Who Says There Can Be Only One?
The 25th Bond film had barely reached theaters before speculation ramped up about which actor might be tapped for the role. Could a woman play Bond next, or might we see a non-white male, and which of those possibilities would make 007’s creator rotate faster in the churchyard?
Since 1962, in addition to the six veteran actors most of us can name, a few other candidates were courted, and Fleming even seemed to cast the part within some of his books. It’s hard for me to read Thunderball without visualizing David Niven as Bond. Fleming not only works Cary Grant’s screen image into the plot of Goldfinger, but seems to tailor Bond’s quips for Grant’s unmistakable speech pattern. When I first read The Spy Who Loved Me I couldn’t picture the cool, suave Connery as that book’s stumblebum Bond, but for some reason had no trouble seeing George Lazenby in the part. Roger Moore wouldn’t have worked, but Daniel Craig could have done it. He was perhaps the most human Bond, an above-average guy handed the world’s most dangerous job along with a license to kill.
It’s not just that some actors are better than others, but Bond clearly isn’t quite the same man from book to book. Oh, his tastes don’t change all that much, and his age seems to hover always between early thirties and mid-to-late thirties. Fleming apparently found the prospect of a forty-year-old Bond unthinkable. A man’s washed up at forty, ready for an easy desk job. Especially if he’s lived and played as hard as Bond and Fleming did. But that’s only in the books.
Fleming reportedly would have been thrilled to have Bond played by Cary Grant when the star was in his mid-fifties. By the time Grant got around to doing a variation on Bond for Stanley Donen in Charade he was close to sixty. For that matter, David Niven was already in his forties when Fleming started writing his Bond thrillers, with an eye toward giving his friend the right of first refusal for the role if Hollywood came knocking. It was the books that mattered most to Fleming. TV and movies were a sweet bonus with the prospect of a rich payday down the road, whoever played the hero.
Who should play Bond? It depends on the story. Bond became whoever he needed to be to fight the enemy of the moment, to see the world through the peril du jour. He was Theseus wending his way through Dr. No’s labyrinth, Prince Philip planting one on the sleeping princess in From Russia With Love, the Queen’s messenger rooting out the evil manikin’s secret in Goldfinger, Sir Gawain coming up short in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and Sir Orfeo descending into Otherworld to retrieve his wife in You Only Live Twice. Being every kind of hero can be a tall order for just one actor.
Why not recast the part for every film? Bond has been played as Scot, Welsh, Irish, and Australian. Why not a Jamaican Bond for once? And what’s Daisy Ridley doing? I'd buy a ticket to see that.