''Becoming Bond'' is a 2017 American

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television show, television and feature film, film, which features Drama (film and television), dramatized Historical reenactment, re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of docu ...

film that explores the early life and casting of Australian actor

George Lazenby George Robert Lazenby (; born 5 September 1939) is an Australian retired actor. Lazenby began his professional career as a model and had only acted in commercials when he was cast to replace the original James Bond actor, Sean Connery, playing ...

James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...

in the film ''

On Her Majesty's Secret Service On Her Majesty's Secret Service may refer to: * ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service'' (novel), a 1963 James Bond novel by Ian Fleming * ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service'' (film), a 1969 film adaptation of the novel by Peter R. Hunt ** ''On Her Maj ...

'', his eventual decision to leave the role and the effect it all had on his career and the rest of his life. The film employs the use of re-enacted dramatizations of Lazenby's life interspersed with actual interview footage of him. The film was written, produced, and directed by

Josh Greenbaum Josh Greenbaum is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has won an MTV Movie Award, CINE Golden Eagle and Emmy Award. He directed the feature documentary '' The Short Game'', winner of the SXSW Audience Award, which was acquir ...

, and premiered on

Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...

on May 20, 2017.

Plot

The story itself is told through an interview with Lazenby, with cutaways to reenactments where actors lip-synch to or voiceover Lazenby's dialogue. Lazenby describes his birth as an at-risk infant and how his humiliation at being the only student to fail in his school grade and attend graduation without receiving his certificate made an impact on him to never fail at anything again. After getting a job as a car mechanic, he noticed that the car salesmen seemed to have a much more glamorous life, so he convinced the dealership manager to let him try his hand at sales. After failing to sell any cars, he attended a course from the popular "

How to Win Friends and Influence People ''How to Win Friends and Influence People'' is a 1936 self-help book written by Dale Carnegie. Over 30 million copies have been sold worldwide, making it one of the best-selling books of all time. Carnegie had been conducting business educat ...

" symposium, where the only lesson he recalls learning is: "Listen first and let the other person do the talking." Pretty soon, he was successful at the job, and was the key contact for embassy staff vehicle transactions, which brought him in contact with the granddaughter of an Australian politician. When she moved to London, he followed as a

steerage Steerage is a term for the lowest category of passenger accommodation in a ship. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, considerable numbers of persons travelled from their homeland to seek a new life elsewhere, in many cases North Amer ...

passenger, hoping to win her heart. Upon his arrival, he discovered she had abandoned him in pursuit of a player on the

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

team. Fearing he had once again failed in life, his attempts to charm her set him on a path that would land him the role as one of the smoothest leading male characters in film history:

, who always "gets the girl" in the end. The Bond film, entitled ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service'', was released in December 1969 to steady acclaim, box-office record sales and sent Lazenby into the path of one of Hollywood's next stars. Unfortunately, being James Bond meant surrendering his own sense of self, and he walked away from the fame and fortune that would have come with the role, after his one and only film in the franchise. Following a dwindling in his film career, Lazenby settled back in Australia, where he became a realtor, married, raised a family and led a happy and normal life. In retrospect, Lazenby in the present day has found his peace in everything he did before and after Bond. Additionally, Lazenby was given much acclaim in modern times for his role as James Bond, with ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service'' held in high regard, and considered as one of the finest films in the franchise - and even the best by some.

Cast

as himself Reenactment cast *

Josh Lawson Josh Lawson is an Australian actor best known for his role as Doug Guggenheim in '' House of Lies'', Tate in '' Superstore'' and as Kano in the 2021 film ''Mortal Kombat''. Early life Lawson grew up in Brisbane, and attended St Joseph's Coll ...

as George *

Kassandra Clementi Kassandra Clementi (born 10 October 1990) is an Australian actress. She is known for her role as Maddy Osborne on the Seven Network soap opera ''Home and Away'', a role she played for over three years before leaving in May 2016. Early life ...

as Belinda *

Teressa Liane Teressa Liane is an Australian actress. She is known for her roles as Rhiannon Bates in ''Neighbours'', as Mary Louise on ''The Vampire Diaries (TV series), The Vampire Diaries'', Angelica on ''Into the Badlands (TV series), Into the Badlands ...

as June Green * Landon Ashworth as Ken Gherety * Nathan Lovejoy as Chook Warner *

Jane Seymour Jane Seymour (; 24 October 1537) was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 30 May 1536 until her death the next year. She became queen following the execution of Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn, who was ...

as Maggie *

Jeff Garlin Jeffrey Garlin (born June 5, 1962) is an American stand-up comedy, stand-up comedian and actor. He is best known for playing List of Curb Your Enthusiasm characters#Jeff Greene, Jeff Greene on the HBO sitcom ''Curb Your Enthusiasm'', and Murray ...

Harry Saltzman Herschel "Harry" Saltzman (; – ) was a Canadian theatre and film producer. He is best remembered for co-producing the first nine of the ''James Bond'' film series with Albert R. Broccoli. Apart from a ten-year stint living in St. Petersbu ...

Jake Johnson Mark Jake Johnson Weinberger (born May 28, 1978) is an American actor. He has starred as Nick Miller in the Fox sitcom '' New Girl'' (2011–2018), for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Come ...

as Peregrine Carruthers *

Dana Carvey Dana Thomas Carvey (born June 2, 1955) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, podcaster, screenwriter and producer. Carvey is best known for his seven seasons on ''Saturday Night Live'', from 1986 to 1993, which earned him five consecutive Pri ...

Johnny Carson John William Carson (October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005) was an American television host, comedian, and writer best known as the host of NBC's ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' (1962–1992). Carson is a cultural phenomenon and w ...

Reception

''Becoming Bond'' has received positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, it holds an 78% approval rating with an average rating of 6.51/10 based on 18 reviews; the critical consensus reads: "''Becoming Bond'' is an uproarious recreation of George Lazenby's colorful stint as Britain's greatest spy, evidencing that the gregarious Australian may be a greater raconteur than he was a 00". On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a weighted average, the film has a score of 65 out of 100 based on four reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

References

External links

* * {{Josh Greenbaum American documentary films Films directed by Josh Greenbaum Hulu original films James Bond in film 2017 films 2017 documentary films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films English-language documentary films

Plot

Cast

Reception

See also

References

External links