Report from An Evening with acclaimed actor and writer Steven Berkoff in London

By: Anders Frejdh

Published:
2025-12-15

An Evening with Steven Berkoff, event, London, 2025

While the Music of Bond concert with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was going on at the Royal Albert Hall, I attended an event with acclaimed actor, producer and writer Steven Berkoff at PJ's Chelsea Brasserie organised by Matthew Steeples of The Steeple Times.

Without knowing about this event, Peter Brooker of the There Will Be Bond podcast asked me to come along for An Evening with Steven Berkoff. An invitation I gladly accepted as I hadn't met with Steven Berkoff since 2007 although I invited him to the 40th Anniversary event of Octopussy at Nene Valley Railway in 2023.

The conversation between Matthew Steeples and Berkoff was meant to last 15 minutes went on for an hour given the great man had so many stories to recall. Following the conversation was a delicious three-course dinner.

It was a very enjoyable evening with the 88-year-old Berkoff in good form talking about his dream as a youngster to become an actor. A very fascinating story. He conversed not only about an astounding career that began in the 1960s that has seen this “go-to villain” appear in Octopussy (1983), Beverly Hills Cop (1984) starring Eddie Murphy, Rambo II: First Blood (1985) starring Sylvester Stallone, and The Tourist (2010) starring Johnny Depp. He's also one of a “baddie of umpteen blockbusters” who’d like to be remembered just as “a man who walked against the tide.”

Steeples also asked Berkoff about when he played Harvey Weinstein in a one-man show and delved into the darkness and satire of Greek and East; the exploration of Berkoff’s life growing up in London’s East End after the Second World War and a tour of his time at the heights of Hollywood, and more recently, in hits such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) starring Daniel Craig and The Vikings series (2019-2020).

For the James Bond aficionades in the audience, actually only Peter and I, Steven talked about how Barbara Broccoli originally approached him for the role of General Orlov in Octopussy. Yours truly then asked him for an anecdote from the filming which led to a great story about the late Sir Roger Moore.

Full interview with actor, writer and producer Steven Berkoff

Tags:

#anders_frejdh

#bond_related

#steven_berkoff

All information, text and graphics (unless otherwise stated) on this website are protected by copyright law. Please contact us to use anything.

This website is not in any way endorsed by EON Productions Ltd, Danjaq, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Sony Pictures, United Artists, Ian Fleming Publications, or any other James Bond copyright holders. It is an independently run non-profit website from a personal basis in spare time.

Founder & Managing Editor: Anders Frejdh

Tag Cloud

Report from An Evening with acclaimed actor and writer Steven Berkoff in London

Full interview with actor, writer and producer Steven Berkoff

Tag Cloud