THE OTHER FELLOW

There is one guy who I couldn't get. In fact, given your last name, you may be aware. So you had Timothy Dalton, who was James Bond in 1987, and they were filming at Gibraltar at the army base there for the opening sequence of the film, and there was actually a James Bond in the British Army. [So] of course, they wheeled out this poor Lieutenant James Bond to get photos with Timothy Dalton, and I found these photos and went, "Oh God! I've got to get this guy in my film! [He's] the James Bond who met James Bond."

I kept sending him letters, and I couldn't get a response. So I actually drove to his house and knocked on his door, where his wife shooed me off the property and told me to leave their poor family alone. I never actually got to meet him. He was in the living room, and she wouldn't let me in. But once she eventually calmed down, she said, "We've actually had a lot of people like you over the years from the British press who've seen this photo and have wanted to do interviews with [my] husband," and they just didn't want to know about any of it. So he was the only one who said no, but the rest were really keen to do it. I didn't get much pushback.

DALTON: You do well to show how wide-ranging of an effect the name has. To some, James Bond is a thief; to others, he's a liberator. How important was it to present these different dimensions?

BAUER: It was really important because I think otherwise, this film could get repetitive really quickly. I think even when I said I was making a feature of this, some people had some scepticism about how [I] get 90 minutes out of this concept. And it was really important that, as I said, the opening of the film kind of burns through everything you're maybe expecting in quick succession. We wanted to constantly surprise the audience. [We wanted them to think] where the hell is this going to go next? So it was very important that the very first James Bond you meet in the film [we] suddenly cut to this aerial over the mountains of snowy Sweden, and suddenly everyone's speaking Swedish, and hopefully, you're [thinking] where the hell are we? What the hell is going on?

On the diversity [front], we didn't want to do diversity for diversity's sake, but it did come out that we were following homosexual and African American James Bonds, for instance. It may feel like we're trying to tick a diversity box, but it was more that [we were] dealing with people who are the opposite of what we see James Bond as being, which is this very white male stereotype. We wanted people who were as different to that as possible because it upped the drama. We wanted some who hated it, and definitely our gay New York James Bond, at least, claims to hate it. But then, in Sweden, where we find a man who's turned himself literally into James Bond, we wanted someone who absolutely loved it and embraced it as well.

We needed stuff that would constantly keep surprising the audience because, frankly, you couldn't make a film that was 90 minutes of the gay New York James Bond complaining. Trust me, we had 90 minutes of one-liners from him, but it needed to be more than that.

DALTON: How long did it take you to make this film? I spotted promotional material from three Daniel Craig films.

BAUER: Yeah, it was longer than expected, and you do see a lot of the CNN kind of news stories because the thing that haunts my characters is the news coverage, and what we call the 'James Bond' phenomena is a hell of a lot more than just the films. The plot of 'Skyfall' is somewhat immaterial to the characters in my film. The thing that gets them is the fact that 'James Bond' is on the side of buses and on TV and everywhere they go.

When we filmed the short version of this, that was in 2012 and 'Skyfall' was coming out, and then we ended up releasing the [feature] film kind of when 'No Time To Die' was being released. Weirdly enough, those three Daniel Craig films, which [were] the back half of the Daniel Craig tenure, oddly gave us a bit of a three-act structure to hang the film around. It opens with 'Skyfall' and ends with 'No Time To Die', and you do see the filming and release of 'Spectre' during the rest of the film. But we wanted to have that backbone of not just the 'James Bond' phenomena playing in the background, but quite specifically, what those films actually were at the time. We wanted to make sure it was all correct in a way that 'Bond' fans would be able to tell if you messed up. 'Bond' fans would know if you were looking at a 'No Time To Die' poster before you saw a 'Spectre' one. They'd [know] that's out of order. So we were very careful that when you see those things, they're correct. There's a point when you see Daniel Craig complaining about not wanting to be James Bond anymore, and that in the timeline is correct.

DALTON: So you spent the best part of a decade bringing this film to life. As an independent filmmaker, was that ever difficult financially?

BAUER: I'd say no because it's where I've fallen in love with documentary. I never planned on being a documentarian - it was just that this film obviously required the documentary form. But where I grew to love documentary [films] is that you can make a documentary in a series of one hundred $500 shoots over the years.

I'll say when I finished film school, the biggest thing they said to us was do not make a feature straight away. I did see some of my classmates go out of the gate, and some of them would spend a hundred grand, half a million, even up to a million making a first feature. I think some of them I saw doing it a bit too quickly because the problem is once you shoot for 30 days, you're really stuck with what you have in the can. And, trust me, the cuts of this film up until two years ago were terrible. I mean, they weren't terrible, but we were able to get a rough cut together many years ago, and, from that, go okay, we need to go and shoot this, this part's working, this part's not working.

So as a first feature, it meant that I could slowly put something together until I thought it was good enough to send off to film festivals. It's definitely a way of working that I like because, in a way, [similar to] how they do reshoots on the Marvel films, in a documentary, you're almost constantly on a reshoot. I'd say it was just made in a lot of very small instalments.

DALTON: In making this film, you've created a support group for these James Bonds. How has it felt to give these people a community?

BAUER: In terms of support groups, I personally went through a lot of struggles with alcohol addiction years ago, so I went to a lot of support groups and meetings. That's what really helped me get through that experience. So definitely, when I was making this film, you'll see there's a line where one of them says this experience has been like therapy because [they] got to meet all these other James Bonds, [which] actually hadn't occurred to me at that point. We had our Facebook page, and they were all members of it, and they started talking to each other on there. But from that, it encouraged me to get some of them together in person in a real proper kind of support group setting. Then, during the pandemic, when all of these support groups moved to Zoom, I was like, "Oh, I can actually get them on Zoom [laughs] and sort of do that there to show that support group environment."

This is a very specific psychological condition that we're exploring in this film. I mean, a very specific, rare psychological condition. But it is talking to other people who have the same problem [as] you that often constitutes therapy of that problem. In that sense, I don't think being named James Bond is [that] different to a lot of the psychological problems that people would go to a support group for. And I think for a lot of them, they've actually really enjoyed the experience, and it's made them much cooler being named James Bond.

We just premiered the film at the Austin Film Festival in Texas, where we got the Texas family of Bonds together, and they're the ones who are the most chill about being named James Bond. They don't have a problem with it, and it occurred to me there that it was because they all had each other. They [always] had each other to talk to, so it wasn't this very isolating experience for them, which for the rest of the characters in my film, it really was. So I think it has been helpful for them in a lot of ways.

DALTON: For the amount of time you've spent on this project, has it felt odd to now be moving on from 'James Bond'?

BAUER: I definitely would say I'm a slightly worn-down 'James Bond' fan. We did make it for a while, but I want to stress this film isn't like 'Boyhood' or something. We aren't following these characters over ten years. We're following a lot of different characters over ten years if that makes sense [laughs]. But definitely, I have heard the name James Bond every day in a crazy sort of way for a while. The address book on my phone, once you get to B, is a very strange place. I know hundreds more than the ones we have in the film, and also their families.

But it's nice bringing it to an end. For my next film, I know how to make a film now, and I do know the whole process of it and sales and all [that] kind of thing. So for my next project, we're aiming for three years. Look, they do say with documentaries, on average, [they] take about seven years to make, apparently. And I do understand that now because I think for a lot of people, it takes longer for their first one, but then from what they've learnt, they can do it a lot quicker the next time.

DALTON: You won't meet a bigger 'James Bond' fan than me, and if we're talking 'Bond', I must ask, who is your favourite 'Bond' actor and what is your favourite 'Bond' film?

BAUER: Sure. My favourite 'Bond' actor is unequivocally Roger Moore, and it's because he was my first. I was growing up in Adelaide, I was nine years old, and I walked in [to see] my dad watching 'Moonraker'. I remember I just sat down, and I was like, "This is great!" and I didn't realise there were more of them at that stage. Then [sometime later] a family friend was having a dinner party, and [they] put on a VHS, and it was 'The Spy Who Loved Me', which oddly was the film before 'Moonraker' and also had Jaws. So suddenly, there were two of these movies, and they had the same guy. [So] at that stage, I thought, Oh, every one of these films must be James Bond versus the guy with the big teeth. Then at the video store, I finally saw the rack, and [I] was like, "Oh shit! There's a lot of these things." It's pre-internet, this is just before 'Goldeneye', and I do miss those fun days where you had to piece together the order of the 'Bond' films from that [title card] at the end that said "James Bond will return in...", and through the Roman numerals [laughs] on the VHS covers. It was cool. But I think it's Roger Moore because everything after Roger Moore was a comparison to [him].

But I found that cool as well. I worked my way through the Roger Moores and then, of course, through all of the Sean Connerys. Then my last three were getting to the other two guys - Dalton and [George] Lazenby - and that was cool because I loved the Dalton films. I love Dalton. We'll get to you in a second, Connor. But I love the Dalton films; they're awesome. Then weirdly, 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' was my last one, which, probably if you held a gun to my head, I think is the best 'Bond' film. I always think if Sean Connery was in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', it would unequivocally be the best film. But it's hard to pick a favourite. It's either 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', 'Licence to Kill', 'Goldeneye', or 'Casino Royale'. It's one of those four.

Weirdly, Roger Moore is my favourite Bond, but I don't think he actually makes that absolute top-tier list. I think with 'Bond', it's often the outliers that are the special ones. But I'm really curious how you've gone with [having the last name] Dalton. Obviously, Dalton is not the same as being called Connery, but does this ever come up [for] you?

DALTON: It's funny. I was in year three of primary school when 'Casino Royale' came out. So my generation grew up with Craig, and when my school friends would delve into the older films, it was Connery, Moore, and [Pierce] Brosnan. So I didn't really get any flack because a lot of people looked past Dalton and Lazenby. If anything, throughout the years, I would pester people to watch the Dalton films because these were self-proclaimed 'Bond' fanatics, and yet, they hadn't seen 'The Living Daylights' or 'Licence To Kill'. So I would push them to watch the Dalton ones; he's great! With these actors, my favourite is Connery, but some days I think it's Dalton. So, really, it's me trying to get the word out to watch him. I got to fly the flag.

BAUER: Timothy Dalton, you could very much argue, is the best. I mean, 'Licence To Kill' is just the best movie ever. But obviously, I've spent a lot of time making this film, and I've met people on the road who are like, "I know a guy called Sean Connery." But I think if you're going to have a 'Bond'-adjacent name, Dalton probably isn't going to jinx things as much as others.

DALTON: You would probably get more attention with Lazenby because more people remember his story. He's the Aussie car salesman turned model who got a suit and haircut like Sean Connery and got the job to replace him. But Dalton was superb, and I wish he did more 'Bond' films than he ultimately did.

BAUER: I wish those stories of the third potential Dalton film [came into fruition], and in the 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' world that we're in, you could still make the third. They do shit like this these days. I'll tell you a funny story. With the marketing of our film, we had to be really careful. The big thing we [had] to be really careful of is that no one in the world would mistake us for a 'James Bond' film. I don't know if you saw our poster, but it's got these guys standing in front of the 'Bond' [silhouette], and we wanted the tagline to be "Bonds, James Bonds". But the concern was that in the marketplace, you could almost confuse that poster for some kind of 'James Bond' team-up 'Avengers'-style film where you have all of the James Bonds. It sounds crazy, [but] we wanted to make sure that people didn't think it was something like that, which is why the tagline is just a film about men named James Bond, so that's clear.

But with the stuff that's happening these days, [you could do a new film] with Dalton or Brosnan. Brosnan's having this crazy renaissance [and] Dalton has suddenly become really big again recently. I still slightly hold out that it [could happen]. I would give it like a 3% chance of happening [laughs], but you never know. I understand a lot of people who've met Timothy Dalton actually say he is a really [regular] person. You can see that in interviews with him. But there's something in Dalton that always reminds me of my father. I don't mean that as an insult, but he's kind of your dad if that makes sense. I wouldn't say [he's humourless]. There's something relatable about him.

DALTON: It has been great chatting, but my free Zoom account is telling me we have to wrap it up. Congratulations on the film; I really enjoyed it.

BAUER: Obviously, we're not 'Bond 25 and a Half' or anything like that, but we're not another 'Never Say Never Again'. I do hope you got a kick out of it. As a 'Bond' fan, [I hope you enjoyed seeing] a feature about these people whose lives exist in the noise of the 'Bond' phenomena. I hope people get a kick out of it because we put a lot of work into it.

'The Other Fellow' is now available to stream for free on SBS On Demand.