As Speculation about Next Bond Grows, Here’s How Some Actors Have Responded to Casting Rumors

Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson gestures as he poses for the media before the news conference to promote his latest movie "Bullet Train" in Seoul, South Korea on Aug. 19, 2022. (AP)
Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson gestures as he poses for the media before the news conference to promote his latest movie "Bullet Train" in Seoul, South Korea on Aug. 19, 2022. (AP)
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As Speculation about Next Bond Grows, Here’s How Some Actors Have Responded to Casting Rumors

Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson gestures as he poses for the media before the news conference to promote his latest movie "Bullet Train" in Seoul, South Korea on Aug. 19, 2022. (AP)
Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson gestures as he poses for the media before the news conference to promote his latest movie "Bullet Train" in Seoul, South Korea on Aug. 19, 2022. (AP)

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the latest actor reportedly offered a license to kill and succeed Daniel Craig as the new James Bond.

The “Kick-Ass” star is no stranger to action movies and at 33 is a good age to join the franchise, as producers likely want a 10-year commitment to the role.

Since Craig announced that he was hanging up his tuxedo after five outings as 007 — the last being “No Time to Die” in 2021 — there has been frenzied speculation over which actor will take the coveted role.

Bond producers have not commented on the Taylor-Johnson rumors.

Speculating about the next Bond is a frequent subject (sometimes even before the job is available), leading British actors to adopt various strategies and responses when the topic comes up.

One of the foremost names in the frame over the past few years has been Idris Elba, though producer Barbara Broccoli said in 2022 that the “Luther” star had ruled himself out.

“He apparently has said he’s out,” she told The Associated Press. “We love Idris and he’s been a wonderful friend and we love him as an actor. But I think he feels like a, you know, 10- or 12-year commitment or 15-year commitment might be a bit too much for him.”

“You know, it’s a rumor that’s stuck with me,” Elba said in 2023. “I think I’m the most famous ‘Bond’ actor that never actually played the part. So, what can I say? I’ll take that.”

Elba has high profile fans including Matt Damon. “I think he’s brilliant. I’ll watch him in anything and he makes everything he’s in better and he would make that franchise better.”

“Inception” and “Dunkirk” star Tom Hardy was touted as the next Bond back in 2015, though he claimed to have “heard nothing” about press speculation.

“I think answering something like that means immediately you’re out of the running. So there goes my spot,” he joked.

Luke Evans, who has starred in a wide variety of movies and TV series from “The Hobbit” to “Beauty and the Beast” to “Nine Perfect Strangers,” felt his dream of playing Bond has slipped away.

“By the time they cast it again, I’ll be too old,” the 44-year-old actor told The Associated Press in 2022.

Richard Madden brushed off rumors about his involvement in Bond at a press conference for “Rocket Man” in Cannes back in 2019.

“It’s very flattering to be involved in that conversation at all. But it’s all just talk and I’m sure next week you’ll be someone different,” he laughed.

Other names connected with the role in recent years include Regé-Jean Page, who shot to fame in “Bridgerton” as the Duke of Hastings, Theo James, who earned an Emmy nomination for his role in “The White Lotus,” and Henry Golding, star of “Crazy Rich Asians.”

Every time Golding has appeared on a red carpet wearing a tuxedo, rumors swirl about him being the next 007, but he remains tight-lipped.



Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito Revisit ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ for Its 50th Anniversary

Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
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Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito Revisit ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ for Its 50th Anniversary

Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)

Jack Nicholson did not want to go to the Oscars. It was 1976 and he was nominated for best actor in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The Miloš Forman film, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a nationwide theatrical re-release on July 13 and July 16, had become a bit of a sensation — the second highest grossing picture of 1975, behind “Jaws,” and had received nine Oscar nominations.

But Nicholson wasn’t feeling optimistic. In five years, he’d already been nominated five times. He’d also lost five times. And he told his producer, Michael Douglas, that he couldn’t go through it again.

“I remember how hard I had to persuade Jack to come to the ceremony. He was so reluctant, but we got him there,” Douglas said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “And then of course we lost the first four awards. Jack was sitting right in front of me and sort of leaned back and said ’Oh, Mikey D, Mikey D, I told you, man.’ I just said, ‘Hang in there.’”

Douglas, of course, was right. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” would go on to sweep the “big five” — screenplay, director, actor, actress and picture — the first film to do so in 41 years, (“It Happened One Night,” in 1934) which only “The Silence of the Lambs” has done since. That night was one of many vindicating moments for a film that no one wanted to make or distribute that has quite literally stood the test of time.

“This is my first 50th anniversary,” Douglas said. “It’s the first movie I ever produced. To have a movie that’s so lasting, that people get a lot out of, it’s a wonderful feeling. It’s bringing back a lot of great memories.”

The film adaption of Ken Kesey’s countercultural novel was a defining moment for Douglas, a son of Hollywood who was stuck in television and got a lifeline to film when his father, Kirk Douglas, gave him the rights to the book, and many of the then-unknown cast like Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd.

DeVito was actually the first person officially cast. Douglas, who’d known him for nearly 10 years, brought Forman to see him play Martini on stage.

“Miloš said, ‘Yes! Danny! Perfect! Cast!’” Douglas said in his best Czech accent. “It was a big moment for Danny. But I always knew how talented he was.”

A Joyful Shoot

Though the film's themes are challenging, unlike many of its New Hollywood contemporaries it wasn’t a tortured shoot by any stretch. They had their annoyances (like Forman refusing to show the cast dailies) and more serious trials (they found out halfway through production that William Redfield was dying of leukemia), but for the most part it was fun.

“We were very serious about the work, because Miloš was very serious. And we had the material, Kesey’s work, and the reverence for that. We were not frivolous about it. But we did have a ball doing it,” DeVito said, laughing.

Part of that is because they filmed on location at a real state hospital in Salem, Oregon. Everyone stayed in the same motel and would board the same bus in the morning to get to set. It would have been hard not to bond and even harder if they hadn’t.

“There was full commitment,” Douglas said. “That comes when you don’t go home at night to your own lives. We stopped for lunch on the first day and I saw Jack kind of push his tray away and go outside to get some air. I said, ‘Jack, you OK?’ He said, ’Who are these guys? Nobody breaks character! It’s lunch time and they’re all acting the same way!'”

Not disproving Nicholson’s point, DeVito remembers he and the cast even asked if they could just sleep in the hospital.

“They wouldn’t let us,” DeVito said. “The floor above us had some seriously disturbed people who had committed murder.”

A lasting legacy

The film will be in theaters again on July 13 and July 16 from Fathom Entertainment. It’s a new 4K restoration from the Academy Film Archive and Teatro Della Pace Films with an introduction by Leonard Maltin.

“It’s a gorgeous print and reminds me how good the sound was,” Douglas said.

DeVito thinks it, “holds up in a really big way, because Miloš really was paying attention to all great things in the screenplay and the story originally.”

Besides the shock of “holy Toledo, am I that old?” DeVito said that it was a treasure to be part of — and he continues to see his old friends, including Douglas, Lloyd and, of course, Nicholson, who played the protagonist, R.P. McMurphy.

One person Douglas thinks hasn’t gotten the proper attention for his contributions to “Cuckoo’s Nest” is producer Saul Zaentz, who died in 2014. His music company, Fantasy Records who had Creedence Clearwater Revival, funded the endeavor which started at a $1.6 million budget and ballooned to $4 million by the end. He was a gambler, Douglas said, and it paid off.

And whatever sour grapes might have existed between Douglas and his father, who played R.P. McMurphy on Broadway and dreamt of doing so on film, were perhaps over-exaggerated. It was ultimately important for their relationship.

“McMurphy is as good a part as any actor is going to get, and I’m now far enough in my career to understand maybe you have four, maybe five good parts, really great parts. I’m sure for dad that was one of them,” Douglas said.

“To not be able to see it through was probably disappointing on one side. On the other, the fact that his son did it and the picture turned out so good? Thank God the picture turned out. It would have been a disaster if it hadn’t.”

Douglas added: “It was a fairy tale from beginning to end. I doubt anything else really came close to it. Even my Oscar for best actor years later didn’t really surpass that moment very early in my career.”