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http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/james-bond-007/news/a836743/james-norton-channelling-james-bond-bbc-one-thriller-mcmafia/
Me too.
Gasp.
I'm not opposed to an American playing Bond anyway. I'm British but personally I don't care what nationality the actor is as long as they can nail the accent (I know Connery and Brosnan didn't always sound English but close enough). If you look at Jon Hamm he's pretty much perfect for Bond. He's got that pure Connery esque masculinity/magnetism that not many actors have nowadays. If another actor in that vein comes along in the future then I'd hate for him to be disqualified based on where he's from.
If you haven't seen The Peacemaker, I recommend it. Clooney is still in his notorious 'head shaking' phase of acting (which I believe he finally gave up in Out of Sight), but he is excellent in that film.
Never heard of it before but just looked it up and it does sound like my sort of thing, I'll have to check it out @bondjames. And yeah to be honest I was basing Hamm's suitability for Bond entirely off Don Draper. But he really did nail that and show why he'd be a great Bond in the proccess.
I've seen him in a couple of other things (Black Mirror, Baby Driver) and he's did well in those parts as well, so I think the lack of an impact outside of Mad Men is probably down to a combination of just not being cast in the right part and that role casting such a big shadow over his career.
I was about to say shame he's too old and that got me thinking. Would we rather cast a baby faced 28 year old and have to wait a few films for him to look like a man, or cast an older actor even if it's just for two or three films? I guess EON wouldn't want the hassle of recasting too often but it takes them the best part of half a decade to make them nowadays anyway so would that really be too bad? And the odds on any actor staying past four films seem pretty low nowadays anyway. I don't know. I just see actors who I think would be really good (Hamm, Fassbender, etc) but then on here it's all "they'll be too old, how about this guy" and it's someone in their 20s or even early 30s who would still look pathetic if you put him next to Craig or Connery. I'd rather have an actor in their 40s even if they only did a couple of films. But I'm speaking from personal preference, I don't know how well that would work from a business/production side of things.
With regards to age, I have no problem with them casting someone in their late 30s or early 40s, and you're right that there are folks out there right now who I think could take the baton and run with it for at least another decade (like Fassbender, should he want it) and honestly, I really hoped they would go that way for B25.
I'm not too keen on a 20 year old, but that's not because I'm discriminating based on their youth. Rather, it's because I don't know too many who can give off that knowing mature air which I believe Bond must have, especially after Craig has just done the reboot rookie thing (I don't want another hard reset).
And we know how good American actors are at doing British accents and sounding very natural at it.
And Connery was British, last time I checked. A Scottish accent IS a British accent.
I feel the same really. I don't want a baby faced Bond who looks like he'd need to be explained what chemin de fer is. I much prefer a worldly Bond who has seen it all and done it all. Many actors in their 30's today, simply don't have the maturity to convince me they'd actually be Bond.
I know, which is why I said he didn't sound English, not that he didn't sound British. And given that Bond is meant to have gone to Eton for most of his school years and lived in England almost his whole life, you'd expect him to have an English accent. Connery sounded more and more Scottish as he went on and Brosnan just used his normal Anglo-Irish-American voice in all his films (which is weird because I've seen him do proper English accents in other films) but I think both of them sounded close enough to an English accent for it not to be an issue. That was what I was trying to say.
We've discussed this somewhere before. The women tend to do a better job with the English accent then the men generally imho.
But until SF was there any indication Bond spent his childhood in Scotland? I can't remember what the YOLT obituary said but even so, the Scottish father was just a nod to Connery anyway wasn't it and either way I think Bond was always supposed to have an RP accent, Connery even seems to be attempting one in his earlier films (or at least toning his own accent down). I can't imagine when Fleming was writing the books he pictured him as having anything but.
And I think some Americans have done fine. Weren't all the band members in Spinal Tap played by Americans? And I think Robert Downey Jr was a great Sherlock Holmes. I'm with @bondjames. They shouldn't discriminate based on nationality. And if the accent wasn't up to scratch then they likely wouldn't get past the screen test since I imagine EON would be strict about that. Although MGW was around when James Brolin was nearly cast and in his screentest he just didn't even seem to be attempting one so you never know.
The SF connection has nothing to do with Fleming, as Master Bond was brought up abroad until his parents mountain climbing accident. After the death of his parents, Bond goes to live with his aunt, Miss Charmian Bond, in the village of Pett Bottom, where he completes his early education. Later, he briefly attends Eton College at "12 or thereabouts", but is removed after two halves because of girl trouble with a maid After being sent down from Eton, Bond was sent to Fettes College in Scotland, his father's school. It's only Fettes that connects Bond physically to Scotland, not SF. It was this distortion of Fleming's family background that grated with many of us fans after watching the movie, though I'll admit it didn't bother near enough everyone. Bond's mother was Swiss, but little is mentioned of this. For all intents and purposes, the young Bond is more Swiss than he is Scottish, party due to him spending his formative years in and around Switzerland and not Scotland.
And I won't fault the filmmakers for essentially doing the same thing. It's better for their film storytelling to show the character's background recalling Connery and Fleming himself. A valuable exaggeration of what the author started. In execution, well done.
Very few American actors could give a convincing British accent.As for Robert Downey Jr his accent was o.k. at best. As for his portrayal of Holmes it was rather mediocre and superficial. I don't think we should discriminate but from experience American actors playing discriminated themselves.
Even though I don't tend to share a lot in common with @Ludovico's thoughts on Bond, I feel he is correct in his review of Robert Downey Jr's twee English accent: it was just about OK.
Cheers for that @bondsum, didn't know that about Fleming. So Bond lived abroad, then in England, then finished school in Scotland before moving back to England. That to me settles it that he should on balance sound English, probably an RP accent since he's pretty posh. I've got no problem with Connery or Brosnan's accents, thought they were close enough and at least sounded British, but I thought since we were on about if an American could get the accent right it was worth pointing out that two of the actors so far arguably didn't nail the accent already.
I have to say at the moment we are in a sticky situation where no candidates really stand out from the pack.