Daniel Craig’s James Bond era came to a close and the question everyone has is (who plays the character next)
But by this point I’ve seen so many fan casting it’s hard to disagree with them. But the trouble with fan casting is that fans will go on the idea of what actor would play a really good bond instead of looking at it from a directors point of view. A director selects the roles of the film based on the script they want to tell and how that character is portrayed basically gives a blue print for the actor they are looking for. So it’s all fine people wanting to say Henry Cavil would be perfect. But he might not be perfect for the bond script that exists.
Another factor is the director gets to pick and nine times out of ten they look at there back catelogue of films and tend to pick actors they worked with before (not always) but it does play a part in casting specific roles. In James Bond there is not just the character of Bond to cast, there is the other characters. M, Q, MoneyPenny and then you have the villains.
So I thought to myself why not cast a film based on a director. So first what director do you pick. And I came up with one that I thing would put 110% focus in a film. Christopher Nolan. His handle on the Batman Trilogy and Nolan’s films I general cries out for him to be the perfect new era James Bond director. Firstly we would be surely gaurenteed his involvement for a trilogy. in Batman he wanted to complete the cycle hence we got a Batman trilogy. Now whether new bond has 3 films or more. I think Christopher Nolan would be heavily linked to all films made even getting up to 5 films with a new bond.
With that said. Question is, who would Nolan pick for Bond?
So this is going off the base of his previous films. I’m sure he would have some new actors in the list but there would probably be a lot of returning so I’m only going to fan cast over Nolan’s previous films.
Let’s start with the main guy, James Bond.
For me this was an easy pick, you could say Christian Bale but Bale is kind of too old to be bond now especially now that whoever plays bond is going to be bond for multiple years. So basing this on a requirement for a younger actor and one that can embody this role my Nolan pick for James Bond is Tom Hardy. Yeah I know the picture above probably gave it away. But Tom Hardy has multiple times been a fan casting, having worked with Nolan before in inception and Dark Knight Rises this actor has range. But just look at that those roles he played. In Inception he was a quintessential British character and in dark night rises he played a guy who didn’t mind throw in a few punches to get the job done. Merge those two characters together you have James Bond.
But I don’t want to linger on just this character what’s more interesting is casting the rest of James Bond. So let’s start with The 00 agency
M – for the pick of James Bonds boss I figured James D’arcy could play this role. In the Daniel Craig era we had two M’s originally the Dame Judy Dench M and The Ralph Fines M and looking at the latter and how much it reminded me of this senior gentleman like role that we saw from fines was what we saw back in the Sean Connery era. So James D’arcy would fit this role perfectly.
Q – old or new? There has been several Q’s but las much as I liked Ben as a younger Q in Craig’s era. There was something more homely with the aged tech guy that had spent his life around gadgets and building the latest new technology. For this Michael Caine would be perfect and let’s look at the logic of this. He was Alfred in dark knight, he wasn’t just the butler, he helped Bruce Wayne build his Batman including gadgets. Albeit the tech came from the character of lucious fox, Michael Caines Alfred had the enthusiasm to help this be assembled and that is the quality that makes me see him as Q.
MoneyPenny – now I figure instead of having her behind the desk was better utilised by having MoneyPenny more active in the Craig era really refreshed the character. This is something I think should be continued. And for this Anne Hathaway would be perfect to portray. She has been in multiple Nolan films from Catwoman to Intersteller she would be perfect to keep bond on his toes watching how he spends the money.
I’m also going to include another character more newer as only really in the Craig era of bond but the character of C – a somewhat second in command to M that kind of manages the operation of the office. For this role I thought a somewhat likeable character who isn’t a field agent but has just that little bit more higher rank than bond that would annoy bond with red tape. For this Joseph Gordon-Levitt would be perfect to play. Managing the agency and putting bond through testing on behalf of M would give audiance a bit of warmth and humour in more slower parts of the movie.
So now it brings me to the villains and this is difficult because unless you have a script there is no villains and if your looking at past iconic villains well I think we should avoid that because he had that in Craig’s run. We don’t need a new Blofeld – that being said Christopher Waltz was perfect in that role so why try and replicate that. Instead new characters new stories that ain’t tied to previous novels.
As no script it’s hard to predict what the villains would be. But all we have is Nolan and at least a trilogy of bond films so based on actors from previous Nolan films I have four actor that could easily be the villains of the trilogy of new films.
First on my list is Cillian Murphy – he’s played both villian and heroes in Nolan’s film and I think he would be perfect for the first villian for James band Tom hardy to face off with. I like parallels having cillian Murphy play the villian to James Bond Tom hardy kind of makes me think of a flip of a coin. Take the show Peaky Blinders where Cillian Murphy was the central lead character and Tom Hardy played a somewhat villian to Cillians character. The role reversal for James Bond would be like a reunion in an alternate reality. And I think that would be fun. Not only that Cillian makes perfect villains, kind of like Mads Mikklesln character in casino Royale
In a sequel or two my next picks are John David Washington, Robert Patterson and maybe even Harry Styles. Imagine if you will a celebration of Nolan actors as a group of villains working together but have separate roles. Like how you had spectre connecting everything – having multiple villains bond going against in the sequel would be interesting chase and these actors together would make that perfect mix of actors.
Finally the final Villain the last movie villain, they should have someone who really tests bond. And I think the best way they could do that is have someone who was once a 00 agent and who would be perfect for that. Christian Bale. Bale usually is a lead hero but of recent times he’s done more villainous roles like in Thor love and thunder. But I also think it would be a fitting end and again another Parallel to dark knight rises with the roles filmed Batman vs Bane to Tom Hardy Bond vs Christian Bales Villian
So what do you think? Do you agree with this fan cast? Do you have your own take based on a different director and actors. Leave a comment with your answers
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