I first met him on the sets of the film [ Octopussy ]. It was my first major motion picture. My very dear friend Barbara Broccoli, the producer’s daughter, took me on the opening day and I didn’t know anybody! I was at the back end of the studio and they were shooting a scene and Roger stopped the scene, walked all the way across the room and came up to me. I was nervous, excited... He said, ‘My name is Roger Moore and we are delighted and honoured that you have agreed to work with us.’ It put me at ease completely and that was just start of a terrific friendship with this man.
That thing when I first met him, it will always be etched in my memory. Because I was nobody in the film industry then. You can imagine for an Indian guy coming from Chennai, who has seen every Bond picture several times and all of a sudden this man is walking across the room... and you are supposed to be starring with him in this picture. Even on the sets, when the stuntman had to do certain things, Roger would say ‘no no no.. Vijay and I will do it. We can handle it...’
Well-matched
As a matter of fact, when he walked up to me first, he said, ‘I have seen all your great matches.’ He listed them one by one and he came to Wimbledon. I have played tennis with him occasionally when we did celebrity events. He loved the sport. Honestly tennis was the great sport of the 70s and 80s. So everyone followed the sport closely including Sean Connery. From Charlton Heston to John Forsythe, all the legends of the 70s and 80s.
My entire time with him was one of incredible laughter. He was an incredible raconteur of stories — anecdotes, stories of other films, actors and his travels. He had this very wry sense of humour. He was nothing short of perfect. I used to tell him often that I could not believe that he was playing James Bond. He was not the kind of guy who would tell a joke and laugh at it. He would tell a joke and everyone else would laugh at it. Even when he told things that weren’t jokes, it would be funny.
When we were shooting in Pinewood Studios in London, Christopher Reeve was shooting Superman . Can you imagine a guy from Chennai sitting with James Bond and Superman and having lunch? It’s hard to fathom. There was no Twitter, no Instagram. You can well imagine what could have happened [if they had been there].
Every generation has a different association with Bond. The character has been around for five decades now. As Pierce Brosnan said, ‘More people have been to the moon than those who have played James Bond’. So it’s a very special character that has stood the test of time. When Sean did six pictures, he was a very, very hard act to follow. So when Roger came in and made such huge success of it, making seven of them, it was incredible.
Roger the lover
Then when I met him and worked with him I realised why he was able to make this character so unique even after the success of Sean. Roger was once asked what was the difference between him and Sean. Roger said: ‘Sean was the killer, I was the lover.’
Apparently in the early years, Ian Fleming’s choice for Bond was Roger. The producers’ choice was Sean. I don’t know exactly why, but I think Ian felt that the Englishman in Roger would come out more to play in Bond, as it turned out post-Sean. The great thing about Roger was that he never took himself so seriously. That amazing comfort level he had with himself. People constantly have chips on their shoulders, lack of confidence. Roger never had that. He was himself all the time. Honestly there was very little to choose between the two.
Both brilliant in their respective roles, played their characters to perfection. And both played it differently and interestingly; both worked. It’s also the comparison between Brosnan and Daniel Craig. They both played it differently and both worked. Brosnan, in fact, said he would like to play a Bond sort of in between Roger and Sean. When Daniel came along, he was closer to Sean than anyone else.
After the movie, we were in touch quite a bit. Roger took over as the Unicef goodwill ambassador, which was a very high-profile role. I was appointed United Nations messenger of peace by Kofi Annan. So for nearly seven years, we were at several U.N. events together.
I last met Roger at a restaurant in Beverly Hills, a few years ago. I didn’t know he was there. He happened to be there with his wife. When I went over to his table to greet him, he got up and gave me a very, very long hug and didn’t let go for quite a while.
(As told to N. Sudarshan)
