Who should/could be a Bond actor?

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  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited June 2022 Posts: 16,359
    talos7 wrote: »
    While I had problems with certain specifics, in tone, NTTD was a nice blend of serious and fantastic.

    Yes, I liked that it wasn't afraid to be fantastic, and I think it worked well. I just wish it had embraced a bit more silly here and there, or had a bit more wit. I've said it before so may be repeating myself so apologies, but partly I think the reason the Bond theme almost never got played is because the film never earned it. He didn't walk over the arm of a digger into a train, he didn't surf a plane fuselage down a ski slope. He just drove an old Toyota and bashed it into things. Y'know: Bond.
  • edited June 2022 Posts: 4,122
    Ludovico wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    Given that we see the villains formulating the plan against Bond right from the start, I'd say FRWL isn't hugely mysterious. Tense, when we get to the train, maybe.
    DN, yeah, that's a bit more mysterious.

    Off topic, but it's something I hope we come back to in future Bond films. Not the gadgets, the silliness or the extravaganza, but plots without big mysteries or big plot twists and reveals. We know what's happening, who'se involved, what's at stake, etc.

    You can't really have a Bond film without a mystery. Fleming's novels were partially inspired by Raymond Chandler books and Bond functions similarly to a hardboiled detective in how he investigates what's going on/how he attains information and pieces things together - it's literally baked into the DNA of the 'Bond formula'. The only difference is whether the audience are made aware of the villain's plan before Bond or along with him.
    talos7 wrote: »
    While I had problems with certain specifics, in tone, NTTD was a nice blend of serious and fantastic.

    I agree. It skewed towards fatalism and those 'darker' ideas, especially in the latter half, but I generally liked how everything was brought together. It has some of the darkest moments of the series (like I've said a few times now the opening and the SPECTRE agents being 'nanoboted' seems straight out of a horror film) alongside some notably breezy and lighthearted moments.

    The Fleming novels generally have that effective mixture of serious and fantastic, but arguably integrated together a lot better. Bond can fight a giant squid inside a weird super villain's lair but it feels genuinely real - there's a sense that despite its otherworldliness everything is grounded and our hero genuinely gets badly wounded. I do wish the films could harness that properly - y'know, give us that sense of otherworldliness/fantastical escapism while grounding it in some form of plausibility.
  • sandbagger1sandbagger1 Sussex
    Posts: 936
    007HallY wrote: »
    The Fleming novels generally have that effective mixture of serious and fantastic, but arguably integrated together a lot better. Bond can fight a giant squid inside a weird super villain's lair but it feels genuinely real - there's a sense that despite its otherworldliness everything is grounded and our hero genuinely gets badly wounded. I do wish the films could harness that properly - y'know, give us that sense of otherworldliness/fantastical escapism while grounding it in some form of plausibility.
    I totally agree - you need to have that feeling that Bond has at some point in his adventure stepped into a slightly different, hidden world from the one we (and he) know, but he should always be human and have that feeling of vulnerability to injury. I've said before that he's kind of like Odysseus in that he's just a man, but he leaves the safety of the known to cross into lands and encounters creatures that are magical and strange.
  • Posts: 15,110
    @007HallY Maybe I didn't express myself well. Yes, you need mystery, but everything is in the measure and emphasis. You mention Raymond Chandler. What made him and other hardboiled writers stand out was that the emphasis was no longer on the mystery and the reveal itself but in the investigation. Compare it to whodunits: the focus is on the explanation, who murdered, how and why. In Chandler and Fleming novels, the reveals are not so important. It's what their main characters do, where they go and the characters they meet that make their works stand out.
  • edited June 2022 Posts: 4,122
    007HallY wrote: »
    The Fleming novels generally have that effective mixture of serious and fantastic, but arguably integrated together a lot better. Bond can fight a giant squid inside a weird super villain's lair but it feels genuinely real - there's a sense that despite its otherworldliness everything is grounded and our hero genuinely gets badly wounded. I do wish the films could harness that properly - y'know, give us that sense of otherworldliness/fantastical escapism while grounding it in some form of plausibility.
    I totally agree - you need to have that feeling that Bond has at some point in his adventure stepped into a slightly different, hidden world from the one we (and he) know, but he should always be human and have that feeling of vulnerability to injury. I've said before that he's kind of like Odysseus in that he's just a man, but he leaves the safety of the known to cross into lands and encounters creatures that are magical and strange.

    That's a good way of putting it. I get the sense some people think Fleming's Bond novels are simply 'down to earth' or at least all are in the vein of CR. There's some pretty wild stuff in there. DN ends up playing out like this strange fairy tale (albeit with a mechanical 'dragon' and a villain with metal 'pinchers' for hands), LALD has all these references to voodoo and fortune tellers... there's countless other examples but the novels genuinely felt like Bond was in these exotic, unusual and strange environments, often with the villains creating their own little worlds.

    That's why I like the Cuba sequence in NTTD so much. It felt like Bond was stepping into that type of place. Again, I do hope the films are able to harness that sense of outlandishness while grounding it in a much more human, Fleming-esque way.
    Ludovico wrote: »
    @007HallY Maybe I didn't express myself well. Yes, you need mystery, but everything is in the measure and emphasis. You mention Raymond Chandler. What made him and other hardboiled writers stand out was that the emphasis was no longer on the mystery and the reveal itself but in the investigation. Compare it to whodunits: the focus is on the explanation, who murdered, how and why. In Chandler and Fleming novels, the reveals are not so important. It's what their main characters do, where they go and the characters they meet that make their works stand out.

    There's a story about when The Big Sleep was being adapted. Howard Hawks and his writers had to hold long, rather drawn out meetings to try and work out the plot of the book. Turned out no one was entirely sure who killed a certain character. They wired Chandler and he claimed he had no idea either. So yeah, I'd say you're right. Fleming's novels do tend to prioritise the climaxes though just because they're meant to be more 'pulse racing' and action filled. I get what you mean though: why the drawn out mystery of Blofeld/Bond's past, of Safin's to a lesser extent? etc. Bond doesn't really do all that much investigating either - he knows who Blofeld is and Safin's backstory is revealed pretty quickly without his efforts.

    If anything I'd like to see Bond function as that detective-like figure in Bond 26. Again, slowly uncover these odd characters and this hidden world.
  • edited June 2022 Posts: 784
    Ludovico wrote: »
    @007HallY Maybe I didn't express myself well. Yes, you need mystery, but everything is in the measure and emphasis. You mention Raymond Chandler. What made him and other hardboiled writers stand out was that the emphasis was no longer on the mystery and the reveal itself but in the investigation. Compare it to whodunits: the focus is on the explanation, who murdered, how and why. In Chandler and Fleming novels, the reveals are not so important. It's what their main characters do, where they go and the characters they meet that make their works stand out.

    That’s what I mean when I say a well written plot where characters intention are valid, credible, interwoven and revealed in a manner that builds and milks suspense.

    The last three films were more focused on reveals with minimal set up and ambiguity, just like the second half of GoT, that half show runners wrote themselves.

    Reservoir Dogs is a great example of how to unveil a mystery, as is GoT season 1. Snatch is a great example of how to develop a story with a premise that is fully clear to the audience.

    Even if CR and QoS made the investigation secondary, they handled it very well.

    The train sequence in FRWL is tense specifically because we know the blonde dude is a double agent in advance. Different setups aren’t fatal if you adhere the rest of your decisions to them.

    I also enjoyed how CR didn't follow the normal three act adventure structure.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 13,773
    Interesting proposal from Mr. Hanks.

    Tom Hanks says he wouldn’t take
    Philadelphia role today

    https://www.thedigitalfix.com/tom-hanks/philadelphia-role
    “Could a straight man do what I did in Philadelphia now? No, and rightly so,” he told The New York Times Magazine. “The whole point of Philadelphia was, ‘Don’t be afraid.’ One of the reasons people weren’t afraid of that movie is that I was playing a gay man. We’re beyond that now, and I don’t think people would accept the inauthenticity of a straight guy playing a gay guy.”


    Not sure if the reverse is true.

  • Posts: 15,110
    007HallY wrote: »
    007HallY wrote: »
    The Fleming novels generally have that effective mixture of serious and fantastic, but arguably integrated together a lot better. Bond can fight a giant squid inside a weird super villain's lair but it feels genuinely real - there's a sense that despite its otherworldliness everything is grounded and our hero genuinely gets badly wounded. I do wish the films could harness that properly - y'know, give us that sense of otherworldliness/fantastical escapism while grounding it in some form of plausibility.
    I totally agree - you need to have that feeling that Bond has at some point in his adventure stepped into a slightly different, hidden world from the one we (and he) know, but he should always be human and have that feeling of vulnerability to injury. I've said before that he's kind of like Odysseus in that he's just a man, but he leaves the safety of the known to cross into lands and encounters creatures that are magical and strange.

    That's a good way of putting it. I get the sense some people think Fleming's Bond novels are simply 'down to earth' or at least all are in the vein of CR. There's some pretty wild stuff in there. DN ends up playing out like this strange fairy tale (albeit with a mechanical 'dragon' and a villain with metal 'pinchers' for hands), LALD has all these references to voodoo and fortune tellers... there's countless other examples but the novels genuinely felt like Bond was in these exotic, unusual and strange environments, often with the villains creating their own little worlds.

    That's why I like the Cuba sequence in NTTD so much. It felt like Bond was stepping into that type of place. Again, I do hope the films are able to harness that sense of outlandishness while grounding it in a much more human, Fleming-esque way.
    Ludovico wrote: »
    @007HallY Maybe I didn't express myself well. Yes, you need mystery, but everything is in the measure and emphasis. You mention Raymond Chandler. What made him and other hardboiled writers stand out was that the emphasis was no longer on the mystery and the reveal itself but in the investigation. Compare it to whodunits: the focus is on the explanation, who murdered, how and why. In Chandler and Fleming novels, the reveals are not so important. It's what their main characters do, where they go and the characters they meet that make their works stand out.

    There's a story about when The Big Sleep was being adapted. Howard Hawks and his writers had to hold long, rather drawn out meetings to try and work out the plot of the book. Turned out no one was entirely sure who killed a certain character. They wired Chandler and he claimed he had no idea either. So yeah, I'd say you're right. Fleming's novels do tend to prioritise the climaxes though just because they're meant to be more 'pulse racing' and action filled. I get what you mean though: why the drawn out mystery of Blofeld/Bond's past, of Safin's to a lesser extent? etc. Bond doesn't really do all that much investigating either - he knows who Blofeld is and Safin's backstory is revealed pretty quickly without his efforts.

    If anything I'd like to see Bond function as that detective-like figure in Bond 26. Again, slowly uncover these odd characters and this hidden world.

    Ah, who killed Owen Taylor? Maybe the most fascinating plot hole of crime fiction history. Nobody knows for sure, but many have an idea. In my old American literature course in college we had a huge and sometimes fiery debate about it.
    Off topic, but I suspect Vivian. I think Marlowe suspected her too.
  • Posts: 348
    mtm wrote: »
    I wouldn’t choose a light-hearted humorous action flick at the expense of an elegant, mysterious, cerebral, ruthless, cool, witty espionage suspense thriller.

    Are you talking about Bond films with that second description? I love em all, but I wouldn't call any of them that; they're mostly just silly fun :)

    Anyway, here's a fun bit of baiting from some ad or other that Cavill's done :)


    If that's what his audition would look like his supporters must be cringing.
  • Posts: 4,122
    Ludovico wrote: »
    007HallY wrote: »
    007HallY wrote: »
    The Fleming novels generally have that effective mixture of serious and fantastic, but arguably integrated together a lot better. Bond can fight a giant squid inside a weird super villain's lair but it feels genuinely real - there's a sense that despite its otherworldliness everything is grounded and our hero genuinely gets badly wounded. I do wish the films could harness that properly - y'know, give us that sense of otherworldliness/fantastical escapism while grounding it in some form of plausibility.
    I totally agree - you need to have that feeling that Bond has at some point in his adventure stepped into a slightly different, hidden world from the one we (and he) know, but he should always be human and have that feeling of vulnerability to injury. I've said before that he's kind of like Odysseus in that he's just a man, but he leaves the safety of the known to cross into lands and encounters creatures that are magical and strange.

    That's a good way of putting it. I get the sense some people think Fleming's Bond novels are simply 'down to earth' or at least all are in the vein of CR. There's some pretty wild stuff in there. DN ends up playing out like this strange fairy tale (albeit with a mechanical 'dragon' and a villain with metal 'pinchers' for hands), LALD has all these references to voodoo and fortune tellers... there's countless other examples but the novels genuinely felt like Bond was in these exotic, unusual and strange environments, often with the villains creating their own little worlds.

    That's why I like the Cuba sequence in NTTD so much. It felt like Bond was stepping into that type of place. Again, I do hope the films are able to harness that sense of outlandishness while grounding it in a much more human, Fleming-esque way.
    Ludovico wrote: »
    @007HallY Maybe I didn't express myself well. Yes, you need mystery, but everything is in the measure and emphasis. You mention Raymond Chandler. What made him and other hardboiled writers stand out was that the emphasis was no longer on the mystery and the reveal itself but in the investigation. Compare it to whodunits: the focus is on the explanation, who murdered, how and why. In Chandler and Fleming novels, the reveals are not so important. It's what their main characters do, where they go and the characters they meet that make their works stand out.

    There's a story about when The Big Sleep was being adapted. Howard Hawks and his writers had to hold long, rather drawn out meetings to try and work out the plot of the book. Turned out no one was entirely sure who killed a certain character. They wired Chandler and he claimed he had no idea either. So yeah, I'd say you're right. Fleming's novels do tend to prioritise the climaxes though just because they're meant to be more 'pulse racing' and action filled. I get what you mean though: why the drawn out mystery of Blofeld/Bond's past, of Safin's to a lesser extent? etc. Bond doesn't really do all that much investigating either - he knows who Blofeld is and Safin's backstory is revealed pretty quickly without his efforts.

    If anything I'd like to see Bond function as that detective-like figure in Bond 26. Again, slowly uncover these odd characters and this hidden world.

    Ah, who killed Owen Taylor? Maybe the most fascinating plot hole of crime fiction history. Nobody knows for sure, but many have an idea. In my old American literature course in college we had a huge and sometimes fiery debate about it.
    Off topic, but I suspect Vivian. I think Marlowe suspected her too.

    That's the one! I do find it funny that in theory the film adaptation could potentially have come up with an explanation but just... didn't, at least from what I remember. As you said though, the strengths of these stories are in the investigation.
  • edited June 2022 Posts: 784
    Just watched a few clips of Bridgerton S1 before they got all lovey dovey and Rege Jean Page is growing on me.

    4cc5031bd8e8fa020d2fb3c7ba675daf.jpg
    39b59190-a1d2-4104-a47f-101e4eddd0b7.jpg
    0bd3f909dd4a1f7a51d2e7bb3980cebe.gif

  • BennyBenny Shaken not stirredAdministrator, Moderator
    edited June 2022 Posts: 15,132
  • Posts: 15,110
    Just watched a few clips of Bridgerton S1 before they got all lovey dovey and Rege Jean Page is growing on me.

    4cc5031bd8e8fa020d2fb3c7ba675daf.jpg
    39b59190-a1d2-4104-a47f-101e4eddd0b7.jpg
    0bd3f909dd4a1f7a51d2e7bb3980cebe.gif

    My question with him and many of his generation: can he look manly without stubble?
  • BennyBenny Shaken not stirredAdministrator, Moderator
    Posts: 15,132
    Esquire seem to know the actors who are actually in the running to play Bond #7

    https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a25723722/who-will-be-the-next-james-bond-an-in-depth-analysis/

    Plenty of the regular names on this list
  • Posts: 4,122
    Benny wrote: »
    Benny wrote: »
    Esquire seem to know the actors who are actually in the running to play Bond #7

    https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a25723722/who-will-be-the-next-james-bond-an-in-depth-analysis/

    Plenty of the regular names on this list

    Those types of lists in publications like Esquire are rather useful because it gives a sense of who likely won't get the role. I'm actually surprised to see Jack Lowden starting to appear more and more in them (he was actually one of my second choice picks for some time, mainly from seeing him in things like Dunkirk and Benediction... ironically having seen clips of him in Slow Horses as an MI5 agent I'm not sure the interpretation of Bond he'd likely give in a modern film would suit the role).
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,359
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Just watched a few clips of Bridgerton S1 before they got all lovey dovey and Rege Jean Page is growing on me.

    4cc5031bd8e8fa020d2fb3c7ba675daf.jpg
    39b59190-a1d2-4104-a47f-101e4eddd0b7.jpg
    0bd3f909dd4a1f7a51d2e7bb3980cebe.gif

    My question with him and many of his generation: can he look manly without stubble?

    You've quoted a post with a photo of him without stubble.
  • edited June 2022 Posts: 784
    I honestly wouldn't be disappointed if they just went with Lashana in the end. Much better choice than most candidates.

    lashana-2-1582823409.jpg?resize=768:*
  • Posts: 15,110
    mtm wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Just watched a few clips of Bridgerton S1 before they got all lovey dovey and Rege Jean Page is growing on me.

    4cc5031bd8e8fa020d2fb3c7ba675daf.jpg
    39b59190-a1d2-4104-a47f-101e4eddd0b7.jpg
    0bd3f909dd4a1f7a51d2e7bb3980cebe.gif

    My question with him and many of his generation: can he look manly without stubble?

    You've quoted a post with a photo of him without stubble.
    Oops. And yeah, better than I feared, but not convinced yet.
    I honestly wouldn't be disappointed if they just went with Lashana in the end. Much better choice than most candidates.

    lashana-2-1582823409.jpg?resize=768:*
    No. I hope to see Lashana in more roles, she was nice as Nomi, but she's not Bond.
  • Posts: 16,153
    Benny wrote: »
    Esquire seem to know the actors who are actually in the running to play Bond #7

    https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a25723722/who-will-be-the-next-james-bond-an-in-depth-analysis/

    Plenty of the regular names on this list

    Interesting article. I do feel Esquire is jumping the gun as, to my knowledge, Eon hasn't exactly announced the next film yet. I'd love it if Eon were in the planning process of the next film, but I think I'll take Barbara at face value that it's going to take time.
    Although it's fun to speculate on this forum and so forth, I gather the casual reader who glances at this article will be left under the impression B26 is coming out sooner than later.
  • talos7talos7 New Orleans
    Posts: 8,203
    The writer must be a lurker on this board.
  • sandbagger1sandbagger1 Sussex
    Posts: 936
    talos7 wrote: »
    The writer must be a lurker on this board.

    Poor bastard.
  • Ludovico wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Just watched a few clips of Bridgerton S1 before they got all lovey dovey and Rege Jean Page is growing on me.

    4cc5031bd8e8fa020d2fb3c7ba675daf.jpg
    39b59190-a1d2-4104-a47f-101e4eddd0b7.jpg
    0bd3f909dd4a1f7a51d2e7bb3980cebe.gif

    My question with him and many of his generation: can he look manly without stubble?

    You've quoted a post with a photo of him without stubble.
    Oops. And yeah, better than I feared, but not convinced yet.
    I honestly wouldn't be disappointed if they just went with Lashana in the end. Much better choice than most candidates.

    lashana-2-1582823409.jpg?resize=768:*
    No. I hope to see Lashana in more roles, she was nice as Nomi, but she's not Bond.

    She wouldn’t need to be Bond just the new 007.
  • JeremyBondonJeremyBondon Seeking out odd jobs with Oddjob @Tangier
    Posts: 1,318
    Let's just stop all this daft silliness and welcome the next Bond:

    IMG-20220626-221541.jpg
  • Posts: 15,110
    Ludovico wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Just watched a few clips of Bridgerton S1 before they got all lovey dovey and Rege Jean Page is growing on me.

    4cc5031bd8e8fa020d2fb3c7ba675daf.jpg
    39b59190-a1d2-4104-a47f-101e4eddd0b7.jpg
    0bd3f909dd4a1f7a51d2e7bb3980cebe.gif

    My question with him and many of his generation: can he look manly without stubble?

    You've quoted a post with a photo of him without stubble.
    Oops. And yeah, better than I feared, but not convinced yet.
    I honestly wouldn't be disappointed if they just went with Lashana in the end. Much better choice than most candidates.

    lashana-2-1582823409.jpg?resize=768:*
    No. I hope to see Lashana in more roles, she was nice as Nomi, but she's not Bond.

    She wouldn’t need to be Bond just the new 007.

    Well she already was for a movie but no.
  • talos7talos7 New Orleans
    Posts: 8,203
    Let's just stop all this daft silliness and welcome the next Bond:

    IMG-20220626-221541.jpg

    As I’ve said, I hope they don’t reject someone because they’re an “ obvious “ choice. TG : Maverick proved that there is a hunger for a film that harkens back to a character’s iconic roots.
  • Posts: 4,122
    Let's just stop all this daft silliness and welcome the next Bond:

    IMG-20220626-221541.jpg

    Where? Are they behind the Clive Owen 2.0?
  • JeremyBondonJeremyBondon Seeking out odd jobs with Oddjob @Tangier
    edited June 2022 Posts: 1,318
    talos7 wrote: »
    Let's just stop all this daft silliness and welcome the next Bond:

    IMG-20220626-221541.jpg

    As I’ve said, I hope they don’t reject someone because they’re an “ obvious “ choice. TG : Maverick proved that there is a hunger for a film that harkens back to a character’s iconic roots.

    Exactly this. People are also increasingly sick of 'woke', whatever it's called, so 'left field trendy' choices wouldn't be appreciated by the grand public I reckon. Time to go back to the roots of Bond, which I have been advocating for way too many years as it stands. TG: Maverick has raked in over a billion, says enough.
  • edited June 2022 Posts: 784
    talos7 wrote: »
    Let's just stop all this daft silliness and welcome the next Bond:

    IMG-20220626-221541.jpg

    As I’ve said, I hope they don’t reject someone because they’re an “ obvious “ choice. TG : Maverick proved that there is a hunger for a film that harkens back to a character’s iconic roots.

    Exactly this. People are also increasingly sick of 'woke', whatever it's called, so 'left field trendy' choices wouldn't be appreciated by the grand public I reckon. Time to go back to the roots of Bond, which I have been advocating for way too many years as it stands. TG: Maverick has raked in over a billion, says enough.

    People are sick of censorship and a shortage of endearing and humorous content not of ethnically ambiguous actors lol. Top Gun would have never succeeded in the box office if there had been any real competition.
  • JeremyBondonJeremyBondon Seeking out odd jobs with Oddjob @Tangier
    Posts: 1,318
    talos7 wrote: »
    Let's just stop all this daft silliness and welcome the next Bond:

    IMG-20220626-221541.jpg

    As I’ve said, I hope they don’t reject someone because they’re an “ obvious “ choice. TG : Maverick proved that there is a hunger for a film that harkens back to a character’s iconic roots.

    Exactly this. People are also increasingly sick of 'woke', whatever it's called, so 'left field trendy' choices wouldn't be appreciated by the grand public I reckon. Time to go back to the roots of Bond, which I have been advocating for way too many years as it stands. TG: Maverick has raked in over a billion, says enough.

    People are sick of censorship and a shortage of endearing and humorous content not of ethnically ambiguous actors lol. Top Gun would have never succeeded in the box office if there had been any real competition.

    You lost me at ambiguous 🤣 People are sick of a lot things being shoved down their throats, for far too long. The success of TG lies within nostalgia and good old fun. Bond can and should be both: back to the roots and some fun again. Not emo, grim and dark Bond who dies at the end.
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