While rumors circulated last year that a younger actor is being courted and that 007’s age would be significantly reduced from Craig’s era, such claims have been dismissed by franchise producer Michael G. Wilson. He assured fans that the new Bond would be an actor in his 30s, which would put him in Craig’s age group when he began his career as 007 in Casino Royale started. In a new one Interviewed by Radio Times longtime James Bond casting director Debbie McWilliams explained why younger actors are generally not suited to finding a new James Bond.
“When we started, it felt a little different,” McWilliams said of the recent search for a new 007 that ended with Craig’s selection. “We’ve looked at a lot of younger actors but I just don’t think they had the gravitas to do it. They didn’t have the experience, they didn’t have the mental capacity to play the role because it’s not just a role that they take on, it’s a massive responsibility.”
It wasn’t easy for Daniel Craig
The team chose Craig, who was in his 30s at the time. It wasn’t all cheering for the election, however, as McWilliams faced in 2021 Entertainment Weekly said. She felt sorry for Craig after his casting drew extreme reactions from the press, who felt he was inappropriate for the role of Bond. “The press response was terrible and I felt so sorry for him. But in a funny way, I think it almost made him do his best and prove everyone wrong,” McWilliams said.
“Throughout the production there were things like he couldn’t walk and talk properly, he couldn’t run, he couldn’t drive properly, so many things that were just untrue,” she continued. “He just kept his head down, kept working, and then the movie came out and everyone was like, ‘Oh wow, I think we really like him.'”
Who will be Craig’s successor?
Craig has appeared in a total of five James Bond films. The search for his successor will begin this year, according to producers Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. Broccoli told Variety, “When people ask, ‘Who are you going to choose?’ it’s not just about casting an actor for a movie.” “It’s about reinvention. ‘Where is the journey going? What do we want to do with the character?’ Only when we have that figured out can we start thinking about the right cast.”
In her interview with Radio Times, McWilliams pointed out that most James Bond actors were relatively unknown at a mainstream film level when they were cast.
“Timothy Dalton was well known, but he was basically a Shakespearean actor,” McWilliams said. “Pierce (Brosnan) was known, but mostly from TV. Roger Moore was known from TV. Sean Connery wasn’t – nobody had ever heard of him. A certain audience had heard of Daniel Craig, but much more the audience of the independent cinemas. He hadn’t done any major commercial film at all before Bond – (the 2004 film) ‘Layer Cake’ was probably the most popular of the pre-Bond productions he had done, but he wasn’t a very well known actor.” So it seems that James Bond fans can expect a relatively unknown male actor in his 30s to take on the role of 007. Do you have an actor you would like to see play James Bond?
Source: Variety
