Casting Call: James Bond

So who do you all think should become the next Bond?

Idris is getting lots of press but I don't buy it.

Not just that I think there is still some apprehension on EONs part to cast a black Bond. Mostly because he is too old.
Idris turns 50 later this year. He'd be in his fifties when the first of his Bonds is released. And you would have to assume that Babs & co would want more than one film from their new lead. At least three I would imagine?
I can't see them casting a man who will be pushing sixty by the time he is retired from the role.

I might have bought the rumors had he been ten years younger.

Agree about Elba ... the oldest debuting Bond remains Moore at 45, and I doubt we'll see the like again.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Agree about Elba ... the oldest debuting Bond remains Moore at 45, and I doubt we'll see the like again.  

Like with Craig, they will be casting someone in the 35-40 age range. They might stretch the upper limit to 41-42 if it's an actor they really like for the role.

But clearly with each new actor they'd prefer a Connery, Moore, Brosnan or Craig (four, five or more movies) as opposed to a Lazenby or Dalton.

I still think Jason Issacs is the big missed opportunity and it would be possible to do a limited older Bond type story run a'la what Gardner did with Licence Renewed-but no way would EON go for it.

They'll end up casting someone who is far too young unfortunately.

I have absolutely no idea on this one. During the Craig casting there seemed to be a far wealthier crop of options. I’m not sure if that’s more on the current generation of actors OR if it says something about how the Craig era has thrown off my conception of what Bond is/will be.

Anyone else notice how many of the “unknown actors” people/news float as suggestions only seem to look mature enough for the part with some measure of facial hair?

Whathisface from Poldark, Aidan Turner, seems to be floated as a Bond idea purely on the basis he got shirtless in the series.

Otherwise, I feel quite unbothered by Bond lately, at least new Bond. I think re-cast Brosnan, remake DAD, Brosnan kills a lot of people, Natalya returns to help him defeat Icarus and then go for broke. I mean nothing could go wrong now.

Anybody named Aidan--or Caleb--should be automatically ruled out on principle.

hegottheboot wrote:

I still think Jason Issacs is the big missed opportunity

Would've been the perfect choice for the 90's if Brosnan was forced to do another 10 seasons of Remington Steele.

Somerset wrote:

Anyone else notice how many of the “unknown actors” people/news float as suggestions only seem to look mature enough for the part with some measure of facial hair?

I think it's because pretty boys rather than Scottish milkman types have been in vogue for the past 20+ years.

Hilly wrote:

Otherwise, I feel quite unbothered by Bond lately, at least new Bond.

Until they renounce Craigism and how they ended NTTD, I feel the same way.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Anybody named Aidan--or Caleb--should be automatically ruled out on principle.

Heh, there's a Murdoch media pundit in Australia named Caleb Bond who's about 20 going on 60. He could probably play Q.

I think all hope is lost with Fassbender so my 2nd option is Cavill, who I think would love the opportunity to be Bond, given his conversation with Graham Norton on his show. There’s a definite appreciation for the part which Craig appeared to never maintain.

I suspect you're right about The Fassbonder.

Of all the 'regulars' floated, Cavill is probably one of the better options.

The question is, if it is Cavill (or someone of his hue and penile-ownership status) will Babs be ready to withstand the criticism from the Twitterati Left who were promised a "diverse" Bond?

CJB wrote:

I suspect you're right about The Fassbonder.

Of all the 'regulars' floated, Cavill is probably one of the better options.

The question is, if it is Cavill (or someone of his hue and penile-ownership status) will Babs be ready to withstand the criticism from the Twitterati Left who were promised a "diverse" Bond?

Babs can’t even withstand Craig moving on. Isn’t there an article going around about how she wants 2022 focused on the 60th anniversary and celebrating Craig’s tenure? That goes well beyond waiting for the end of NTTD’s theatrical window before work begins on Bond 26. A way to honour the 60th anniversary is to announce the next film. They’ve had more than enough time - NTTD was sitting on the shelf for over year!

LMAO celebrating Craig's tenure. Can't she move on? He filmed his last Bond movie 3 years ago.

Gushing over Craig's Bond has become the cinematic equivalent of having pronouns/#BLM/rainbow flag/needles in your bio, i.e. something many people do because it displays their 'correct opinion' as they struggle to remember anything memorable from his movies which they watched once.

CJB wrote:

because it displays their 'correct opinion'

There’s probably lots of truth in that regarding praising Craig’s era. Many of his fans would be tweens, teens and young adults who have only known him as James Bond. I remember at my impressionable age when Casino Royale came out thinking that I should celebrate the films that are widely acclaimed by ranking them highly on my list even though it never gelled from that first watch.

And what exactly are the memorable moments from Craig’s era? The parkour chase? That mischaracterises Bond. The car flip? I’ll concede that. Much of the stuff in SF is very well done but not iconic like Goldfinger’s Golden Girl or the GoldenEye bungee jump. M dying probably comes close. Maybe the MI6 attack could have been if it wasn’t done better in TWINE which was then also immediately followed up with the memorable Thames boat chase. Bond’s death is perhaps what Craig’ll be remembered for, and it’s not necessarily because it’s good, but because it’s controversial-- hardly a positive thing.

Do we think there is always someone out there who can play Bond? Is Barbara the type who, either because she is genuinely still bewitched by Craig or because she honestly feels no one stands out, would let several years pass in idleness simply waiting for a candidate to emerge rather than press forward for the sake of time with someone she wasn’t 100% sure about? Moreover, which would you all prefer?

(I suppose that might depend on your personal assessment of the series health.)

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

Bond’s death is perhaps what Craig’ll be remembered for, and it’s not necessarily because it’s good, but because it’s controversial-- hardly a positive thing.

Indeed. No one has ever gone to a Bond movie to watch Bond die.

Somerset wrote:

Do we think there is always someone out there who can play Bond? Is Barbara the type who, either because she is genuinely still bewitched by Craig or because she honestly feels no one stands out, would let several years pass in idleness simply waiting for a candidate to emerge rather than press forward for the sake of time with someone she wasn’t 100% sure about? Moreover, which would you all prefer?

She's fucking bewitched. See her comments that he was the most charismatic man alive because of some scene in Elizabeth where he walks down a hallway and she wouldn't hear of anyone else auditioning.

There are many actors who could've done it instead. There are many actors who could do it now. I don't know most of their names, but they surely exist.

Maybe it’s just because there have only ever been six guys to do it, but I always thought it must be an exceptionally hard part to get the right guy for. That compounded by the Barbara inert will to move on, and what seems like a lack of standout candidates...not saying it can’t happened but I’d be surprised if they find someone quickly.

Somerset wrote:

Do we think there is always someone out there who can play Bond? Is Barbara the type who, either because she is genuinely still bewitched by Craig or because she honestly feels no one stands out, would let several years pass in idleness simply waiting for a candidate to emerge rather than press forward for the sake of time with someone she wasn’t 100% sure about? Moreover, which would you all prefer?

(I suppose that might depend on your personal assessment of the series health.)

Well I’ve longed thought there are at least 2 actors out there who could do it now: Michael Fassbender and Henry Cavill. And they’re just the known actors; if they decided to take a risk I’m sure they could discover someone else.

Somerset wrote:

Maybe it’s just because there have only ever been six guys to do it, but I always thought it must be an exceptionally hard part to get the right guy for. That compounded by the Barbara inert will to move on, and what seems like a lack of standout candidates...not saying it can’t happened but I’d be surprised if they find someone quickly.

I don’t honestly think Bond would be that hard to play. Of course the script and direction could challenge that idea but if you take the James Bond of, say, FRWL, OHMSS, TSWLM, TLD or TND there’s enough meat on the bones for an actor to work with, while still not being particularly demanding. It’s generally the supporting characters that I imagine would be more exciting/tough for an actor to tackle - e.g. Xenia Onatopp, Draco, Renard or Dr. No.

That said, even with only 6 actors playing the part, I think 3 have genuinely struck the right balance: Connery, Lazenby and Brosnan. But then it comes down to good casting. So long as a particular direction of the series doesn’t dictate who’s cast next (i.e. how OHMSS, TLD and GE were written for the more balanced Bond), 007 #7 should be across all facets of the character in who he is in reality.

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

I don’t honestly think Bond would be that hard to play. Of course the script and direction could challenge that idea but if you take the James Bond of, say, FRWL, OHMSS, TSWLM, TLD or TND there’s enough meat on the bones for an actor to work with, while still not being particularly demanding.

Agree. Natural charisma and swagger is 99% of it. Hence why Babs' close-minded approach was ridiculous.

Makes me think twice about my stance, at least. And reminds me of an interview with Hunt I once read. The journalist asked him something along the lines of how he got Lazenby, a non-actor, to give a performance as James Bond. He responded to the effect that, “I could get a performance out of you.” He thought it was all editing and posing and how you shot it. Very classic Hollywood approach, I thought. Didn’t Hitchcock call actors cattle?

Not sure, but yes good direction helps.

If anyone of us were old enough to be literary Bond fans when DN '62 was made (and respect to all who fit that bill) I'm sure we would've had the same reservations about Connery's casting that Fleming did.

As it turns out, natural swagger, moving like a panther, and a great director was the perfect combo.

Just about the only thing that ever put me off about Bond in the books is his British civility, and occasionally his internal squeamishness or regret over killing those who were clearly deserving. So I think if I had been born 10 or 15 years earlier, I'd have actually welcomed Connery as Bond just because he seemed to sidestep that aspect entirely while modernizing Bond in an electrifying way that probably can never be equaled or even approached.

But it is the Young/Connery collaboration that makes it work. Connery alone might have gone more Moore-esque, like his take in NSNA, which is something I've seen mentioned in print once or twice. Could Young have done that with just anybody? I kinda sorta doubt it, and definitely doubt that Hunt could have delivered on that in the universal way he seemed to think possible. I think Hunt could have made OHMSS work with Adam West by cutting away from his excesses and limiting a lot of reaction shots to the moments when he just looks good, but that still requires you have somebody who can deliver the good stuff ... it can't be created out of thin air unless your project is 'Bond - Pixar Bond.' (Please Lord don't give them any ideas!)

The director 'controlling or modulating actor performances' trick to register in an outsized way not intended by the actor is something you can see in STAR TREK VI, when Meyer cuts away from Shatner saying 'let them die!' about the Klingons, with the edit happening before Shatner had Kirk appear to catch himself for having blurted it out. And it is well-documented how Kubrick encouraged George C. Scott's excesses on STRANGELOVE, putting an exclamation point on things by cutting while Scott's Turgidson was right on the zenith with many of his proclamations.

I do think it takes a certain shrewd brilliance to recognize that kind of thing in the moment, otherwise, when studio regimes change and they're looking to tank the films coming out from the old regime, execs would be looking to self-sabotage going this same route. Then again, maybe some do (I know Uni wanted to flush the Lynch Dune owing to various factors, and maybe some of the editing overruling Lynch came from them rather than Dino. Certainly there are unLynch like moments that don't work. But I can't point to anything Disney did to wreck RETURN TO OZ -- outside of the terrible paucity of publicity for it -- even though they clearly were hoping for it to fail as badly as it did.)

I wonder how much of Connery's 'lighter' performance in NSNA is him being him or whether it was more (or Moore) the case of the writers/directors taking their cues from what the EON franchise had become over the preceding decade.

From what I've read, NSNA had huge stretches of downtime because the production was so troubled owing to weather and other factors -- I guess that was why they were so desperate to shoot something that the art department built the sub interior in the lobby of the hotel they were staying at. With folks sitting around while the clock is running, there's potential for endless rethinks and tweaks, and you'd figure any dialog that was less than ideal would have been played with and refined ... yet NSNA doesn't contain much in the way of "She's had her kicks"-level bon mots.

The movie's overreliance on Connery stunt doubles who don't look or move like the guy also suggests that Connery's commitment to the film was not as great as has been stated (either that or the weather was good that day and he wanted to go golfing.) I mean, the Shrublands fight has got a fairly long take where 'Bond is backing toward camera, holding a standard boxing pose that reads distinctly unConnery-like throughout, while getting pummeled by Pat Roach (this is the shot where other inmates at Shrublands are watching TV), and at no time in the whole shot do I get the slightest feeling that Connery was even on set that day. Now we started seeing the Moore double way too often by OCTOPUSSY too (the 'Bond' seen on the porch of his Apt was a wince-maker), but it wasn't as sustained a thing as this particular substitution.

I really wish the guy who did the making of OHMSS book had chosen NSNA as a subject, because even after hearing the dvd interview with the rewriters, there's still a ton I don't get about the way the project was executed. They did right getting David Tomblin to keep the mess from collapsing in on itself, so that was one right call, but so mahy others seem wrong.

I guess they could have had Goldsmith or Horner but failed to lock either down in advance, and the presence of a competent score (or in JG's case, probably a superlative one) could have made substantial difference in how the final product was received. Shoot, going by Horner's lifelong ability to plagiarize outrageously without any form of punishment, I have to figure he would have been able to pillage from Barry's scores the same way he dived deep on Williams, Goldsmith and various classical composers to make the thing actually sound somewhat Bond-like. Playing a Bond-style score against a lot of NSNA's 'action' would have almost mandated a new cut of the film, because the cut as-is seems very lethargic, something LeGrande's score seems to emphasize, much to the detriment of the final product.

Somerset wrote:

Do we think there is always someone out there who can play Bond? Is Barbara the type who, either because she is genuinely still bewitched by Craig or because she honestly feels no one stands out, would let several years pass in idleness simply waiting for a candidate to emerge rather than press forward for the sake of time with someone she wasn’t 100% sure about? Moreover, which would you all prefer?

(I suppose that might depend on your personal assessment of the series health.)

Very good question. It could be that because there isn't a suitable "diverse" actor/actress out there at the moment, she will wait for one to appear. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

CJB wrote:

I wonder how much of Connery's 'lighter' performance in NSNA is him being him or whether it was more (or Moore) the case of the writers/directors taking their cues from what the EON franchise had become over the preceding decade.

Maybe, but I seem to remember Irvin Kershner said that he eventually decided to approach directing NSNA as if there'd been no previous Bond movies.