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007, Behind the Scenes, Casino Royale, Die Another Day, film set, interview, James Bond, production manager, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Terry Bamber, The Man with the Golden Gun, The World Is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies
Terry Bamber is one of the luckiest James Bond fans ever as he got to work on 7 James Bond films with 3 actors who played 007. Amazing person with great personality, who agreed to tell fantastic stories behind the scenes of Bond films. It was marvelous experience to talk with Terry Bamber.
Piotr Zajac (bondlocations): First James Bond movie that you worked on was ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’, so it was quite a long time ago.
Terry Bamber: Yes, that was 1974. I just finished my A-Levels and I think, if I remember correctly, my dad was working at a Pinewood Studios on a Walt Disney film ‘One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing’ and he said to me: ‘Right, it is time now you have done your education, let’s get you out and see if we can get you a job’. I was unbelivably lucky. He took me down the old main corridor in the old building and first office we went into was Claude Hudson’s office, who was production manager on ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’. Dad had known Claude for many years. As luck would have it the young man that had been the unit runner in the office had just received the union ticket which meant he could start next job as 3rd assistant director. So they were looking for a runner to start on the following Monday and I got offered the job. My dad had worked on the earlier Bond films and I’ve adored the Bond films and now I was given a chance to work on one. It was so exciting to meet Sir Roger Moore. Derek Cracknell was the assistant director, he knew dad for years. Very, very kind man. It was a marvelous experience.
Is it right that you were buying sandwiches for Sir Roger Moore?
Yes. On my first day I was told that Sir Roger Moore at that time used to like tap chicken sandwitches on brown bread at the end of the day. My first task that day was to go in queue by the restaurant where they made sandwitches especially for them. In those days we didn’t put anything on them like tissue or cling film or anything. I went alone to his dressing room and I think I was so nervous by the time I got there that my hands were shaking and my knees were knocking. I knocked on the door and I think an assistant opened the door and Sir Roger was at the back of the room. As he looked up everything went to jelly and sandwitches fell out of my hands and of course bread down. He said I supposed to be watching my figure. He was just a wonderful man. My dad had worked with him on lots of files. He worked on ‘The Man Who Haunted Himself‘ which was Sir Roger’s favourite film. Dad was the second assistant director on that. Sir Roger used to get him on various second units on ‘Persuaders’ and programs like that. He was wonderful actor and a great man.
Your dad was working on the first James Bond film, ‘Dr. No’?
Yes. At that time Pinewood Studios was a proper studio that had his own workforce, that was hired out to any film that was going to be made there. Dad was a prop man and worked either as a dressing prop, which was dressing the sets ahead of the unit going into a film or he was a standby prop, which meant that he would standby during the filming and deal with all the props that actors at background were using on a day of filming. I think he was a dressing prop on ‘Dr. No’ and ‘From Russia with Love’. On ‘You Only Live Twice’ I remember him taking my sister and myself to see the volcano set which was just the most amizing thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It was briliant.
Was it your first contact with the universe of James Bond?
No. My first real memory of it was the music, was hearing the James Bond theme. I think it was in 1965, the year after ‘Goldfinger’ came out. Dad was in Spain making a film called ‘Lost command’. We were in Madrid and we managed to buy Shirley Bassey’s single of ‘Goldfinger’ which we played non stop the whole time we were there. It is the music that blew me away, the James Bond theme that blew me away. The first James Bond film that I saw in a cinema was ‘Thunderball’. Obviously I didn’t catch up with ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘From Russia with Love’ and ‘Dr. No’ on a big screen until later. I think in late 60’s, early 70’s cinemas did like a double bill: ‘Dr. No’ with ‘Goldfinger’, ‘From Russia with Love’ with ‘Thunderball’. Brilliant films.
What were your other tasks on the set of ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’?
In those days it was mainly being in charge of getting call sheets round to everybody at the end of the day. Those days the call sheets were typed up on a stencil that was around the printing machine. It was a nightmare because stencils were always ripped somewhere and you had to try to ensure they were lined up, the ink didn’t splash across the page. That was always a nightmare. In those days you had to wrap in the studio by 5.30, so it was always a rush to get the call sheets all printed out by just before 5 and I had half an hour to go all around the studio to the post room, up to the telephone exchange, to make sure that everybody got the call sheet for the next day. Also on ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’ I’ve got a chance for the first time on the set helping up second unit with filming part of the opening sequence when Scaramanga was having a duel. I had to give Sir Christopher Lee a cue for him to go through and I was so nervous with that, but luckily Mr Lee said: ‘I don’t think I’m gonna need this cue now, I can see when I’ve got to go’. No matter what I’ve done ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’ was the thing that ment the most to me because I was only 18 and it was first James Bond film I’ve worked on. At the end of the film I was kept on to help sell off the props and costumes and everything and that was very exciting, but during that I managed to walk into a piece of wood which scratched my eye. Rather than waiting for an ambulance Mr Broccoli had sent his car down to pick me up with Roy, who was the driver, another lovely man. So I was taken to Wexham Park Hospital in Mr Broccoli’s Rolls Royce. And then funny enough I was invited for my first cast and crew screening of the film ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’ which was in November 1974. I had to pass my driving test so I could go. Luckily I passed it a week before the showing. It was shown in what was then Theater 7 at Pinewood Studios, which is now being renamed to John Barry Theatre in honour of John Barry. In 2014 I did a sort of one man show that was supposed to show how I did teaching and talking about my career to celebrate at that time my 40 years in the film industry and in fact my great love of John Barry’s music and the contribution that he made not just in James Bond films but to films like ‘Dances with Wolves‘, ‘Out of Africa’, ‘The Ipcress File’; marvelous, marvelous music.
I’ve heard a story that you had dinner with John Barry.
It was another ambarassing night. When we were doing ‘Die Another Day’ we were filming down in Rissington. Vic Armstrong was a second unit director. I’ve always wanted to do the gun barrel sequence. We had great standby team, so they built a little gun barrel which was operated on rope to pull down. I could do that opening walking across, turning, aiming, firing and saying: my name is Bond. They’ve arranged with a special effects team to have snow hoses ready, so as soon as I’ve finished saying that, they turned on the snow hoses on me and absolutely covered me in snow. I was wearing my one and only dinner suit and this night was the night that I was gonna go to Stoke Poges, because there was the Variety Club tribute to John Barry and I’ve been invited to that. I had quickly brushed my dinner suite trying to get it ready but it was stiff as a board by the time I got to the party. I am affraid I had rather lot of drink while we were there. We were raising money for the charity. One of the prizes was to have dinner with John and Laurie Barry. I sort of staggered over were Mr Barry was sitting. The first bid went up so I put my hand. It quickly went to 500 pounds so I didn’t bid for that anymore. Barbara Broccoli was sitting next to Mr Barry and everytime the bid went up she kept putting my arm up. So I ended up bidding 1750 pounds and won the dinner. I was thinking how to tell my wife about that when I went home. But it was a marvelous evening and we had a wonderful dinner with him, although Barbara kept calling me John Barry’s stalker. Everytime I went to say something she was stopping me so my wife had a great time with John Barry and I only occasionaly got to say something but he was wonderful man and his wife Laurie was very, very kind. I met them again several times after that because a great friend of mine plays in the English Chamber Orchestra which Mr Barry used to use for recording the soundtracks. So in 1999 when they would do a concert in Royal Albert Hall and also in Birmingham I got a backstage pass so I could go and sit at the rehearsal at the Royal Albert Hall. I bumped in Mrs Barry and she was very, very kind. Then my friend in the orchestra introduced me again to John Barry and we got to talking about ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’, which Mr Barry didn’t want to talk much about. I think he had very rushed time period trying to get that score together. I think it is a great score, but I don’t think it is one of his favourites. John Barry was just a genius of what he did. ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ has got every piece of music, it is simply magical. It just makes the whole film fantastic experience. It is not just visual, auraly you are having a great time as well.
Your next James Bond film was ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’.
Yes. I’ve worked with Callum McDougall on ‘101 Dalmatians’ which we filmed in 1996. When ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ came out the miniatures unit was gonna go to the Rosarito tank in Baja, California. Callum suggested I could meet up with John Richardson, who was going to direct it and maybe go as his assistant director or production manager. I ended up going there as a production manager because there was an assistant director who would work on ‘Titanic’ and knew the studio. That was really exciting, because that was really my first trip across to America and I was having to go up to Los Angeles and doing deals with getting lightning and equipment. The studio manager of Rosarito was a lovely man called Charlie who had been there during ‘Titanic’. I ended up having James Cameron’s office. When they had finished we moved in and I ended using his office as my office, so that was quite nice. When you are doing the model unit or miniature unit you haven’t got the pressure of looking after actors and all the problems that would go with that. You could just really concentrate on the crew and getting the brilliant shots which they did. I think that the miniature work in ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ is superb with the stealth boats and sinking of a frigat and everything. I really, really enjoyed it. I have to thank Callum for that. After that there was ‘The World Is Not Enough’ in which Vic Armstrong was second unit director. I’ve been filming out in South Africa on a film with Hugh Hudson called ‘I Dreamed of Africa’ with Kim Basinger. I got a phone call to find out if I would be interested in working on ‘The World Is Not Enough’. I said: ‘Of course, abslolutely I would be interested’. When I got back to England I had an interview with Vic and also Terry Madden who was Vic’s first. I’ve known Terry since 1975. I was his unit runner and he was a third assistant director on film for Walt Disney Productions called ‘Pit Ponies’, which now has became ‘Escape from the Dark’. So I’ve known Terry for long time. He is a great friend. So I worked on ‘The World Is Not Enough’. We had a wonderful sequence up in the Chamonix. We had the amazing chase on the river Thames as well. I think that ‘The World Is Not Enough’ is very underrated film. There are somem great stuff in the film. The boat chase for me is just fantastic.
Have you been working on all these sequences?
Yes. I was in Chamonix and then I was in charge with the second unit on the Thames. I don’t know if you have ever had a chance to see extended version of the boat chase on 2-disc DVD version. That is the one where I am in. I played this French waiter that had to jump up when the boat crashes through the restaurant and impacts into the Thames near the O2 building. Unfortunately the sequence was going so long and my acting was so bad they cut it out in the main film. It was great fun.
I think it was difficult to get permission to film on the Thames.
There were lots of negotiations. We had a wonderful location department and location manager called Richard Sharkey and Simon Marsden. I remember going to lots of, lots of meetings, especially with the O2 as well, because it was coming up to the year 2000 and that was all getting ready for the turn of the millenium. The boat chase was passing by the Houses of Parliament. I remember that one of members of parliament complained about the noise of the boats but he was told not to warry about it because it was James Bond film and he was great representation of the British around the world, so he was told to be quiet.
When you were filming in Chamonix the weather conditions were not good?
Yes, we lost lots of time. I think that sadly nearly 50 people were killed in various avalanches during the time we were filming there. So we had a lot of time that we had to stand the unit down and try to catch up the time afterwards. I think we had to shoot 10 days in a row if the weather stayed well and obviously make sure that the crew got rested and were looked after, but the weather was very ugly when we were there. I don’t know if you remember that the week after we finished filming there was this terrible fire in a Mont Blanc tunnel, which killed many, many people. It was very tiring time, but the French people vere lovely looking after us. I remember that crew were desperate for English sausages, so we had to keep trying to get people to bring sausages with them whenever they came from Pinewood Studios to Chamonix. There was a time I think, that Virgin trains had just started and on the Virgin trains they had this people called Rocket Men that had dispensers that could dispense hot tee or hot coffee or hot chockolate walking around the trains. We thought that we could use it for our skiers. We got a team to help with catering going around with some very good skiers, local skiers with this Rocket Man bags on their backs and they could go to where the different cameras were, where people were set up and make sure that people got hot soup and water. That worked very well. But that were very tiring conditions. We had some very bad weather there, but as always we got lucky when we needed to get lucky.
Your next film was ‘Die Another Day’.
We shot the opening sequence with hoovercrafts on the army training grounds in Aldershot in a very bad weather conditions. I’ve never seen mud like that. In fact it was so, when the main unit were doing close ups with Pierce. It all was supposed to be shot on location, but the weather was so bad that we had to shoot plates for it and then shot it back in the studio. I think that is the great thing, the great art of production designers like Peter Lamont with all the Iceland sequence. He recreated all those icebergs in RAF land base in Rissington. I don’t think you can tell the difference between the real Iceland where we shot and Rissington. Peter Lamont was just briliant man like Ken Adam. Both Ken and Peter Lamont helped my dad in his career so much. They were both geniuses and lovely people to work for. My dad had always wanted to be an assistant director and he was working as prop man on ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ on which Ken was production designer. I think Peter was set decorator or art director. They gave dad a chance to work as an assistant set decorator which ment he got a union card. Once he got his union card that meant that he could work as an assistant director. He did some work on ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ as the assistant set decorator then went in the another film where he worked as an assistant director and then came back onto ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ to work on the opening sequence of the motorcar races which Peter Hunt directed. He was brilliant editor of the early Bonds and of course the director of my favourite all time Bond ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’.
There was a funny story with your pass that you got while filming ‘Die Another Day’ on Iceland.
Toby Hefferman who is now a very good first assistant director was a second assistant director when we were doing ‘Die Another Day’ on Iceland. To make sure that everybody was kept safe on the ice we issued passes which gave access on the ice during filming. He put down on my pass that my job was ‘ice cream man’, because they were determined not to let me on the ice because I was always slipping over and falling over. Everybody knows that I love ice creams. I’m always trying to organize ice creams on set. That is why they put me down as the ‘ice cream man’ rather then the production manager. That was a joke from Toby and Terry Madden, who was the first.
Did you have any problems with filming on ice?
We were very lucky with ‘Die Another Day’. When we were due to go to Island to do the chase the lake hadn’t frozen properly. We were all worried that it was not going to freeze enough and be solid for us to actually go there. We had to go to Alaska one weekend to do a recognition to see if we may have to move all shoot there. Luckily the ice did freeze so we were able to go to Iceland, but on the last day of filming on the lake began to melt. We just had enough time to do what we needed.
Piotr Zajac (bondlocations): After ‘Die Another Day’ you were working on ‘Casino Royale’ with Daniel Craig as Bond. It was not the first time you met him on film set?
Terry Bamber: I was working in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa with Hugh Hudson and Kim Basinger on a film called ‘I Dreamed of Africa’ and that was the first time I met Daniel. He had a part in it. It was hilarious because we were all staying in different lodges around the place and Daniel’s car was always getting lost. There was a wonderful American sitcom called ‘Car 54, Where Are You?’ in the 60’s. We put on a call sheet ‘Daniel Craig’s car 54, where are you?’. Daniel used to play football at lunchtime. We all used to play with locals. It was a great experience. In fact I doubled Daniel in that film. There was the sequence where they were battling to capture a python and my wife doubled Kim Basinger and I doubled Daniel. You could see my wife in it doing the action, but you couldn’t see me. That was dangerous scene. The snake was curling around legs, it was close around me, so it was a bit scary. Great adventure.
How do you remember working on ‘Casino Royale’?
We shot the opening scene in the Bahamas with the free running. It was so exciting. We got some of the best shots ever because we had wonderful, beautiful turquoise blue Bahamas scene in the background when they were jumping from crane to crane. I was actually lucky enough to be part of it. It was amazing.
I think that it was quite difficult to do that stunt because of the height as I’ve seen in a documentary about filming that scene. When the stuntmen were jumping from one crane to another is was windy.
I don’t rember if we had to postpone it for a day or two. When we were doing the aerial photography, I am pretty sure, we shot that on Sunday and we tried to shot with as minimum crew as possible. We had wonderful Mark Wolff who was the helicopter pilot. There were lots of complications. Unfortunately we managed to get rid of two cameras in that sequence. I don’t know if you remember when Bond turns and shoots into bulldozer. The first time we did it we built protection for the cameras but somehow something broke through and we smashed up one camera. We had to do it again the next day. We promised Barbara and Michael that we knew what we were doing. You wouldn’t belive it, it couldn’t be more protected if we were trying to protect the Queen, but one piece of metal or something broke off, shot through the only possible gap it could get through and smashed up the second camera. In the Panavision they weren’t very happy with this and neither were in the main office back in London.
Did you really destroy the building where you were filming opening sequence?
We didn’t really destroy it. We built break away pieces, so we could rebuild it for take two etc. I still don’t know what has happened to that building. I think they were gonna turn it into a police academy and then they stopped it which was why we had the access and we were there. In fact this time now I was probably in the Bahamas 14 years ago while we were setting up for and getting ready for filming.
Do you remember any other interesting facts from the time you were filming ‘Casino Royale’?
We got to shoot Pendolino train flying through the station. We shot the real train going pass the real station with the second unit. The day we shot it was the day when West Ham were playing with Liverpool in a FA Cup final. It was heartbreaking because we’ve lost on penalties to Liverpool. I’ll always remember that because we’ve set it up and we went back to watch some of the fotball because the train wasn’t due to go through until much later that day. We saw some of the football and went back to actually do the shot. So I was very fed up that day. Whenever I see ‘Casino Royale’ that shot with train going by always reminds me how sad it was when West Ham lost to Liverpool.
While watching ‘Casino Royale’ I was wondering how did you film scenes with collapsing building at the end.
The visual effects team did all the plate work. There were Steve Begg and of course Chris Corbould, special effects team. We shot actual sinking house, other than the model that we did in Pinewood, in a tank on 007 stage. I had to go on set to talk to Martin Campbell and I didn’t want to interrupt the filming, so I went at the back of the set. I slid in a scaffold and ended up falling in the tank. Several special effects people had to rescue me because I was not the world’s greatest swimmer.
The whole sequence with sinking house is absolutely stunning. In the plane chase when the 747 is comming into land and it blows the police cars off that is also the combination of special effects art department and visual effects. You can not see any of rejoints. Your suspension or disbelief is held all the way through because you don’t get disrupted, you don’t think: ‘oh, this is a model shot, oh this is CGI’ because it is so briliantly put together. For me that is what true visual effects and computer imaging should be. You shouldn’t think: ‘oh, that is just computer’. You can’t avoid it on film like ‘Transformers’ and all films like that, but on a film like we’ve done where we tried to do everything in camera it was just perfect.
After ‘Casino Royale’ you’ve worked on ‘Quantum of Solace’. There was great opening sequence with car chase filmed at the Lake Garda and Carrara in Italy.
At the Lake Garda we had to close the road. We had to shoot on one side of the road first and then shoot on second side. We kept one road opened for people getting in and out of town. We also had to arrange for ferry to take people in and out of town. Unfortunatelly there was an accident when one of the Aston Martins crashed into the lake. We were setting up for filming and the driver was bringing the Aston Martin for photo shoot. I think it was raining that morning and he lost control on a bend but luckily he hit the barrier. In fact the barrier speared the Aston like it did in the film with the lorry and the car and it flipped backwards over the barrier into the lake. The car hit the water upside down and sank to the bottom. The driver told me the story that it was like James Bond sequence. It must have knocked him down slightly. When he came round he was upside down. It was pitch black. He had to get seatbelts off then his jacket that he was wearing. Luckily the window had smashed so he was able to get out and swim up, because it was only 150 ft. deep there. By that time people were there to rescue him. I can remember that it happened 28 minutes past 6 that I heard about the accident because I thought that it would be another insurance claim, but fortunatelly it wasn’t that bad. I think he had a broken collarbone and had some stitches on his face. It was quite an amazing story how he survived, but that was nothing to do with us. He was doing a publicity shooting arranged by Aston Martin and wasn’t part of filming. There was also an awful accident with a stuntman that happened while we were filming. We had the Medivac standing by that could fly the stuntman directly to hospital. He was in a coma for a long while. It showed again that Barbara and Michael were fantastic there, making sure that we looked after the family, they went to visit him to make sure that everything was OK. It was quite a horrible moment when that happened.
There was an interesting story with Barbara Broccoli going for shopping.
It was on a day off, when I was going to hospital to see the injured stuntman and Barbara said that she wanted to go as well, but she had to do some shopping first. I said: ‘OK, let me know when you are ready and I will drive down with my driver and we will pick you up’. Unfortunately that day there was something going on in Carrara town so they closed all the roads around. Trying to find her was quite difficult. When I found her she had been walking for about half an hour with about six carrier bags of shopping. When I’ve found her I said: ‘I’ve got you, I’m here now’. She hit me and attacked me with the shopping bags and called me with all the names under the sun. At least she got her shopping. We put it to the car and drove up to visit the stuntman.
How did you shoot Palio in Siena?
The year before we actually went into production the Palio was recorded for real with I think 17 cameras. The year before we were filming ‘Quantum of Solace’ we got all the footage of horse racing, so we never actually had to shoot any of the racing when we went to Siena. We just recreated it with a crowd of about 300 extras. Within the square the art department built a hatchway for Bond and the villian to climb out of. That was built to suggest that they came out of the tunnels underneath.
When I was in Siena, I was trying to find the balconies that were used in foot chase sequence in ‘Quantum of Solace’.
The major problem we had in Siena were the cranes that we needed for the harnesses for the camera and to put on the stuntmen for the jumping from building to building. Siena was built on a web of tunnels under the streets and it ended up to cost us a fortune to bring extra cranes and put in a bases down to spread the weight of cranes so we didn’t crash through the steet and ended up underneath. Filming in Siena became very expensive. At one point we had talked about shooting the actual balconies sequencies on a set in Pinewood and then just getting the plates from Siena, but it was decided that we should do it actually in Siena. It is great sequence but very costly.
I couldn’t find these balconies, because they were not real. They were built just for filming, but I expected to see at least some extra holes or extra marks on walls where they were attached.
What we did, we had extra scaffolds in around it. Obviously we were not allowed to damage any of the buildings, so wherever possible we built scaffold in around so we didn’t dig any rigging into the actual framework of the building.
There was also the scene with James Bond jumping on a bus.
The jump on a bus was filmed in different location to the other balconies where they were going from roof to roof. I accidentally made a mark on a wall of one of the buildings which was very unfortunate because it was a very expensive building.
Which parts of that sequence were filmed in Pinewood Studio.
We built the tunnel for the chase in Pinewood and also the church tower. The bell tower. We had all the background plates from Siena that were added by visual effects team. I think it looks convincing, the combination of what we’ve shot and the great work of the visual effects team. I’ve only ever been able to be first assistant on a Bond film on very few days when Terry Madden was busy or he was doing something else. That tower sequence was one of the days when I was firsting for Dan Bradley and that was with Daniel. That was great fun.
In which sequences you were involved in ‘Skyfall’ ?
We did the opening sequence which we did in Istambul and Adana. Very small second unit went to Shanghai.
I thought that most of Shanghai scenes were filmed in London.
Exactly. It was like Miami in ‘Casino Royale’. A small unit went to get the establishes of Shanghai. The actual sequence when Bond was shooting and so on was done in the studio. In the old days on special TV programmes you would buy a little bit of footage of the city and you would put its name and then cut to wherever you were shooting on location in London or in a studio. At least now we always try to get some part of the location for real, so you realy do believe you are in there. It is a commond feature of filmmaking that rather than trying to take the whole first unit with actors to other country with all the cost it would involve, that you shoot them in the studio under control in safe conditions and the stunt team goes out to do all the hard work with the visual effect team to get plates we need to.
How did you film the opening sequence with motorbikes chase on rooftop in Istambul?
We had big scaffolding rig on which we put the video village so we could see what was being filmed. We’ve built some ramps there. There is a scene where they jump through the window. We had to build ramps to get bikes up. Obviously the art department and special effects would break the window for the boys to crush through there. There were hardly any safe ramps built along a rooftops for the boys that would actually ride in the bikes. There were some points where we had to reinforce but that was as much as possible done for real on that rooftop.
Do you have some interesting stories to tell not related to Bond?
I was working in India on ‘Ra.One’. We were filming in Mumbai. Shah Rukh Khan, whose company was producing the film, was the star. It is well known that Bollywood artists are very difficult to get on set very early in the morning. This particulat day Nicola Pecorini who was director of photography told me that I should tell Shah Rukh Khan off because everybody was ready to go and he was late. I said: ‘I can’t tell Shah Rukh Khan off’. Anyway Shah Rukh Khan arrives and Nicola says to him: ‘Terry is very upset with you. He kept the whole set waiting’. Shah Rukh Khan who had so many followers on Twitter decided to put there: ‘Our first assistant just shouted on me’. Within half an hour I received 300 death threats from his fans. Everybody decided that it was a great joke to play. Some of the stuntmen pretended to be fans trying to break into the studio. Shah Rukh Khan gave me his bodyguards with guns. The English camera crew being very brave put big sign with arrow pointing at me saying: ‘This one is Terry Bamber’. It was only towards the end of a day. Even my driver came up and said: ‘I can’t give you a drive back to the hotel Mr. Terry because I’ve got a wife and two children and we might get killed. Shah Rukh Khan finally decided to put on Twitter that I hadn’t really shouted and I was a nice person. Suddenly I got 300 new friends on Twitter after that. That was a hilarius day, very funny. I love working on Bollywood films, I love working with Indian crew. In fact one of my oldest friends is lovely man called Rajen Rajkhowa with whom I first worked in 1992 when we were doing ‘Young Indiana Jones’. He had worked as a sound assistand on ‘Octopussy’. He’s got some great pictures of him and on a set with Sie Roger Moore and everybody. Everybody loves working on Bond films. Everybody loves being involved in Bond films. It is a fantastic way of staying in touch with everybody around the world. It is something that is always part of my life. I can remember looking at the ‘You Can Only Live Twice’ volcano set as if it was yesterday and the impact it had on me. They are great films, great music.
April 2020
JAMES BOND 