Good actors for the Bonds of the past

Walken was clearly the best choice for Zorin of the aforementioned options. I mean, Nazi superman breeding program and you end up with David Bowie (with all due respect, RIP, and so on)?

Cubby said that they were planning to make use of Bowie's 'unique physical oddity' (his eyes not being both the same colour).

Would've been the first Moore 'main' villain with a physical quirk since Stromberg and his webbed hands.

After watching The Only Living Boy In New York, the intrigue surrounding Kate Beckinsale's character made me think she would have made a great Vesper. Not to mention the fact she was approached for a Bond girl role, I assume for a Brosnan Bond film (Miranda Frost, perhaps?) or as late as Casino Royale (probably Vesper). The fact she gets chummy with Brosnan here has a parallel universe kind of feel to it. She would have made a damn good Vesper alongside his Bond in 2004. 

I could see that. Oh, what might have been.

60s and 70s Scream Queen Ingrid Pitt oozes double-agent.

Healthy chest. Might have been a good Helga, actually.

Is she showing off her handjob technique in that photo? In any case, looks like a great place to lay down a pearl necklace.

And ooooh, look ... a topless picture that's been on for a day now, without censorious interference.

Wonder should I wait a while to see if that remains the case, and then attempt the revival of a certain thread ... ?

I've tried looking at a mirror and saying "Jay" seven times but he still hasn't appeared.

He's un-banned, so you never know.

I don't think Brosnan in 86 would have worked. Like Dalton did in '69, he really needed the aging to do the part justice. IMO his best moments are the ones of deep conviction that can only come with age such as the incredible dark comebacks he spouts in M's office in GE. "Governments change...the lies stay the same."

Ingrid would have been lovely simply for her beautiful impish sense of humor. And as for Nigel Green, heck they should have just used the whole of IPCRESS's cast as they're all perfect. (Then again, I'm an IPCRESS fanatic and consider it the best spy film ever made.) Bowie's Zorin would have been far more introspective but the psychotic aspects wouldn't have come across as well I think.


In terms of other actors there's a whole list I could go down for various roles.

Using the Ipcress cast would be inspired. Shame Gordon Jackson never appeared in an early Bond, even if it was someone like Strangways or the chap who comes to fetch Bond from the casino in Dr No.

There's so many in retrospection from the obvious like Patrick McGoohan to the ones who could still do something in the series like Anthony Hopkins or Terence Stamp. Wouldn't it be something to get a whole bunch of respected thespians to do some serious work in the series? Something to really sink their teeth into as Bond is a modern fable. (That would be the selling point. Think the way actors got into LOTR or how Patrick Stewart viewed TNG at first.) And not in a we're going down the list of available UK talents such as the numbingly boring Harry Potter franchise-but to do something a'la IPCRESS where the whole bloody cast is great right down to the nonspeaking roles.

If it were a Bond film in the 50's, Leiter would be personified by Joseph Cotten. Bond would likely have been Niven. Good lord, what magic that would have been!

Considering Sir Anthony's recent fare, I can't imagine Bond would be 'beneath' him (should he ever have thought that). 70s Hopkins would have been dynamite in a Bond. Sort of a mesh between his portrayal of John Frost in Bridge Too Far and the detective in Juggernaut.

Love the image of Cotten as Leiter. When I wrote my alternate Bond in a world where Britain fell to the Nazis in 1940, I somehow shoe-horned Orson Welles into the plot just because I wanted to. Think it befuddled the old mob on MI6 who otherwise liked the story but couldn't understand "Orson Welles as himself".

An actor who could've been in a Bond of the 50s and relatively forgotten nowadays, is Eric Fleming of Rawhide fame. Absolutely idolised Gil Favour when I watched it as a six year-old with my Dad (Channel 4 showed re-runs).

As I say in the Hell's Delight thread, I like the image of Barry Foster as Ronnie Vallance in a circa 1979/1980 film.

hegottheboot wrote:

There's so many in retrospection from the obvious like Patrick McGoohan to the ones who could still do something in the series like Anthony Hopkins or Terence Stamp. Wouldn't it be something to get a whole bunch of respected thespians to do some serious work in the series? Something to really sink their teeth into as Bond is a modern fable. (That would be the selling point. Think the way actors got into LOTR or how Patrick Stewart viewed TNG at first.) And not in a we're going down the list of available UK talents such as the numbingly boring Harry Potter franchise-but to do something a'la IPCRESS where the whole bloody cast is great right down to the nonspeaking roles.

If it were a Bond film in the 50's, Leiter would be personified by Joseph Cotten. Bond would likely have been Niven. Good lord, what magic that would have been!

I imagine Hopkins is simply fed up with the rewrites that happened on GE and TND. I maintain he'd be an excellent addition to the Bond series, and would have made an excellent Augustus should GE ventured down that road (though the idea of Bond having a 'mentor' in the service has never really sat well with me). I think Hopkins as a person seems a little too muted for the sublime extravagance of Carver (though Pryce in Glengarry Glen Ross is the complete opposite to Elliot, so who's to say?). 

What I appreciate in SF is the series ability to attract top players such as Bardem, Fiennes and McCrory and use Dench more effectively than anything since TWINE. With Babs at the helm, I do think that there is definitely a push for top notch talent to appear, as showcased by the addition of Waltz, Seydoux, Bellucci in SP but they were of course, bogged down mediocre writing. TWINE featured a stellar cast (Richards aside, but she adds some spunk to a 15 minute role and proves to be a good catalyst for Bond's cynicism). And even TND, to feature superman's girlfriend, the terrific Jonathan Pryce, the biggest Chinese action heroine, and a exceptional cameo for Vincent Schiavelli, I think it's always been on Bab's radar. 

Which isn't to say it's necessarily new territory, either. Savalas, Rigg and Ferzetti were established names back in the day, Macnee, Walken and Jones, Lenya and Shaw... One missed opportunity was perhaps Sophia Loren as Dominetta in TB, but Claudine Auger....