Former Bond casting director says 007 should remain as Fleming wrote him
The casting director behind three decades of James Bond films has insisted the spy ought to stay true to the character's origins.
The casting director behind three decades of James Bond films has insisted the spy ought to remain as Ian Fleming wrote him.
Debbie McWilliams, who cast the last 14 Bond films before retiring, was asked at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival whether the next Bond could be a woman or a person of colour.
She said: “Not in my opinion. No.”
“Ian Fleming wrote a character, and that’s the character that stays. That’s what I think. Other people might think otherwise, but I don’t think that.” McWilliams added.
Asked whether she ever returned to Fleming’s books when casting, she said: “Guess what? I’ve never read a James Bond book in my life,” adding that “as the time went on, the scripts bore no relation to the books at all.”
The exchange lands at an inflection point for the franchise, as the team set to usher in the new era of Bond say honouring Fleming’s creative vision is precisely the plan.
Steven Knight, the Peaky Blinders creator brought in to write the as-yet-untitled Bond 26, told BBC Radio 4 in March that he is drawing directly on the novels.
He said: “The books are so good, so underrated as literature. There’s something about the world that he created that is tangibly real, and yet it’s something that isn’t real. It’s almost dreamlike somehow.”
Knight added: “I just love the style of how [Fleming] writes, and the dialogue is so good.”
Director Denis Villeneuve, announced by Amazon MGM Studios last summer, struck a similarly reverent tone.
He said: “I’m a die-hard Bond fan. To me, he’s sacred territory, I intend to honour the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come.”
In a further tease of the kind of character fans can expect, earlier this year Knight told Screen Daily that he has been consulting “the SAS and even more secret outfits” as part of his writing process.
He said: “I am talking to them about what they do every day. It’s all real.”
“[Ian Fleming] was living that life. In the war, he was doing those things. He knew people doing that stuff, going out there and killing people.” Knight added.
The famed author served in the Royal Navy’s intelligence division during the Second World War as personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, where he helped plan the wartime Operation Goldeneye – later the name of the Jamaican estate where he wrote all fourteen Bond books.
McWilliams insisted that the danger which informed Fleming’s Bond had to be felt.
She said: “Part of his job description is ‘licence to kill’, so you’ve got to think that he could pick a gun up and shoot you.
“He’s got to have a kind of threat about him. I’m not sure that Pierce Brosnan had that particularly... and Daniel sort of changed that somewhat.” McWilliams added.
With Daniel Craig’s vaunted era as Bond coming to a close with 2021’s ‘No Time to Die’, Bond 26 will become the first film made under Amazon MGM’s full creative control after long-time producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson stepped back.
The expected creative restart has caused disquiet among fans, including McWilliams herself, who said: “It’s about to change dramatically, is all I can say, and I’m not sure whether I’ll be paying my money to go and see it or not.”
But many will feel cautiously reassured by the creative vision teased by Knight and Villeneuve, with a return to the source and to Fleming likely to intrigue and satisfy audience excitement, as the face behind a new era of Bond remains yet to be revealed.