20 Things You Didn't Know About Die Another Day
10. “I Love My Country, Mr Bond.” “I’d Never Ask You To Betray Your People.”
The filmmakers had actually hoped to shoot Die Another Day in Cuba and even visited the Central American island nation during location scouting. However, the US trade embargo against Cuba prevented them from filming there.
Instead, they used a combination of soundstages at Pinewood Studios, miniatures, and Cádiz (complete with classic cars) to represent the Cuban locations, including Raoul’s (Emilio Echevarría’s) cigar factory and Dr. Alvarez’s (Simón Andreu’s) clinic on Isla Los Organos.
However, the weather in Cádiz hampered filming as it was winter at the time and also raining. Even though Halle Berry’s entrance into the film in a bikini looked exotic and recalled Ursula Andress’s iconic introduction in Dr. No (1962), she had to be wrapped up in towels with hot water bottles behind the scenes.
Complimenting the authenticity of the Cuban sequences, an American filmmaker contacted production designer, Peter Lamont after the film was released and asked how he had found working in the Communist nation; she refused to believe him when he told her that no scenes were actually shot in Cuba.