It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
I never said Bond ‘needed’ to be played by a non-white actor. Just that he can be. In all likelihood the next Bond will be white.
Hmm okay, Ajay does have his connections, I'm not going to dismiss that straight away.
Yup.
Hermione has been played by a black actress in the official stage plays since they started. Doesn't change anything.
Yeah. Villeneuve is now becoming a sci-fi director and one who loves telling strong stories along with the outlandishness. It could be why EON wants him and even wanted him for NTTD. It seems EON wants to embrace the outlandishness side of Bond again, but still pay serious attention to the plot.
Change the record, it's boring. No one is saying a black actor cannot embody all the essential qualities of Bond. Idris Elba (too old now) definitely carries similar traits to Connery.
However, to keep the franchise in some kind of loose tie to its Fleming origins, why not keep as much of the original description as close as possible to an actor that closely fits the bill.
By all means modernise the world around Bond, but lets try to at least keep the main character himself as close as possible to Fleming's description. Otherwise it's difficult to still claim on the credits and poster that `xxx xxx is Ian Fleming's James Bond'.
Wasn't that received with heavy criticism? She was described as "white face" in the novel.
Would Facebook change their colour branding to red or green? I don't think so.
I disagree excessive characterisation can very much get in the way of good storytelling, I'll give an example. In the original lord of the rings film series (I don't know if its different in the books) with the exception of Aragorn who has a tragic past, and perhaps boromir, the rest of the characters don't have a terribly detailed history or heavy internal demons to overcome, all of the drama and threat comes from things they face in the here and now, which they encounter along the course of their journey. We don't related to them because they are burdened with inner angst and turmoil, we related to them because of their personalities which each get moments to shine, and the time spent along the way. Their natural charm, wisdom, silliness, stoic coolness rubs off on you and you want to see them succeed. Obviously there does become points of strife, and hard times where characters lose, grieve and have to face down adversity, but this is perfectly normal for any well told story. Those things happen when appropriate for the characters and the story calls for it, which is what I mean by Characterisation not being primary and held above all else. Story should always come first, and when there is a moment where taking a peek beneath the mask makes sense, then there's nothing wrong with it. The problem comes where, like in the Craig films, the story itself is subjugated in order to contrive moments for us to get a peek beneath the mask of the character, when it's clearly not what the story is calling for (think, "its always been me James, cuckoo!!", or bond sacrificing himself at the end of B25). In cases like that, excessive characterisation for the sake of it absolutely can be detrimental to a well rounded narrative.
You'll find people complaining about anything, but it's still making millions and still running, so just maybe it doesn't matter at all. Much like it wouldn't matter with Bond.
Brand colours are a completely different subject, let's not pretend it's the same.
What if an actor hypothetically did have a lot of the traits of the Fleming description, more so overtly than Craig or Moore (the black hair, cruel mouth, the height, classically dark/handsome, something ‘cruel’ about them etc) but just wasn’t white?
Anyway, I’m not sure if getting as close to the Fleming description as possible is ever a consideration when picking actors. The description of the literary Bond is surprisingly vague despite some key details (ie. What does a ‘cruel’ mouth actually look like?)
Yup.
https://www.takawiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Casino+Royale+(Cosmos+2023)
It's probably not a consideration, I am just stating what I would prefer. I would rather have a Dalton type as the next Bond, someone who looks like Fleming's description, and tries to go back to the source material as much as possible.
If that actor happened to have a naturally darker shade of skin because of something like a mixed origin background, then no, it really wouldn't bother me. I always saw Bond in the novels as a tanned person anyway (probably all those exotic sunny locations).
Though, IMO, no other actor can bring the magic as well as I can, and that's why my take will resonate the most.
Yeah it's a while now, but as well as Bond feeling at home out of the UK, isn't there mention that he even looks a bit foreign too?
The Spy Who Loved Me and The Living Daylights are both classic bond adventures, but Dalton wasn't forced to wear big collars and flares, ofcourse he embodied a Bond that was distinct in its own right (but didn't flount the conventions either :) ).
Fair enough. Like I said, I think one of the cool things about Fleming’s description of Bond is that it has enough of that literary flourish for it to be impactful. No one remembers the Hoagey Carmichael comparison (to modern readers it means nothing anyway and Fleming himself abandons it by the second book). It’s how startlingly good looking but cruel he is, the coldness of the eyes etc.
I guess some actors have had specific similarities (Craig’s eyes are pretty much the same colour as the literary Bond’s, but I think it’s through his performance that that sense of ‘coldness’ comes through). But none were picked because they looked exactly like the literary character. As you said I’m sure there’d be circumstances where a mixed race or non white actor could be closer in appearance than any other actor has (not that that’s a dealbreaker - they could also lack the right gravitas or presence needed, or could fall short of this when compared to other candidates).
One of the things I don’t understand is how casting an actor who isn’t white would automatically make the character ‘no longer James Bond’, and by extension just any other generic action hero. Is Bond not distinctive enough a character even in his 21st century incarnation? Are the films simply ‘generic action movies’? While I understand a minority don’t love the later films, they are still James Bond films and they stand out from the crowd. I think it’s actually because they’ve been adapting the Fleming texts for so long and the movies still contain a noticeable trace of that DNA. I personally think that mentality undersells this franchise. From a simple script perspective the character’s specific vices, his brand of humour, and indeed the heightened reality/tropes of these films are idiosyncratic, and for me haven’t been replicated or bettered in lesser action movies. They just need to find an actor who can bring something unique to the role while embodying those fundamental (and often intangible) qualities - his Britishness, sex appeal, charisma, physicality, cruelty, dark humour etc.
Casting’s not a science in that sense. I think it’s possible that a black/asian/mixed race (or whatever) actor could embody all that and absolutely nail it. A white actor could be picked and absolutely bomb even if they do have black hair and look like Hoagey Carmichael. So long as they go into it trying to cast their James Bond with those qualities of the character in mind, and by extension try to bring all this out in the film, I’m fine with it.
I agree that there can be bad characterizations. There can be bad drama. Where there is a good there is a bad. There have been bad Bond films that follow the formula you’re suggesting the series return to. Art is alchemy, not science. Times have changed. Genre storytelling has changed. For me, it’s changed for the better. No one thinks comic books should return to golden age or even silver age storytelling simply because it’s foundational. Certainly, one takes what they think are the best elements to remix or update from the past, but the way in which stories are told has evolved.
He has good eyebrows but I don't think he looks as good without a beard.
All good points. Either race matters or it doesn’t. It seems insincere for people to say that race doesn’t matter yet gate keep a characters race. Bond being Black or Asian would be change that even I, as a Black American, would find initially strange. I think that’s to be expected.
It seems that in Fleming’s characterization of Bond, ethnicity is far less important than nationality. Bond is a Scotsman in an English-dominated world (within Britain and the Secret Service). I won’t even try to expand on the deep and expansive history of and conflict within the British Isles, except to say that Bond’s “otherness” within an English system is a thing that Fleming touches on. That “otherness” also plays an important role in Fleming’s own life, albeit in a familial context.
George Lazenby is White, but is not an Australian a far greater—or at least equal—distance from Fleming’s characterization of Bond than a Black Brit?
What is blackwashing in this context?
I think the missing piece in how blackwashing is used here versus what we understand as whitewashing is the erasure or minimization of past ethnic/racial characterizations. I don’t see EON erasing 60 years of white actors who played James Bond if or when they hire a Black actor as James Bond.
Fleming mentions Carmichael twice: in Moonraker and Casino Royale. But in From Russia with Love there is full description that also seems to evoke a Carmichael-esque description (plus Tania's mention of Bond looking like an "American film star").
I also thought that Fleming was describing his brother Peter with the descriptions and I think a picture is fully drawn with that sort of model in mind. Of course, without knowing Fleming's brother or the Hoagy Carmichael comparison perhaps there could be some jeopardy about the description but I think there's a full picture of "Fleming Bond" that works quite well. Of course there's the Fleming approved sketch but I don't think that matches his descriptions. In that sense maybe the description can be unclear.
The race discussion is a bit tired. The literary Bond should always be white as there are no barriers to keeping him faithful to Fleming. But the film Bond can't always be literal to all descriptions given as the actor pool would be limited too much to get an accurate/good production. People understand this sort of leniency: no complaints about Felix or Moneypenny and some suggest Colin Salmon for M (based on the graphic novels perhaps?). While I get that perhaps keeping the race of character is different than keeping the descriptions of a whole set of them, I think it should be understood that if the best available actor by far is a different race than they should get a shot at it. Of course it's never as clear cut as that but I think that's a reasonable stance to have.
I Think that Bond does have a learned sense of class instead of an inherent upper class nature (that Moore and Connery mostly had, with going to Cambridge): he fits into Blades well enough but he's still an outsider, he feels disgust at the "soft life," dislikes being called "old boy/man" etc. He went to Eton, but got expelled and fit in better at a more militaristic Scottish school. He only really spends money/lives expensively because he's aware of his own mortality. That's perhaps something that could be touched on for the next era
I don't really see the difference.
Personally, and insofar as I have no control over this at all, I’d say no to Rege Jean-Page doing a Bond audition (a very charming but limited actor lacking in gravitas). I’d say yes to Dirisu doing so though as @Venutius said. For a lack of a better way of phrasing this it’s about whether any actor passes that initial ‘sniff test’ and then how well they fare in auditions/how much they share EON’s vision and want to do it.