The long-awaited arrival of the new James Bond film has inevitably shaken – not stirred – the nation, but few are quite as excited as Luke Arnold.
The former manager at Romford’s The World’s Inn pub, South Street, has been to every premiere since Die Another Day in 2002, and is even making his own 007 film.
The 30-year-old has also spent more than £10,000 on memorabilia – including a special SIM card from eBay so that he has 007 as the last three digits of his phone number.
Luke first came across the secret agent through a TV showing of The Living Daylights, but like many people of a certain generation fell in love with all things Bond through the Goldeneye 007 Nintendo64 game.
Tomorrow night he will don a tux and head to the Royal Albert Hall for the Spectre premiere – before nipping across to Leicester Square for a midnight screening – and if the opening of Skyfall is anything to go by, Luke could be in for a treat.
At the 2012 premiere, he found himself walking down the red carpet to Monty Norman’s iconic music.
“I was just like a 14-year-old-boy, I was so excited,” he said. “The James Bond theme starts playing and the announcer, who I think was Alex Zane, says ‘please welcome the man the himself, James Bond’.
“The person checking tickets then looked at me and said ‘Would you like to walk on?’
“I tried telling them ‘I’m not James Bond’ but nothing happened so I started walking down the carpet.
“Everyone started cheering and then I turned around and there was Daniel Craig stood behind me. I just blurted out ‘Great film’, which was stupid because I hadn’t even seen it at that point. He said ‘thanks’ and walked off.”
Contained in his collection is everything from a Quantum of Solace poster signed by the cast to one of only 7,007 limited edition Omega watches, as worn by Bond himself.
But for Luke, who lives in Brentwood, the world of watching Bond is not enough, and he is also portraying 007 in his own movie Forgotten Past, complete with Walther PPKs, a Thames boat chase and action from the Emirates cable cars.
Find out more at facebook.com/forgottenpast007
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