Connery and Broccoli had famously fallen out and refused to be on set at the same during the filming of 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever.
Asked how it was possible for audiences to go and see two different Bonds in the same year, Moore made the point that you could go to London and see two Hamlets or Midsummer Night’s Dreams playing.
Asked which his version of Bond was, Moore quickly quipped, “Hamlet.”
Ever the suave charmer, Moore later spoke of the situation in his autobiography, My Word Is My Bond.
He said: “There was no animosity between Sean and me. We didn’t react to the press speculation that we had become competitors in the part. In fact, we often had dinner together and compared notes about how much we’d each shot and how our respective producers were trying to kill us with all the action scenes they expected us to do.”
