John Logan is new to the Bond franchise, but already his debut, Skyfall, is winning critics hearts and getting the popular vote with phenomenal turnouts at the box offices.
Logan explained how the character of Silva and 007 spar in a long dialogue scene that introduces Javier Bardem’s character.
The sequence makes passing reference to Bond’s homoerotic past as a public schoolboy. Logan clears up some of his thinking behind the references to 007′s “gay past” and the of writing of Bardem’s camp character:
“Some people claim it’s because I’m, in fact, gay but not true at all,” Logan told The Hollywood Reporter at the NYC premiere of the film, thrown by Tribeca Film Institute. “Sam and I were discussing, there were so many scenes where Bond goes mano-a-mano with the villain, whether it’s Dr. No or Goldfinger or whatever, and there’s been so many ways to do a cat-and-mouse and intimidate Bond, and we thought, what would truly make the audience uncomfortable is sexual intimidation; playing the sort of homoerotic card that is sort of always there subtextually with characters like Scaramanga in Man With the Golden Gun or Dr. No. So we just decided that we should play the card and enjoy it.”
