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Everybody loves a hero. An action hero, a sports hero, even an anti-hero… we love them all. What makes James Bond stand out is that he’s in a category all by himself—a remarkable combination of cool and class, refinement and rebellion. He is a beacon of the ideal in an incredibly chaotic world. It’s not just that he fights the bad guys, or even that he’s a master spy. It’s that, somehow, he always manages to brave the battles without getting too down or too dirty. He is impossibly handsome, forever dressed to the nines in expensive suits and driving only the most elite cars. He is brilliant, strong and crafty, talented and seductive, and he manages to get the job done without so much as wrinkling his tailored tux.…

Given the success of the early James Bond films and how they catapulted Sean Connery to superstardom, it was a big blow to the franchise when Connery decided to quit after five films. Connery explained himself simply: He was tired of the role, yearned for other parts and wanted more money. Still, in every measurably material way, leaving such an iconic part seemed like an odd choice. It was an even odder choice when producers announced the name of the actor who was slated to replace Connery. George Lazenby was a complete unknown—a 29-year-old Australian who had only moved to England five years earlier and was initially making a living as a used car salesman. While doing that job, a talent scout saw him, admired his rugged good looks and…

In the years after Sean Connery, the search for “the next James Bond” became a popular parlor game. Speculation and rumors were constant. Hundreds of actors yearned for the role. And perhaps no actor was more at the center of it all than Pierce Brosnan. Brosnan had, indeed, been on the Bond radar for a while. He was dating, and would later marry, Cassandra Harris who played Countess Lisl von Schlaf in the Bond film For Your Eyes Only. Brosnan met Bond producer Cubby Broccoli one day while visiting Harris on set. They became friends and Broccoli followed Brosnan’s career. He even supposedly said, after meeting Brosnan for the first time, “If he can act, he’s my guy.” Brosnan could act, and a couple of years after his first encounter…

Spoiler alert: James Bond is dead. The character does not survive the end of No Time to Die. Still, the film franchise is very much alive. Now it’s up to producers to find a way to resurrect him. “It’s a reinvention of Bond,” producer Barbara Broccoli told Deadline in June 2022. “And that takes time.” The search for the perfect actor to play the seventh screen incarnation of 007 has long been under way. Literally hundreds of actors have been considered for the role. And even those involved in the search can’t really define what they’re looking for. “They’ve either got it or they haven’t,” casting director Debbie McWilliams told 007.com. “It’s just as simple as that.” McWilliams has said that “the first requirement is that you have to be…

“I WANTED [JAMES BOND] TO BE A BLUNT INSTRUMENT.” I an Fleming—the man who dreamed up the most elite secret agent in the history of literature—lived something of an elite life himself. He had family ties to a merchant bank, Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was a member of British Parliament. He was educated at elite schools and colleges. And, yes, he was a spy. Fleming worked for Britain’s Naval Intelligence Division during World War II. After school he was a stockbroker and journalist, but when the war broke out he was recruited by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence, to be his personal assistant. Fleming even had a code name: 17F. It was during this time that Fleming was inspired to create James Bond…

The story that Roger Moore had been told, and that many others had heard over the years, is that he was on the radar of James Bond movie producers from the very beginning to star as the British spy in the first film, Dr. No. “That’s what they told me, at least,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “They also said I was Ian Fleming’s first choice. But Ian Fleming didn’t know me from s---. He wanted Cary Grant or David Niven.” Regardless of whether he was considered or not, Moore was never approached to play Bond in the early days. And when the producers eventually decided to hire an actor who was somewhat unknown, Moore wouldn’t have fit the description. By then, he had already established himself on television—including his iconic…

There may not have been a more reluctant James Bond than Daniel Craig. He was clearly high on the list of Bond producers when they decided to move on from Pierce Brosnan. But at first, Craig—despite being a relatively unknown actor—wanted no part of the role. “I think I was intrigued by [him being] reluctant,” says producer Barbara Broccoli, daughter of original Bond producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, in an interview with Vanity Fair. “There was a period of trying to woo him. We had several meetings with him. We talked him through his concerns. He’s someone who’s very professional, and he throws himself into whatever he’s doing, and he understood it’d be a long commitment, over at least a decade.” Co-producer Michael Wilson put it more succinctly: “Barbara had to…

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Many fans consider Sean Connery the perfect James Bond. Some might even say he’s the only embodiment of the character worth watching. Yet the marriage between Bond and Connery was an odd one from the start. Connery was 31 years old when he got the part, having spent more than a decade bouncing between stage productions, television shows and movies. He had a solid career up to that point, but was hardly well-known. He was also Scottish, and more of an athlete than a spy, having been a bodybuilder and a soccer player good enough to once attract the attention of Manchester United. Connery was pitched for the role by Dana Broccoli, the wife of producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, but he didn’t exactly get Ian Fleming’s instant approval. Fleming’s top…

Timothy Dalton had been on the radar of James Bond producers dating all the way back to the days of Sean Connery playing 007. In fact, when Connery decided he’d had enough of playing Bond, Dalton was considered as a potential replacement. But despite the incredible opportunity, the classically trained Shakespearean actor—who had studied the craft since age 16—wasn’t sure he was right for the part. He especially wasn’t thrilled with the idea of replacing a man like Connery, who became the iconic image of who the public thought James Bond should be. “Originally I did not want to take over from Sean Connery,” Dalton told Good Morning America. “He was far too good. He was wonderful. I was about 24 or 25, which is too young. But when you’ve…

There probably isn’t a male actor alive—particularly a British male actor—who hasn’t at some point dreamed of playing James Bond. And every time an actor’s period as 007 nears an end, fans start guessing who’s next in line. The speculation is never-ending. Bond producers are no different. Hundreds of actors over the years have at least been under consideration to play James Bond, though not all of them were given an audition or were particularly close to landing the job. The following nine actors, however, came incredibly close to what would have been a career-defining role: 1. REX HARRISON He already was well known for his performances on stage and screen, but producers had a couple of concerns about making him James Bond. For one, he hadn’t been an action…