Sean Connery

Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930) is a retired Scottish actor and producer who has won The Oscars, two BAFTA Awards (one of them being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award) and three Golden Globes.

Sean Connery was first actor to play Bond, Connery’s portrayal actually influenced Fleming to later give the character a sense of humor and a familial backstory that coincided with the Scottish accent the actor brought to the role. Owning the second longest tenure.

Personal Quotes

• I was called Sean long before I was an actor, I had an Irish buddy when I was 12 named Seamus -- pronounced Shay-mus. So they nicknamed us Seamus and Shawn and it stuck.
• I never disliked Bond, as some have thought. Creating a character like that does take a certain craft. It's simply natural to seek other roles.
• I've honestly not been too aware of my age until I went to the doctor for a full check-up. He said I had the heart of a young man - "but you're not young, you're 40".
• I'm fed up with the idiots, the ever-widening gap between people who know how to make movies and those who green-light them. I don't say they're all idiots - I'm just saying there's a lot of them. It would almost need a Mafia-like offer I couldn't refuse to do another movie.
• I said I never would [do an autobiography] and then I thought about it and I said, "I'm going to do it". Then I started. Yeah, and it cost me a stonking amount of money not to do it - because I'd already put the wheels in motion. He [Davies] started to run with the ball with all this stuff. I realized I was going to be spending the best part of my life, and probably the rest of my life, trying to correct these inaccuracies and I can't be bothered.
• [on Daniel Craig as the new James Bond] Craig's a great choice, really interesting - different. He's a good actor. It's a completely new departure.
• I thought Pierce Brosnan was a good choice. I liked GoldenEye (1995). Timothy Dalton never got a handle on the role. He took it seriously in the wrong way. The person who plays Bond has to be dangerous. If there isn't a sense of threat, you can't be cool.
• [on why he resigned the role of James Bond while filming You Only Live Twice (1967)] One of the reasons I stopped doing it was because I got really fed up with the space stuff and special effects. I just found it getting more and more influential in the movies.
• I did smoke pot a few times but nothing else. I would never inject. I'm too fond of the drink. At times I can go two weeks or more without it, but then I'm quite enthusiastic to get back to the taste again.
• [on being voted the Sexiest Man of the Century] Well what can I say, people have good taste. No, I'm only kidding. I really don't take things like that seriously.
• [on the death of Roger Moore] I was very sad to hear of Roger's passing. We had an unusually long relationship, by Hollywood standards, that was filled with jokes and laughter. I will miss him.
• I've always supported the UK film industry, and even if it's not a British film I've been doing, I've done my best to bring as many films as possible here instead of filming in America or elsewhere.
• Maybe it's because they were British but the Bond films never really got the full credit they deserved for the production side of things. The sets and the scope - they really changed cinema, and I don't think many people fully appreciated that aspect of them at the time. I think it was more about the action, gadgets and women.

Connery appeared in six Bond movies, including:

Dr. No (1962) - $20,000 original + $105,000 bonus share of the profits ($125,000 total salary)
From Russia with Love (1963) - $250,000
Goldfinger (1964) - $500,000 + 5% of the US gross ($3,050,000 total salary)
Thunderball (1965) - $600,000 + 25% of the worldwide merchandising profits ($750,000 total salary)
You Only Live Twice (1967) - $750,000 + 25% of the worldwide merchandising profits ($1,000,000 total salary)
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) - $1,250,000 + 12.5% of the US gross ($6,725,000 total salary)