2024-03-26 00:20:20
Idris Elba as a brilliant London detective in 2023’s Luther: Fall from Heaven. | Photo: Netflix
Idris Elba
Daniel Craig played James Bond in five films, from 2006’s Casino Royale to 2021’s No Time to Die. Since then, producers led by Barbara Broccoli have been searching for his successor.
According to the AP agency, the Bond role involves a commitment of at least ten years. But this is only one of the reasons why the one whose name has been mentioned most often in recent years, the fifty-one-year-old British native Idris Elba, known from the film Beast without a Country or the series Luther, is not joining the project.
Barbara Broccoli already hinted in 2022 that Elba was not interested in the role. “We love Idris, he’s a great friend and an amazing actor. But he probably feels that being attached to one character for ten, twelve or fifteen years would be too much for him,” she said.
Age is also becoming a factor. If Elba became James Bond now and stuck with the role as long as Craig, he’d be done by the time he’s 66.
The actor hinted in a podcast last year that he was put off by the often vulgar discussions on social media about the idea of a dark-skinned actor portraying the hitherto white Bond. However, he continues to receive inquiries regarding Agent 007. “It’s pure speculation. I think I can safely claim to be the most famous Bond actor who never played Bond,” he said last time.