Idris Elba has refuted rumours that he was seriously in contention to play James Bond after Daniel Craig\u2019s departure in 2021.<\/p>\n
The actor, 53, who is currently promoting new film Masters of the Universe, told British GQ the conversation linking him to the role was \u201cnever legit\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always felt that it\u2019s not a realistic thing,\u201d he said. \u201cJames Bond was written how he was written for a reason. But I was complimented by it. And also, I think, in realistic terms, some markets just don\u2019t go for that. Bond is big all over the world. And [audiences] won\u2019t [all] go for a black male, an African male, playing Bond. That\u2019s not what they like in their culture. Period.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elba also said he believed that the character should not evolve too dramatically from Ian Fleming\u2019s original creation. \u201cBond is so unrealistic, so a hint of reality is good, but let\u2019s not try and make it woke,\u201d he said. \u201cI think you\u2019ve got to be pure to what it is: escapism. Don\u2019t try and answer the world\u2019s taste. Just be Bond.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last month, veteran casting director Nina Gold was brought on board for Amazon MGM\u2019s reboot of the franchise, joining director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Steven Knight.<\/p>\n
A source told Variety that 26-year-old Tom Francis has already auditioned, while Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jacob Elordi and Callum Turner are all also apparently in the frame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Idris Elba has refuted rumours that he was seriously in contention to play James Bond after Daniel Craig\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-466804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}