Timothy Dalton fantasy plots and humour. A fan of the literary character, often seen re-reading and referring to the novels on set, Dalton determined to approach the role and play truer to the original character described by Fleming. His 007, therefore, came across as a reluctant agent who did not always enjoy the assignments he was given, something seen on screen before, albeit obliquely, only in George Lazenby's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". In "The Living Daylights," for example, Bond tells a critical colleague, Saunders, "Stuff my orders! ... Tell M what you want. If he fires me, I'll thank him for
James Bond filmography long in the tooth", and in December 2007 admitted that he "was only about four hundred years too old for the part". Like Connery, Moore appeared as Bond in seven films; by the time he retired in 1985, he was the oldest actor to play 007 in the Eon series, and his Bond films had earned over at the box office. With the retirement of Roger Moore in 1985, a search for a new actor to play Bond took place that saw a number of actors, including Sam Neill, Pierce Brosnan and Timothy Dalton, audition for the role in 1986.