GoldenEye
30th Anniversary
1995-2025

Principal photography on GoldenEye began on January 16, 1995, with the Severnaya control room scenes featuring Izabella Scorupco and Alan Cumming, with Famke Janssen joining the cast the following day. On January 18, 1995, Pierce Brosnan shot his first scene as 007 where Bond is reunited with Valentin Zukovsky at the point of a gun. At Leavesden Studios on January 22, 1995, Pierce Brosnan introduced the Press to the cast of the new James Bond film, whose title was announced as GoldenEye after the nuclear electromagnetic pulse space-based weapon featured in the story, and also the name of author Ian Fleming’s Jamaican home where he wrote all of the James Bond novels. GoldenEye (1995) was the first film in the series not to use any story elements from the works of Ian Fleming, apart from one line of dialogue from Alec Trevelyan which references the death of Bond’s parents in a climbing accident. Also on display at the Press Conference was an Aston Martin DB5, [providing a nostalgic link to Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965)], as Bond’s car in GoldenEye (1995), although the production also entered into a three-film deal with German car manufacturer BMW for their vehicles to feature in the series.

The production briefly moved to Puerto Rico to film at the Arecibo Observatory, although restrictions meant that only a few shots of the physical structure remained in the finished film, with much recreated at a smaller scale on the Leavesden backlot by Derek Meddings and his crew. Whilst in Puerto Rico the crew also shot scenes with Joe Don Baker, and the jungle sequence featured at the end of the film. Judi Dench filmed her scenes as M on February 7, 1995, with Samantha Bond filming her one brief scene in full evening dress as Moneypenny prepares for an evening away from the office. February 10th saw Desmond Llewelyn film his Q Branch scenes, where his character suffers the usual jibes from the new 007 as he introduces Bond to his BMW Z3, in a throwback to the laboratory scenes from previous Bond films.

In late February, a second unit captured the car chase between Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 and Xenia Onatopp’s red Ferrari 355 at Greolieres in the South of France, where Remy Julienne’s team of stunt drivers put both cars through their paces. The second unit then spent two weeks filming the spectacular pre-title stunt at the Contra Dam near Locarno, Switzerland. On March 11, 1995, the 640ft bungee jump was performed twice by stuntman Wayne Michaels, who later appears in the film as the Tiger Helicopter Pilot shot by Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) before she steals his aircraft. The second spectacular stunt in the pre-title sequence involved Bond riding a motorcycle off a cliff and free-falling to catch up to an aircraft escaping from the Arkangel Chemical Weapons Facility. The stunt was split into two sections with base-jumper Jacques “Zoo” Malnuit riding the Cagiva Motorcycle over the cliff edge and then jumping off into a free-fall. The second part of the stunt was performed by veteran stuntman B. J. Worth who had joined the Bond series to co-ordinate the free-fall opening of Moonraker (1979). B. J. Worth sky-dived from another aircraft in an attempt to catch up to the escaping plane and enter via the open side door. As the fleeing aircraft had more mass than Worth, he was never able to gain enough momentum to complete the stunt as planned, and the sequence was finished using digital compositing to combine footage of Pierce Brosnan and a section of the aircraft in the studio. As the series had always prided itself on performing stunts for real, this was one occasion where the expert team were unable to achieve the sequence as planned.

On February 15, 1995, Pierce Brosnan began work on his first action sequence – the interrogation room fight between Bond and General Ourumov’s men. Ten days later, the main unit arrived in Monaco to film the scenes of Xenia Onatopp stealing the Tiger Helicopter before moving on to join the second unit filming the car chase on March 1st. As the second unit continued filming abroad, the main unit returned to Leavesden and on March 9, 1995, Pierce Brosnan and Famke Janssen filmed the climactic fight on a section of jungle set between Bond and Onatopp resulting in the death of her character. A week later the opening scenes set inside the Russian nerve-gas facility were filmed, and on March 21st Pierce Brosnan and Famke Janssen shot another fight scene set in the steam room set of the Grand Hotel in St. Petersburg. Production then moved to the scenes set inside the Arecibo control room taking place at the climax of the film. After eight days on the large indoor set at Leavesden, the crew moved on to the exterior scenes set in St. Petersburg. These included the shots of Trevelyan’s armoured train [partly shot on location at the Nene Valley Railway, Peterborough, previously used during the filming of Octopussy (1983)], and completed at Leavesden with a combination of full-sized and miniature versions of the train and tank built and filmed by Derek Meddings and his crew.

Other locations were completed in London where the main unit cleverly used the Cathedral of St. Sophia on Moscow Road to double for the Our Lady of Smolensk Church, and the exterior of Somerset House standing in as the establishing shot of a Square in St. Petersburg. Although permission was granted to film part of the tank chase actually in St. Petersburg, the second unit only filmed on location for a week from April 11, 1995. Much of the sequence was filmed on the Leavesden backlot where the production had more control over the action without actually damaging historic Russian architecture. The second unit began shooting the tank chase on April 27, 1995, with stuntman Gary Powell driving the tank and doubling for Pierce Brosnan. Former 007 Roger Moore visited the set during filming of the sequence. Moore’s youngest son Christian was employed as a third assistant director (uncredited) on GoldenEye (1995), and Pierce Brosnan’s adopted son Christopher worked as a Production Runner.

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GoldenEye FACT FILE