007 Travelogue: London (ENGLAND) 2022: Knocking on Q’s door

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Bond locations of this 007 Travelogue:

Q’s home

Aston Martin garage in 007 No Time to Die

Q’s headquarters in the SPECTRE

Sunday 6th of November 2022

Before we went to go through the Bond locations of the day, the day started with the London Film Fair, where there were familiar faces from the 007 movies as well as lots of different posters, photos and other movie-related stuff for sale. We had “Early Bird” tickets, so we were among the first to get to the venue.

At the London Film Fair we first met Terry Sach from the movie “A View to a Kill” (1985). Next we chatted with the always captivatingly cheerful, charming stuntman Paul Weston, whom we had met previously in 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden. Paul explained how his jump from one cable car to another as Jaws in the movie “Moonraker” (1979) was filmed on a trampoline at Pinewood Studios and then combined by editors with footage shot in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where stuntmen Richard Graydon (stunt double of Roger Moore / James Bond) and Martin Grace (stunt double of Richard Kiel / Jaws) had done their parts. Paul has also acted in small roles in Bond films. We remember him e.g. from the scene of the movie “The Living Daylights” (1987) from Gibraltar. Together we felt regretful that his performance as Blofeld‘s (Christoph Waltz) chauffeur in the movie “SPECTRE” (2015) was left on the cutting room floor. Hopefully we’ll see the filmed scenes as extras in the BluRay version 🙂

We also met MI5 agent Madolyn Turk, who played in the movie “The World Is Not Enough” (1999). Finally, we talked about Sean Cronin, who played the Bond villain in the same “TWINE” movie. Cronin told us how he had also appeared in the Heineken commercial for the “Skyfall” movie, and how with that commercial he had been able to promote the movie in many different cities for premiere events around the world. He also talked about his connection to Finland. He had already filmed the movie “Rendel 2: Cycle of Revenge” in Finland for a month before the corona era. Unfortunately, the post-production phase of the film has been challenging and the film has not yet received a release date. However, Cronin invited us to the premiere of the film for when it is hopefully seen in Finland someday.

See more photos from the November 2022 London Film Fair here.

The first location of the morning was the home of Q (Ben Whishaw) from the movie “No Time to Die” (2021). First by metro to Waterloo station from where it was a short walk to the house itself. Along the way, we also came across a nice Cuban restaurant which also had Sean Connery‘s picture from the movie “Cuba” (1979) hanging on the wall 🙂

Q’s apartment is located at 42 Roupell Street. In the film, the apartment is glimpsed from the outside only for a moment when Bond (Daniel Craig) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) are standing behind Q’s door, watching them through the screen of the intercom. The house behind is recognized as the house on Roupell Street.

We continued walking to the next “No Time to Die” destination, which was the garage where Bond picks up his Aston Martin V8 Vantage. We found the place itself quite easily, but when we compared the it to the shots of the film, we wondered where this was actually filmed, before we found out that the filming crew had used mirror images of Bond turning in the garage.

At this point hunger started to rumble in the stomach, and we ate in the nearby “Hercules” pub. During the meal the weather in London showed its whims, and a real heavy downpour hit. We tried to order a taxi with the help of the bar staff, but nowadays it’s not as easy as it used to be.

After waiting half an hour and when there was no taxi, we jumped on the bus and drove to Camden Town, which is a real mecca for artists. The weather started to favor us again, and we got beautiful sunshine in the afternoon. Camden Town is full of houses that are each more magnificent than the last.

There is also a statue of Amy Winehouse in Camden Town’s Stable Market. It had been moved a bit since our last visit to Camden Town which was in 2014. We found Amy though 🙂

A scene from the movie “SPECTRE” was filmed at Camden Lock, where Bond (Daniel Craig) and Bill Tanner (Rory Kinnear) take a boat to Q’s warehouse. A lot of CGI technology has been used in the scene, with the house completely removed from the top of the tunnel into which Bond and Tanner drive their boat.

So it was time to go back to our hotel and meet Ajay Chowdhury, who, with Matthew Field, has written a great book about the Bond movies “Some Kind of Hero: The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Movies“. Ajay and we went for tea and dinner and talked about all kinds of things, both Bond and everything else possible. Ajay told interesting stories around Bond. It was great to meet Ajay, and it would have been great to spend a longer evening with him. Hopefully we meet again soon 🙂

Then it was time to say thank you again to London. This is a place where we want to return over and over. Again, we saw so much of everything but also missed so much. Our next Bond location trip is headed to Germany: our first visit to Hamburg and the return to Berlin are next. Stay tuned!

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