GoldenEye actor Alan Cumming recalls filming the 1995 James Bond movie and worrying that he was going to ruin it by not nailing one crucial detail. Directed by Martin Campbell, GoldenEye marks Pierce Brosnan’s first outing as 007 and it comes six years after 1989’s Licence to Kill starring Timothy Dalton. The soft reboot follows Bond as he faces off against a rogue MI6 agent, played by Sean Bean, to stop a satellite attack against London. Cumming appears in the film as Boris, a tech whiz, who has one standout story beat involving Bond’s exploding pen.

In a recent video for Vanity Fair in which he rewatches his past performances, Cumming reveals that the pen in GoldenEye, which he has to twirl and click to accidentally trigger the explosive inside, was the source of a great deal of worry. The actor explains that, while he practiced a great deal in order to convincingly twirl the pen, the prop used on set ended up being different from the one he had rehearsed with. Check out Cumming’s recollection of filming the scene below:

“That f**king pen. So, I remember I got the script, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, the pen thing, that’s kind of complicated.’ And I tried to do it. I practiced. Could not get the hang of it. And I remember saying to my friend Dixie, ‘Will you look at the script and see… I could do something else, couldn’t I? I could do something else instead.’ And she read it, she went, ‘Alan, it is the crux of the entire plot of the movie. You have to learn how to do this.’

“And so I got my friend Jason Isaacs, he used to be a magician. Like, he would subsidize himself by doing kids magic parties. I got him to help me learn it. So I was like, boom, nailed this, nailed this.

“And then when I came to do it, they had the special, you know, Parker James Bond’s pen that I had to use, which was not like a pen like that, all the same [diameter] all the way along. It came down like this to a sort of little point, which totally screwed up my form. And so I just, I blew it.

“I was, at first I had it, and then I just like [mimes dropping the pen]. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The entire crew of like 7,000 people. And so basically, I had to learn on the spot how to do it again with a different pen. And I did it.”

What The Pen Gadget Means For GoldenEye

Bond’s Use Of Gadgets Changed Drastically Over The Next 15 Years

Purely from a story perspective, the pen is a fairly crucial part of GoldenEye. The moment Cumming describes comes after Bond has been captured, and Boris activating the explosive inside the pen gadget is ultimately what allows Bond and Natalya (Izabella Scorupco) to escape. Twirling and clicking the pen is something of a nervous habit for Boris, and the moment serves as an interesting bit of setup and payoff.

The pen in GoldenEye is also a sign of an earlier era for Bond in terms of gadgets. Bond’s gadgets became more elaborate and outlandish over the course of Brosnan’s run as 007, culminating with an invisible Aston Martin in Die Another Day (2002), Brosnan’s poorly-received final outing. Casino Royale kicked off a more grounded era for Bond, and Q (Ben Whishaw) even jokes in Skyfall (2012) about the GoldenEye gadget: “Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don’t really go in for that anymore,” he says.

Our Take On GoldenEye’s Exploding Pen Gadget

The 1995 Movie Remains A Pierce Brosnan Highlight

From the scene as it appears in the final film, one would never guess that Cumming had any trouble at all with twirling the pen in his fingers. The moment, while poked fun at in Skyfall, fits within the world that GoldenEye presents, and it’s a clever way of getting Bond out of trouble in that moment.

GoldenEye remains, perhaps, the best of Brosnan’s 007 films, striking a perfect balance between the seriousness of Dalton’s movies and the camp of earlier installments. Unfortunately, Brosnan’s tenure as Bond goes downhill after this, and his final outing is ultimately a bit of a let down.

Source: Vanity Fair