Daniel Craig is coming back to play James Bond one more time, but the actor admits that this is almost certainly his last go-round as the super spy. That means the part will need to be recast for the film that comes after Bond 25, and when that happens, some have suggested that the part should go to a woman or a person of color. Craig himself seems quite open to that possibility, saying that nobody should be eliminated from consideration for the part automatically. According to Craig...
The right person for the job, I think that's what it should be. I think that everybody should be considered.
Since the character's inception, James Bond has always been a white dude. While the actors who have played him have come from all parts of the UK, and even once from Australia, the rest hasn't changed much. However, James Bond, being part of one of the longest running film franchises ever, has now become more icon than man, and there are those that believe that the character can move forward as a different race or even a different gender and still be James Bond.
James Bond certainly isn't the same character today that he was when Sean Connery originated him for the screen. The character has evolved with the times and there's no reason the character couldn't continue to evolve in this way.
At the same time, while Daniel Craig says that everybody should be considered for the role of James Bond, he also tells ET that the larger issue is that the number of great roles for women and African Americans is more limited than it should be. He seems to feel that this is part of the reason there is interest in roles like James Bond.
For women and for African Americans, there should be great parts anyway, across the board. It shouldn't have to be Bond that takes... it doesn't need to be Bond. It just needs to be written -- some good parts.
At the end of the day, the fact that James Bond as a character has survived and thrived for so long, and that there is no equivalent character played by a woman or a person of color, is certainly part of the issue. All actors want to play great roles, but some of them, surely, want to play popular ones too, and there are few bigger than James Bond. At the end of the day, whether a person can play James Bond should come down to a talent and not the happenstances of birth.
Hopefully, as Craig says, everybody will be considered and when the time comes to find a new James Bond, the right person will get the job. Until then, we have one more adventure with the current Bond, that will hit screens next year.
