Who should/could be a Bond actor?

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  • talos7talos7 New Orleans
    Posts: 8,206
    Of the known actors, my choice for Felix is Jon Hamm. His Felix could act as a sort of mentor to a younger Bond.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,968
    I don't mind the actors as much as I do the screentime. The likes of M, MP, and Q need way less priority in the next era, only utilized when it's necessary.
  • talos7talos7 New Orleans
    Posts: 8,206
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    I don't mind the actors as much as I do the screentime. The likes of M, MP, and Q need way less priority in the next era, only utilized when it's necessary.

    Yes!

    Felix, the character, was utilized beautifully throughout Craig’s tenure.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,968
    talos7 wrote: »
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    I don't mind the actors as much as I do the screentime. The likes of M, MP, and Q need way less priority in the next era, only utilized when it's necessary.

    Yes!

    Felix, the character, was utilized beautifully throughout Craig’s tenure.

    I honestly felt he could've received another weighty appearance after being sorely missed in SF and SP (throwaway mention by Bond in the latter aside), but yes, that was a great demonstration of nicely incorporating a longstanding character into the era. The others? Not so much, aside from Mathis (even if I wish he hadn't died).
  • SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷ Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria
    edited April 7 Posts: 2,016
    Jeremy Renner would be a good Felix Leiter as well.
  • edited April 7 Posts: 4,139
    I think they'll go slightly less famous for Felix. It kinda makes sense, you don't want a Jake Gyllenhall or even a Jeremy Renner outshining a new Bond actor.

    I'd go for someone along the lines of Boyd Holbrook personally.
  • SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷ Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 2,016
    007HallY wrote: »
    I think they'll go slightly less famous for Felix. It kinda makes sense, you don't want a Jake Gyllenhall or even a Jeremy Renner outshining a new Bond actor.

    I'd go for someone along the lines of Boyd Holbrook personally.

    Or Lee Pace?
  • Posts: 4,139
    007HallY wrote: »
    I think they'll go slightly less famous for Felix. It kinda makes sense, you don't want a Jake Gyllenhall or even a Jeremy Renner outshining a new Bond actor.

    I'd go for someone along the lines of Boyd Holbrook personally.

    Or Lee Pace?

    I can see that. I can imagine both being closer to the Felix of the novels in both look and personality (if that's a route they want to go down).
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 9,509
    Jeremy Renner would be a good Felix Leiter as well.

    I enjoy Renner. Think he’s great in Mayor of Kingstown.
  • SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷ Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 2,016
    007HallY wrote: »
    007HallY wrote: »
    I think they'll go slightly less famous for Felix. It kinda makes sense, you don't want a Jake Gyllenhall or even a Jeremy Renner outshining a new Bond actor.

    I'd go for someone along the lines of Boyd Holbrook personally.

    Or Lee Pace?

    I can see that. I can imagine both being closer to the Felix of the novels in both look and personality (if that's a route they want to go down).

    Yeah.
  • SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷ Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 2,016
    peter wrote: »
    Jeremy Renner would be a good Felix Leiter as well.

    I enjoy Renner. Think he’s great in Mayor of Kingstown.

    Yeah. Sure.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,382
    Renner would have been funny as Leiter with Craig as they kind of look like they're related.
  • SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷ Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 2,016
    mtm wrote: »
    Renner would have been funny as Leiter with Craig as they kind of look like they're related.

    True.
  • SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷ Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria
    edited April 7 Posts: 2,016
    Stewart Granger would have been a good Bond. Same as Lawrence Olivier, James Mason, etc. There seem to be more potential Bonds in the Golden Age of Hollywood than now. Also, for some reason, men of that era looked more mature than their actual age. I still can't believe that Connery and Lazenby were that young when they got the part.

  • Richard Vernon in Goldfinger. Late thirties but looked at least late fifties.
  • George_KaplanGeorge_Kaplan Being chauffeured by Tibbett
    edited April 8 Posts: 682
    Stewart Granger would have been a good Bond. Same as Lawrence Olivier, James Mason, etc. There seem to be more potential Bonds in the Golden Age of Hollywood than now. Also, for some reason, men of that era looked more mature than their actual age. I still can't believe that Connery and Lazenby were that young when they got the part.

    I think that's probably representative of how standards of male attractiveness have changed.
  • edited April 8 Posts: 4,139
    Richard Vernon in Goldfinger. Late thirties but looked at least late fifties.

    It’s kinda wild when you learn how old he was (not even 40) and that he played similar types of middle aged characters around that time.

    That said I think it’s one of those things that when you actually look at him closely you can see he’s relatively young. It’s the fact that he’s balding, has grown out a moustache, wears specific clothes, and acts in a certain way that gives that impression. It’s the combination that makes someone who already looks a bit older anyway come off more so, and there’s usually an element of that when people say younger people decades ago looked older in films.
  • George_KaplanGeorge_Kaplan Being chauffeured by Tibbett
    edited April 8 Posts: 682
    007HallY wrote: »
    Richard Vernon in Goldfinger. Late thirties but looked at least late fifties.

    It’s kinda wild when you learn how old he was (not even 40) and that he played similar types of middle aged characters around that time.

    That said I think it’s one of those things that when you actually look at him closely you can see he’s relatively young. It’s the fact that he’s balding, has grown out a moustache, wears specific clothes, and acts in a certain way that gives that impression. It’s the combination that makes someone who already looks a bit older anyway come off more so, and there’s usually an element of that when people say younger people decades ago looked older in films.

    It's called retrospective ageing. This video explains it:

  • Mendes4LyfeMendes4Lyfe The long road ahead
    edited April 8 Posts: 8,395
    I had no idea that guy was only 9 years older than Judi Dench!! Maybe Judi could have taken over from Bernard Lee after moonraker, and played M from 1981 - 2015.

  • edited April 8 Posts: 4,139
    Bernard Lee’s actually another one who I feel the retrospective age thing applies to in tandem with his acting. He actually looked relatively young throughout the Bond series when you look past the white hair later on and clothes (or at least relatively good for a man in his 50s/the earlier ones - obviously he wasn’t in the best health later on). He’s certainly not the old man from the Fleming novels when we see him in DN, even though that sense of authority is similar.
  • SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷ Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 2,016
    Richard Vernon in Goldfinger. Late thirties but looked at least late fifties.

    True.
  • SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷ Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 2,016
    Stewart Granger would have been a good Bond. Same as Lawrence Olivier, James Mason, etc. There seem to be more potential Bonds in the Golden Age of Hollywood than now. Also, for some reason, men of that era looked more mature than their actual age. I still can't believe that Connery and Lazenby were that young when they got the part.

    I think that's probably representative of how standards of male attractiveness have changed.

    Undoubtedly.
  • George_KaplanGeorge_Kaplan Being chauffeured by Tibbett
    edited April 8 Posts: 682
    To elaborate on my previous point, I don't think it's so much down to people ageing slower, but that the criteria of what a handsome leading man should look like has changed, and the sorts of faces casting agents look for, are different to those of the Golden Age. It's not that men with Connery-esque faces and features no longer exist, it's just that they don't get cast in the same roles as they used to (if at all).

    I think modern Hollywood is also partly to blame for warping our perception of ageing. The average 60-year old doesn't look like Tom Cruise for instance, but we perceive ordinary people as looking older than they are (or older than they should) because we're used to seeing beautiful Hollywood actors, when in fact they look normal for their age.

    There was an interesting discussion about this on the ajb007 forum. Unfortunately it devolved into petty arguing, but the first page raised some interesting points about how leading men of the 80s and 90s, like Pierce Brosnan or George Clooney, who on the surface seem to be channeling their counterparts from previous eras (Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, etc.), are actually quite different in appearance, not just in terms of fashion, but their innate physical characteristics represent something entirely different.

    https://www.ajb007.co.uk/discussion/49513/brosnans-hair-style
  • SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷ Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 2,016
    To elaborate on my previous point, I don't think it's so much down to people ageing slower, but that the criteria of what a handsome leading man should look like has changed, and the sorts of faces casting agents look for, are different to those of the Golden Age. It's not that men with Connery-esque faces and features no longer exist, it's just that they don't get cast in the same roles as they used to (if at all).

    I think modern Hollywood is also partly to blame for warping our perception of ageing. The average 60-year old doesn't look like Tom Cruise for instance, but we perceive ordinary people as looking older than they are (or older than they should) because we're used to seeing beautiful Hollywood actors, when in fact they look normal for their age.

    There was an interesting discussion about this on the ajb007 forum. Unfortunately it devolved into petty arguing, but the first page raised some interesting points about how leading men of the 80s and 90s, like Pierce Brosnan or George Clooney, who on the surface seem to be channeling their counterparts from previous eras (Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, etc.), are actually quite different in appearance, not just in terms of fashion, but their innate physical characteristics represent something entirely different.

    https://www.ajb007.co.uk/discussion/49513/brosnans-hair-style

    Yeah. Very good points. I don't also see actors who look like Richard Burton anymore. On a side note, had Burton played Bond, he would have played it like Dalton.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited April 8 Posts: 16,382
    People are a bit better at skincare and not pickling themselves with drink and smoke, too. Lazenby had presumably been out baking in the Aussie sun for a lot of his young life too.
  • edited April 8 Posts: 4,139
    To elaborate on my previous point, I don't think it's so much down to people ageing slower, but that the criteria of what a handsome leading man should look like has changed, and the sorts of faces casting agents look for, are different to those of the Golden Age. It's not that men with Connery-esque faces and features no longer exist, it's just that they don't get cast in the same roles as they used to (if at all).

    I think modern Hollywood is also partly to blame for warping our perception of ageing. The average 60-year old doesn't look like Tom Cruise for instance, but we perceive ordinary people as looking older than they are (or older than they should) because we're used to seeing beautiful Hollywood actors, when in fact they look normal for their age.

    There was an interesting discussion about this on the ajb007 forum. Unfortunately it devolved into petty arguing, but the first page raised some interesting points about how leading men of the 80s and 90s, like Pierce Brosnan or George Clooney, who on the surface seem to be channeling their counterparts from previous eras (Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, etc.), are actually quite different in appearance, not just in terms of fashion, but their innate physical characteristics represent something entirely different.

    https://www.ajb007.co.uk/discussion/49513/brosnans-hair-style

    Yeah. Very good points. I don't also see actors who look like Richard Burton anymore. On a side note, had Burton played Bond, he would have played it like Dalton.

    It's quite interesting watching a film like The Wild Geese where compared to Richard Harris and Burton (both notoriously heavy drinkers and smokers) Roger Moore looks like he's from a different generation altogether, and yet he's older than Harris and is only two years younger than Burton. Moore still looks like he's in his early 40s while the other two look like they could plausibly be over 60.

    But yeah, that sort of lifestyle can catch up with you. Someone like Peter O'Toole, who I'd say looked quite youthful throughout the 60s, aged quite rapidly in his 40s as a result of drinking and of course likely his cancer too.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,382
    Yes, we can't really complain about young pretty boys when Roger was there in the role 50 years ago.
  • Posts: 4,139
    mtm wrote: »
    Yes, we can't really complain about young pretty boys when Roger was there in the role 50 years ago.

    True. Even Dalton before his late 30s wasn't far off that. Like I often say, some of the actors just needed to age a little bit in order to get to their full Bond potential (I'd say Brosnan was a similar case).
  • SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷ Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 2,016
    007HallY wrote: »
    To elaborate on my previous point, I don't think it's so much down to people ageing slower, but that the criteria of what a handsome leading man should look like has changed, and the sorts of faces casting agents look for, are different to those of the Golden Age. It's not that men with Connery-esque faces and features no longer exist, it's just that they don't get cast in the same roles as they used to (if at all).

    I think modern Hollywood is also partly to blame for warping our perception of ageing. The average 60-year old doesn't look like Tom Cruise for instance, but we perceive ordinary people as looking older than they are (or older than they should) because we're used to seeing beautiful Hollywood actors, when in fact they look normal for their age.

    There was an interesting discussion about this on the ajb007 forum. Unfortunately it devolved into petty arguing, but the first page raised some interesting points about how leading men of the 80s and 90s, like Pierce Brosnan or George Clooney, who on the surface seem to be channeling their counterparts from previous eras (Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, etc.), are actually quite different in appearance, not just in terms of fashion, but their innate physical characteristics represent something entirely different.

    https://www.ajb007.co.uk/discussion/49513/brosnans-hair-style

    Yeah. Very good points. I don't also see actors who look like Richard Burton anymore. On a side note, had Burton played Bond, he would have played it like Dalton.

    It's quite interesting watching a film like The Wild Geese where compared to Richard Harris and Burton (both notoriously heavy drinkers and smokers) Roger Moore looks like he's from a different generation altogether, and yet he's older than Harris and is only two years younger than Burton. Moore still looks like he's in his early 40s while the other two look like they could plausibly be over 60.

    But yeah, that sort of lifestyle can catch up with you. Someone like Peter O'Toole, who I'd say looked quite youthful throughout the 60s, aged quite rapidly in his 40s as a result of drinking and of course likely his cancer too.

    Yeah.
    Also, actors from that era were ruggedly handsome. Most of them also had blue/grey/green eyes. Vincent Price is another one.
  • talos7talos7 New Orleans
    Posts: 8,206
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