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If Bond Actors Were To Play Other Spies...
ClarkDevlin
Martinis, Girls and Guns
We do have a few threads about who should be or should've been Bond in this forums, yet here's the thing that actually has been toyed in my mind. @Thunderfinger's "Which Bond Would You Rather..." played an inspiration in the thought, so for fun I decided to make this post reserved for the purpose of casting any of the actors who played James Bond in the role of other famous spies and/or secret agents.
P.S. Apologies if this duplicates onto a similarly existing thread. If it does, feel free to close this down, mods.
Now, here goes my list at a first hand try:
Sean Connery - Bulldog Drummond
George Lazenby - Matt Helm
Roger Moore - Derek Flint
Timothy Dalton - John Drake
Pierce Brosnan - John Steed (or) John Mannering (The Baron)
Daniel Craig - Harry Palmer
P.S. Apologies if this duplicates onto a similarly existing thread. If it does, feel free to close this down, mods.
Now, here goes my list at a first hand try:
Sean Connery - Bulldog Drummond
George Lazenby - Matt Helm
Roger Moore - Derek Flint
Timothy Dalton - John Drake
Pierce Brosnan - John Steed (or) John Mannering (The Baron)
Daniel Craig - Harry Palmer
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Comments
PS: A thought also came to mind about Tom Hiddleston - who could do a fantastic job as Steed in a reboot imho.
And I agree, Harry Palmer truly fits Craig like a glove. I also thought of him as Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer, as well.
Brosnan would make hell of a Simon Templar, too. But, if I were to nominate, I'd vote John Mannering for him, the eponymous Baron (ITC television series based on series of books).
Dalton is extremely suitable for John Drake. @bondjames, if you haven't seen any of the Danger Man episodes, you should. The best spy television series ever made. Dalton is awfully similar to Patrick McGoohan in his act.
You know? Connery in his 50s would've made a great Flint, too. That one scene when he stands between women in bikinis in Never Say Never Again felt a lot like the atmospheric Our Man Flint.
Lazenby is totally Matt Helm.
I mean that in a good way. :D
I bought the entire The Baron tv show for my dad, so should get it back from him and have a watch.
I think you'll love The Baron, @bondjames. If you do love The Saint, the former is just like that. Only that in the books, The Baron/John Mannering is a burglar/theif-turned-antiques dealer and is English, whereas in the show his criminal past is discarded and he's turned into an American.
And by the way, @chrisisall, which of the Bond actors do you think would be best to play Sterling Archer? ;)
Come on, chaps. I thought this thread would've been interesting for the Bond fans.
Daniel Craig as John Reese ('Person of Interest').
Timothy Dalton as Christopher Foyle ('Foyle's War').
And I actually could see Craig playing Reese!
For the life of me, I can't see which one of them could play Modesty Blaise, but Sir Roger could have been a good Willy Garvin.
And if we could cast french spies, I could see Craig as SAS, and Sir Sean as OSS 117 (Jean Dujardin got that right).
And indeed, I've always imagined Steve McQueen in the role of the literary Matt Helm (not the film version immortalized by Dean Martin), and with Craig bearing some resemblance to McQueen, I can see him donning the role.
Sadly, I'm not familiar with SAS (other than the Special Air Service of Britain), and of course, OSS 117 of the 1960s was tailored after Connery's Bond. Frederick Stafford who played the character in two of the 60s film series played it like he was playing Connery as Bond as required by film director Andre Hunebelle. And obviously the spoof by Dujardin that came decades later on replicated the style remarkably!
As for Willy Garvin, I think I'd go for Lazenby for that since the character is a bit depressed in the books. I can see Lazenby being a playboy in that vein.
Now, for Moore, he would've made a fascinating George Smiley in the 1990s. Wouldn't you say?
Ooooh...I like that idea!
@GoldenGun, and since The Spy Who Came In From The Cold essentially exists in the George Smiley universe (where he's one of the minor characters in the book), we could have Moore appearing as Smiley.
And after he retires from the Bond role, Craig should definitely do a Harry Palmer film. Suggestively, Horse Under Water that was to go under production as Caine's fourth, yet it was cancelled due to Billion Dollar Brain's poor box office performance.
I agree. I'd rate The Ipcress File in the same league as the better Bond films, while Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain would rank somewhere near the bottom.