Sam Heughan is getting into the business of becoming a big ticket action star through roles in films like SAS: Red Notice. It certainly will help when it comes to his potential training to become Bond, James Bond; but this particular experience invokes another action hero firmly in the pop consciousness. Forget 007, as Mr. Heughan is about to get a lot of comparisons to none other than Die Hard’s John McClane.
The big reason for this comparison is that during an interview with Collider, the point was made that a lot of SAS: Red Notice’s action does see its hero, Tom Buckingham, trying to outwit a group of terrorists holding a train hostage in the Channel Tunnel. So enclosed spaces, and heroes with the right skills to make one person feel like several, do feel like the sort of action Bruce Willis used to get up to in the heyday of the Die Hard franchise. And Sam Heughan wasn’t the only person that agreed with this, as he states below:
Yeah, I mean definitely. It was, I think, the forefront of our thoughts; especially when Laurence Malkin, the writer, was writing it. But yeah, absolutely. And then add a bit of Bourne, maybe a bit of Bond. It has kind of all of these links.
It’s hard not to associate the Outlander star’s name with the James Bond series, as he’s time and again been rumored as a top contender to become Daniel Craig’s successor. But even in recent interviews supporting SAS: Red Notice, Sam Heughan has shown interest in taking up other opportunities. Which, naturally, includes potential adaptations of other SAS books written by former SAS agent/author Andy McNab.
With that Die Hard prequel that’s often been whispered about in the works, you could assume that some alarm bells are going off at 20th Century Studios right about now. And to that effect, Sam Heughan becoming the new face of Die Hard is definitely a bit of a stretch, especially when he’d have that Charlize Theron reboot proposal to compete against. And returning to the subject of how Heughan enjoys the SAS: Red Notice experience, there’s a different tone to this series that’s a little less yippee-kay-yay, and a lot more on the other half of that famous quote:
It's based on Andy McNab's kind of experiences, and his book as well. It's very much the world that we live in, it's set in present day. This is how the military and the government operate, which is kind of terrifying.
Whether you want to see Sam Heughan as the next James Bond, Jason Bourne or John McClane, you can definitely see him as Tom Buckingham in SAS: Red Notice. The film is currently available on the Sky Cinema service in the UK, with Redbox handing US and Canadian distribution through rental and VOD as of today. And don’t worry, Outlander fans, Sam Heughan and his co-stars are hard at work on Season 6, with Season 7 recently announced as in the works. So don’t go thinking Mr. Heughan has traded his kilt in for something more tactical just yet.
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