The 25th Bond film was just as globe-touring as its predecessors, and production spent much time in Scandinavia…
Norway
The Norwegian government reportedly gave 47m NOK (£4m) in tax breaks to help draw production here, and the country was the first location of filming, back in March 2019: only the second time it has featured in a Bond film, since a brief appearance as the location of a secret UN base in You Only Live Twice. Léa Seydoux, transformed to blonde beauty in white trousers as Madeleine Swann, hides out in the frozen wastes of Norway, speaking French but watching NRK. Her house is the location of the film’s terrifying opening scene when she is a child. That will be somewhat repeated later in the film to the next generation. Production returned in June to shoot a car chase just south of Kristiansand, over the Atlanterhavsveien bridge, and again that winter.
The Faroe Islands (and Scotland, standing in for Norway)
Bond is from Scotland, and it featured heavily in The World Is Not Enough and Skyfall (Bond’s fiftieth anniversary). In No Time to Die, it doubles for Norway during cross country car chases. Stunts were filmed in the forests of Cairngorms, and at the Ardverikie Estate on the shores of Loch Laggan. Bond 25 ends on a disputed island between Russia and Japan. But it’s in fact located just north of Scotland, in the Faroe Islands… which makes this North Atlantic archipelago the location of the biggest bombshell ending to any film in history. Crews spent three days on Kalsoy island, filming aerial shots at Trøllanes and the Kallur promontory. It’s the first proper return of the franchise to the Nordic countries since Die Another Day put Iceland at a central (if unrealistic) point plot.
No Time to Die is in cinemas now.
Extracts of this article have also been published in Epigram.
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