Tom Hanks has made it clear who his pick for the next James Bond should be.
The Oscar-winning “A Man Called Otto” star, 66, hopes that fan-favorite frontrunner Idris Elba is the next British man in a suave suit to embody the super spy.
“Understand this,” Hanks told the BBC recently. “James Bond has a license to kill. I would issue that license to Idris Elba just based on the work that I’ve seen him do.”
While Elba’s much-desired turn as Bond has earned the love and support of both fans and the spy franchise’s longtime producer, Barbara Broccoli, he’s not so sure he wants to play the role.
“It is not a goal for my career,” Elba told “The Shop” podcast last September. “I don’t think that, you know, playing Bond will satisfy some of my personal goals.
“It will definitely satisfy the will of a nation. I’m not gonna lie, every corner of the world I go, and I’m talking about different cultures, they always go ‘Bond,’ and I feel it is beyond me at this junction,” the 50-year-old “Luther” actor added. “It’s beyond me. You know, it’s not a question of, ‘Should I? Do I? Will I?’ It is what the will of the nation dictates sometimes.”
Daniel Craig has played the womanizer since 2006’s “Casino Royale” until the last installment, 2021’s “No Time to Die.”
Broccoli and her co-producer Michael G. Wilson even gushed over the “Avengers” and “Thor” star last year, saying that he’s “great” and they “love” him.
However, they told Variety that a new Bond film is very far off into the future — and being a part of the long-running series is a big commitment.
“When we cast Bond, it’s a 10-, 12-year commitment. So [Elba] probably thinking, ‘Do I really want that thing?’ Not everybody wants to do that. It was hard enough getting [Daniel Craig to do it],” Broccoli said.
“It’s a big investment for us, too, to bring out a new Bond,” Wilson chimed in.
Even though Elba’s theoretical casting has had many people in a tizzy, one person is not too happy about it.
In 2015, “007” author Anthony Horowitz told the Daily Mail that he thought the British entertainer was “too street” to play Bond.
“Idris Elba is a terrific actor, but I can think of other black actors who would do it better,” he said. “For me, he is a bit too rough to play the part. It’s not a color issue. I think he is probably a bit too ‘street’ for Bond. Is it a question of being suave? Yeah.”
Other actors’ names who have been thrown, shaken and stirred into the martini mix of casting rumors, include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Richard Madden and “Bridgerton” alum Regé-Jean Page.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
