour.
6) The opening sequence took 9 months and 400 crew members
The opening sequence, which was filmed in Turkey, where Bond chases the target through the town and onto the train, took four months of planning, three months of rehearsals, two months of filming, and a whopping 400 crew members. It equated to less than fifteen minutes of screentime.
7) Sean Connery was in mind for the role of Kincade
When the character of Kincade – the grizzled elderly scottiish groundskeeper of Skyfall – was written into the script, Sean Connery was originally in mind to play him. After toying with the idea, though, Sam Mendes decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea. He thought the cameo would distract from the plot of the film.
8) The first audible F bomb
When M says, ‘I f**ked this up, didn’t I?’ in Skyfall, she delivered the first audible ‘f**k’ in the James Bond series. Although Dalton said ‘for f**k’s sake’ in The Living Daylights, his voice was drowned out by airplane noise. In Live and Let Die, you can see Sheriff J.W. Pepper mouth the word, too, but his voice is drowned out by boat noise. But there’s no background noise when Judi Dench says it – quite the achievement!
9) Only the second time Bond was shot
Although he’s been shot at hundreds of times by countless villains and henchmen over the past 50 years, Skyfall is only the second time Bond has actually taken a bullet. Clearly his enemies have the shooting accuracy of a stroomtrooper. The first time Bond caught a bullet was during Sean Connery’s spell, in 1965’s Thunderball.
10) Naomi Harris trained with a barber
For the scene where Moneypenny shaves Bond using a real razor, she trained for six weeks with a professional barber, practising shaving foam off balloons before moving onto members of the crew.
There you have it – 10 surprising pieces of Skyfall trivia!