Sean Connery nearly made a cameo in Skyfall

Sean Connery nearly appeared in the latest 007 movie.

Cinema’s most famous James Bond was considered to play Albert Finney’s character – the kindly, but lethal gunsman guarding the titular homestead in Scotland – in “Skyfall”, director Sam Mendes revealed in an interview with The Huffington Post.

“There was a definite discussion about that – way, way early on. But I think that’s problematic,” Mendes explained.

He continued: “To me, it becomes too… it would take you out of the movie. Connery is Bond and he’s not going to come back as another character. It’s like, he’s been there. So, it was a very brief flirtation with that thought, but it was never going to happen, because I thought it would distract.”

Connery, whose last Bond film was “Never Say Never Again” in 1983, has retired from acting, so he would’ve been a hard catch anyway. Not even George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were able to convince the year-old to reprise his role as Dr. Henry Jones for the recent “Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

Daniel Craig’s first Bond film “Casino Royale” instructed audiences to ‘forget everything you know about Bond’ but Mendes’ film scratches that notion and asks audiences to remember what came before. The film, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the character, includes numerous homages to previous Bond instalments – including, most notably, the Aston Martin DB5 car.

“It was taking the new, tougher Bond — the realer Bond, who has much more of an inner world — and bringing back some of the things that could reconnect me to my inner 13-year-old, that gave a thrill when I was a kid: the DB5, the Bond theme. And doing them in a way that was dramatically justifiable in the story. That’s really important”, Mendes said. “The easiest thing in the world is to pull a stunt like the DB5, but bringing it at the right time in the movie — you’ve been through this incredible chase sequence, which, I hope people are on the edge of their seats — it’s just a chance to breath again. And to enjoy the fact that you’re in a Bond movie before you come into the third act. So, you can get away with those things as long as they’re rhythmic in the right place in the movie.

“Same with the little in-jokes: I invented that thing with the martini on the day — just shaking it. [In “Skyfall,” Bond, who famously orders his martinis “shaken, not stirred,” watches in silence as a bartender shakes his drink without being told to do so. When it’s delivered, he simply says, “Perfect.”] Because I’ve never seen it actually shaken. So it’s there, but it’s not there. That, for me, was to make the familiar strange.”

I haven’t seen the film yet myself, but many of the Movieholers have, and said it’s great.

Clint, for one, said : “‘Best bond film ever!’ impatiently cried the UK critics in their press write-ups fresh from being shown (before the rest of the world) the 23rd James Bond film. After checking out this beauty, you’ll likely find you’ll share the sentiment.

Daniel Craig’s first 007 venture, Casino Royale was all-kinds of excellent, and presented Bond in a fresh, more-realistic and thankfully significantly-less cheesy way, but Skyfall takes it even further – combining the successful elements of a James Bond film with an epic drama/thriller that might otherwise (had it not had ‘007’ on the poster – you know what the snobs at the Academy are like) have found itself a contender for the Oscars.

Sam ‘American Beauty’ Mendes has crafted an exciting, action-packed thriller that’s equal parts spectacle and heart-rending emotion. If it’s not the best Bond, it’s definitively going to be the most broadly appealing of the long-running series.

In it, Bond (Craig, proving to be one of the best assigned to the MI6 movie headquarters) finds himself in an odd spot when he’s accidentally shot by a colleague on a mission – and presumed dead. When he returns to London, alive and well (besides the odd bit of emotional scarring and mistrust), the former agent has to prove he still has what it takes to do his old job, while helping ‘M’ (Judi Dench) escape the greasy hands of an old enemy (a wickedly brilliant Javier Bardem).

The last quarter of the film takes place in a beautiful Irish mansion, complete with secret passageways and home-made booby traps, and it’s some of the most engrossing cinema you’ll see all year. ”
“Skyfall” commences in most parts of the world this month.