Reporting For Duty
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Categories
Who could/should play Felix Leiter in the post-Craig era?
FatherValentine
England
This is a simple enough thread. Who should or could play Bond's CIA ally Felix Leiter in Bond 26 and in subsequent adventures.
Jeffrey Wright is a fantastic portrayal of Leiter in my opinion but given Bond 26 is likely to be a hard reboot, which actor (s) do you think could step into his shoes? Also, how much screen time and what sort of relationship with Bond would you like him to have?
I think Joel Edgerton would be a good choice.
I also think Billy Magnussen would have been good opposite a Bond actor about the same age, but he already plays a CIA agent in NTTD.
Or how about Jon Bernthal?
Jeffrey Wright is a fantastic portrayal of Leiter in my opinion but given Bond 26 is likely to be a hard reboot, which actor (s) do you think could step into his shoes? Also, how much screen time and what sort of relationship with Bond would you like him to have?
I think Joel Edgerton would be a good choice.
I also think Billy Magnussen would have been good opposite a Bond actor about the same age, but he already plays a CIA agent in NTTD.
Or how about Jon Bernthal?
^ 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
Confession @Denbigh. I stole your suggestion of Edgerton. You mentioned him on another thread and you convinced me how good he could be. I should have acknowledged that.
I think you mentioned him during all those discussions about Chalamet and his performance in The King. Anyway, he's a good choice.
Good choice.
Seems a tad baby faced but I don't know who he is so might just be the choice of still. He got an edge?
I think it might be an idea to avoid Felix and SPECTRE for a while anyway, to help set the next guy apart from Craig. Give him some new allies (like how Brosnan had Zukofsky) and baddies.
Yeah, I don't need Felix for the first couple of films.
I would like, though, whenever he does show up, that Bond has at least already met him before.
Thanks.
I like the idea of rebooting with the Leiter relationship dynamic being set up early. Maybe riffing on the idea of the novel of LALD, with Leiter showing Bond around parts of the US. Leiter being older and more experienced would work well for that.
I don't dislike him, he works for the plot to give Bond a clue or something, but as a character I'm not sure he's ever really done anything for Bond to bounce off.
I just generally like that Bond has an acquaintance in his life that he can share a certain jovial warmth with, that on those occasions when Bond ends up Stateside he can sort of pop up every now and then. I would say I'm only particularly "attached" to Felix in the early novels, in LTK, and in the Craig era, and in the case of LTK I'll definitely concede that the script is doing the heavy lifting and not the character, my fondness for David Hedison aside.
It mainly comes from the novels. There’s more to their friendship in those novels than the films ever really delved into. It would be nice to see Bond and Leiter stop talking shop for once and start having an argument about American cars vs European cars, or just getting slammed at a bar after a few rounds at night.
That gets dangerously into the personal stuff which fans famously hate the idea of, though :) We don't want him to have an emotional life, don't forget.
But seriously, yeah I remember it in the novels, but even then Felix was often more of a tour guide. He never really grabbed my attention and even in the books I was kind of waiting for him to leave. Plot-wise Casino Royale was as about as interesting as he ever got in the movies.
And Felix was really the only character that they could do that with until we got to Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris' Q and Moneypenny. I will say, I also never really resonated with a Felix until Jeffrey Wright. I really enjoyed Jack Lord in Dr No, but because he never got to continue, and Felix was so often recast, it was hard to really feel the relationship properly until Wright.
Compared to the novels he does very little in the films. Still, great to have a buddy for Bond to work with that's a reoccurring character.
Yeah I agree; I would say Bond's scenes with those two, and even the boat scene he has with Tanner in Spectre, feel a bit more characterful than any he has with Felix (in any of the films). Moneypenny is his friend in the more recent films, and it works.
Prior to NTTD Craig's Bond doesn't actually share more than a few seconds of screentime with Felix, even though Wright is great. It genuinely can't be more than a minute of them together in CR and QoS..? (not including the poker table stuff because they're not interacting there).
My favourite scenes in the Craig run involve Leiter (even if he is slightly different than in the books). I especially like the scene in QoS where he is shown the picture of Bond on Greene's phone. Even though he's not in the films much, he impacts the narrative and tone.
Yeah Linder was my favourite of the early Connery batch too. It's not like I bought they were friends or anything, but he had a bit of personality to him, even if it wasn't much. I don't Lord was up to all that much, to be honest. The DAF guy could have been okay but we barely saw him- why wasn't he in those later scenes trying to track down Blofeld with Willard Whyte (actually Jimmy Dead would've been a good Felix)? Bernie Casey is probably the best Felix Connery had, I think: he had more personality than the rest.
But really, pre-Wright, it's only Hedison who made any impact because he had a bit of charisma.
Lord was ok, because he at least looked cool. Hedison is clearly the best up until Wright. Casey very good too.