Alan Cumming has spoken out about his experience filming the 1995 James Bond movie GoldenEye, revealing that a “nightmare” stunt left him with significant injuries.
The Scottish actor played Boris Grishenko, a secondary villain, opposite Pierce Brosnan in the popular spy thriller.
Speaking to Vanity Fair in a new video, Cumming recalled the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the filming of his death scene, in which his character was memorably frozen to death after declaring himself “invincible”.
In the film, Boris dies by way of gallons of computer coolant. In reality, Cumming was hit with a barrage of dry ice – the solid form of carbon dioxide, often used in film and theatre to create smoke or steam effects – to mimic the coolant’s frosty appearance.
“What happened was they chucked the big thing of dry ice,” he recalled. “But it was lumps of dry ice, which then stuck to my head and burned my scalp. And I couldn’t move because I had this rubber band around my waist.”
“So I’m there going like, ’Ah, ah! This is [hurting], ow, ow!”
Firefighters were on hand and intervened after it became clear that Cumming was in distress, breaking down the lumps of dry ice.
Cumming described the incident as a “nightmare”, joking that it was “just another day at the office”.
For the latter part of the sequence, in which Cumming’s character can be seen fully frozen, a mannequin double was used.
Cumming also spoke about fans asking him to repeat his character’s last line.
“Sometimes when you have a catchphrase and people want you to do things from an old film or play or something, it can be annoying,” he said. “But I actually love when people want me to say, ‘I am invincible.’”
GoldenEye marked the start of Brosnan’s tenure as Bond; he would go on to portray the spy in three further projects: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002). Daniel Craig then took over the role, playing 007 in five films, beginning with 2006’s Casino Royale.
It is not currently known who will replace Craig, who stepped down as Bond following the release of the 2021 entry No Time to Die.
In November, producer Barbara Broccoli suggested that the role will go to an actor in their thirties, also claiming that the chosen actor would “not necessarily” be white.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James and James Norton are among the actors tipped to potentially become the next Bond.
