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Comments
Cavill does a good Pierce impression but he is somewhat flat to me, he was young though.
Friend was clearly prepared and he acts it quite well, but his voice is a touch soft and he maybe lacks charisma.
Starr does quite well, he just seems to play it confidently, he's almost cocky. Watching it I find myself quoting Bond in NTTD, "he smiles too much".
Credit to all of them though, it must be so tough to do and I think they did well. It just shows how brilliant Pierce was handling the gags.
@Benny thanks mate, it's good to be back
Starr, who I generally really like, gives my least favourite performance - as Jordo007 says, he's playing it cocky and I'm not so keen on that.
Personally, as weak as I think Cavill’s audition was here, I can see why they’d have considered him over, say, Friend at this stage. I’d say the latter’s the better performance, but it’s a very different interpretation of Bond - again more gentlemanly, softer spoken even. There’s something about Cavill even with his flatness and at times overdone ‘poker face’ that’s more fitting with the Bond of CR - that hint of arrogance/harder edge even. Obviously Craig did all this much better by the way.
It’s like I always say - finding Bond isn’t about getting ‘the chosen one’ but picking from a pool options in tandem with what they want from the film itself.
I'd rate them in this order:
1) Henry Cavill
I'm surprised I picked Cavill as no 1 because I've never rated him as an actor.
2)
Rupert Friend
3) Anthony Starr. Don't know much about this chap but I thought he was kinda wooden.
4) Sam Worthington. Not a natural fit for Bond. Too Australian (which goes to show Lazenby was a smart guy to play down his 'Australian-ness' when playing Bond).
Daniel Craig was a better choice than these guys, perhaps? Craig is my least favourite Bond actor but based on these auditions I can understand why B Broccoli went with Craig. Craig is certainly a good actor and my guess is his screentest was probably the best?
I think there's a subtle difference between 'gravitas' and 'charisma', and indeed artifice, with Bond. You can have the look, but that doesn't mean anything if you don't make an impact in terms of performance. Similarly you can have charisma but not necessarily Bond's gravitas (to some extent that's what's happened here with Worthington and Starr, as much as I liked the latter).
It just shows how good the EON team are at picking up on those more intangible aspects of this character, and in turn who they pick to tackle it. I suspect they think quite a lot over it even still. Not an easy decision, and for the actors a nerve racking audition (critical as we are I think all the actors should be commended for getting that far. Not an easy role to audition for).
Honestly Henry like Aaron would be a safe choice. Cavill would very much be in the mold of Brosnan…
But I dont know what Babs is looking for and i am not seeing the harder edge dalton/craig style 007 among the current names mentioned
Apart from say a Fassbender or a Bale who would be a one and done film
Too old. They'll be looking for someone who can do 4-5 films. That means under 30 at this point.
Which is worse as there isnt a single actor besides the guy who played Pennyworth whose name i keep forgetting
Jack Bannon… him he is the only actor who is could be Bond if they are going super young
I do hope we get some sanity and some regularity from Bond in the next actors tenure and he is late 30’s early 40’s actor
Brosnan likely had to do some scene from a previous Bond film too, and I'm sure if we saw it we'd be comparing it critically to that previous Bond actor. I also suspect EON won't be looking to compare these auditions to the original actor.
It would be interesting to see how their performances changed, but I guess perhaps they don't want us to see that, which is fair enough.
It looks as if Anthony Starr did his screentest in his bedroom. "I can't be bothered to go to Pinewood!" ;))
I think more and more people are starting to go back and appreciate Brosnan’s Bond. To general audiences, he’s right up there with Connery, Moore, and Craig even if some of the hardcore Bond enthusiasts may take issue with that statement.
Yeah. That's true.
I’ve always felt he was great. Whenever people dismiss him using the “greatest hits” criticism I find myself rolling my eyes.
Amen!
It would be more interesting to see the actual final screen tests. That’s where we see them play with the props, dress in character, play multiple scenes to get every possible facet of what their performance can deliver. This is the first time I’ve heard of GE being used in the process. I only knew that they used scenes from FRWL and OHMSS.
It would be more interesting to see the actual final screen tests. That’s where we see them play with the props, dress in character, play multiple scenes to get every possible facet of what their performance can deliver. This is the first time I’ve heard of GE being used in the process. I only knew that they used scenes from FRWL and OHMSS.
It’s also known that Broccoli was dead set on Craig, so a lot of these tests were really just a formality of sorts.
I thought Sam Worthington's Australian accent and delivery were not appropriate for Bond. I didn't get any sense he was trying to sound British so it's somewhat surprising he made it so far in the audition process.
It was reported Croatian-American actor Goran Visnjic was considered for the role. His accent was European. It's possible he may have struggled to sound convincingly British.
Starr would probably nail the role today. He'd be a fair bit like Brosnan's Bond I reckon.
Cavill was probably too young, Worthington didn't seem prepared/his accent and Goran Visnjic is Croatian. Craig was the perfect choice anyway, but out of them 4 actors he's the only choice.
Apparently the list included (as reported at the time anyway- and seems proven correct by these videos):
Gerard Butler
Henry Cavill
Rupert Friend
Daniel Goddard
Martin Henderson
Julian McMahon
David Morrissey
Alex O’Lachlan
Ingo Rademacher
Dougray Scott
Christian Solimeno
Antony Starr
Karl Urban
Goran Visnjic
Dominic West
Sam Worthington
Archived from commanderbond.net:
https://web.archive.org/web/20211122083536/https://commanderbond.net/2995/the-men-who-could-have-been-bond.html