Making a Case for Tom Hiddleston - Next 007

Well I must say that despite all the rumours circulating round in the wake of the relative disappointment, critically, to Spectre (I should note that my professed love for the film has somewhat waned after a recent re-watch and re-think), I didn’t expect Daniel Craig to all but confirm his departure from the series. To be fair, Spectre did end on a fairly unambiguous note that allows for a subsequent departure to be fairly satisfactory, and though I haven’t been as big a fan of his as many seem to be I thought he was a competent, solid Bond throughout all four films.

So now we look forward – who shall be the next fellow to take on the mantle of 007? Well there’s so many potential choices to sift through I can’t possibly mention them all, but suffice to say out of all the names that have popped up here and there, I can’t say I dislike any of them. Let’s look at a few of them before getting onto my favourite choice…

I may not be as big on the Idris Elba bandwagon as some because firstly, I think his style might veer too closely to Craig’s, I also kind of want to see him take on more ‘dramatic’ roles since Beasts of No Nation really showed me, with a half-decent role, how much potential he has as a silver-screen presence, he’s also a bit too famous for a Bond (basically all Bonds were either virtual unknowns before casting or character actors like Timothy Dalton, Daniel Craig and to an extent Sean Connery). 

I would have loved to see any of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Damian Lewis, or Luke Evans take on the role. They’re all strangely enough not household names despite the Oscar nomination and Golden Globe win by the former two, and the latter’s prominent scene-stealing role in The Hobbit trilogy. They’re also three incredibly charismatic, talented actors with huge mounds of screen presence (just watch Lewis as Henry VIII in Wolf Hall or Ejiofor in Twelve Years a Slave or Evans as Bard, they carry such intense strength to all their roles without even having to raise their voices). Unfortunately little to no buzz has been sent round their way, which is a shame. 

It’s awfully strange Jack Huston has yet to be mentioned in any instance of a Bond casting decision. He’s well-known among fans of Boardwalk Empire for giving a great performance as sniper with a heart Richard Harrow on the show, but besides that he’s mostly known for small roles in the likes of Kill Your Darlings, American Hustle, and will probably become notorious this year for playing Judah Ben-Hur in what already looks like a rather ill-conceived re-make of a 1959 Oscar-winner (seriously what goes through peoples’ minds sometimes?). What I’m saying is that he’s an extremely talented actor who could probably use a career boost. Bond is right down his street as he’s a superbly good-looking man, looks good in a suit, is a convincing badass killer (see: Boardwalk Empire), and a darned good dramatic actor.

Same goes for Dan Stevens. I’ve only seen a few episodes of Downton Abbey but the one’s I’ve seen with him in it, I’ve been pretty impressed with the effortless grace he carries onscreen. I then watched him in The Guest where I was absolutely astounded by his excellent, chilling portrayal of a former soldier who gradually reeals he’s not the all-American golden boy he seems. From that small sample size I’m already confident he’d be an outstanding Bond. He doesn’t seem to be in the running though, and considering he has the role of Beast in 2017’s Beauty and the Beast live-action Disney adaptation (also starring Evans as Gaston), I’m guessing he doesn’t really need additional exposure.

I would love a Henry Cavill Bond. Unfortunately it looks like he’s stuck with being Superman for now, and seeing the direction that franchise is taking right now…let’s just say I’d rather see him doing a Brit reprise of Napoleon Solo.

He’s far too old now. But I am still upset that I’ll probably never get to see Ewan McGregor play Bond. I am genuinely upset.

Lastly, two apparent new frontrunners, Aidan Turner and Jamie Bell. Turner would be a solid choice I could entirely get behind. I was impressed by his performance in a rather limited role in The Hobbit as lovelorn handsome dwarf Kili, and thought he was pretty great as the unscrupulous, blunt, and sleazily charming rogue Philip Lombard in And Then There Were None. With a few tweaks to that latter performance I’d say we could have a potentially great Bond on our hands. As for Bell, he doesn’t strike me immediately as Bond material, but it wouldn’t be a bad story to see the young lad who played Billy Elliot and the young man who played Tin Tin turn into a great Bond. Nothing I’ve seen of him so far suggests ‘badass British spy’ but then again the best surprises are always unexpected.

Also, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Michael Fassbender and Tom Hardy would have been BRILLIANT choices for Bond had they been cast before they hit the A-List, in fact had Fassbender been cast for Casino Royale he would’ve been the perfect Bond, I’d dare say, more so than Craig. Hardy would have been a good choice, just imagine his whole Inception performance with more focus and a darker edge and you’ve pretty much got a great Bond. Imagining Fassbender as Bond in particular has me salivating, his performance in Inglorious Basterds in particular, has me wondering how he’d have handled some of the scenes in Casino Royale. Unfortunately I’d say it’s impossible at this point for either actor to be cast as Bond. I’m not saying Bond has to be played by a complete non-entity but he can’t be an A-lister like Fassbender and Hardy are. They most likely wouldn’t take on the role because being in the comfortable positions they are in their careers, they’d probably want to take on more ‘daring’ sorts of roles like Hardy’s done recently with Legend (speaking of which his Reggie Kray did feel like a sorta Bond), The Revenant, Locke etc. and Fassbender with Macbeth, Frank etc., also the general consensus might be ‘he’s too obvious a choice’, ‘too distracting to have such a famous actor playing 007’, etc.

Anyway onto my current fave, Hiddleston.Now recent reports have had it that Hiddleston has effectively denied he has any chance of playing Bond, saying that he doubts the announcement is coming. I hope that’s just his usual public modesty and private way coming into play because after watching The Night Manager (which he actually attests to being one of the reasons there’s buzz surrounding him taking on the role), I really, really want him to play a spy again. He does a great job of playing the John le Carre sort of darker spy (I could imagine an older him being a great Alec Lemeas or George Smiley too), now I want to see him take on Bond.

Obviously as Sam Mendes has stated, Bond will not be the choice of the public, but of the director, producers. Rightfully so. But I’d just like to campaign for Hiddelston, my new favourite choice for Bond. It’s interesting that I mention The Night Manager because Hiddleston’s character in that, Jonathan Pine (and all the other aliases he takes on undercover) is not exactly Bond material, at least from the very start. He’s a night manager at a hotel. A fairly average joe in many regards except that he’s exceptionally charismatic and to put it bluntly, quite seductive in a very unassuming way. Pine is just presented as a wonderfully alluring presence whether it be in terms of friendship and courtship, which brings me to why Hiddleston should play Bond with regards to this: he’s so effortlessly charming. He doesn’t even need to put it on, just the general way he carries himself as Pine is so easily entrancing to the viewer.

When Pine starts actually getting down to spy work under the alias of Andrew Birch, we get to see a different side to Hiddleston’s abilities that furthers my argument for him as Bond. The charm is still there, but of a rather more rougish sort of charm than the polite affable sort of before. With this approach he’d either be a great lighthearted cheeky Bond or a great darkly humorous Bond, who can nail every dramatic momentexpected of him (it must be said that Hiddleston’s reaction shots in this series to the atrocities of the enemies he’s spying upon are incredibly remarkable). His interactions with the villain, Richard Roper (a brilliant Hugh Laurie), and the Bond side villain I mean Roper’s sidekick Corky (Tom Hollander, who based on this and Hanna seriously needs a juicy Bond villain role), are perfect Bond material in that Hiddleston never loses his cool with them till the very end and is able to with humour and smarts outwit and overpower them.

With Olivia Colman’s Angela Burr it’s basically an M-Bond relationship, with a great deal of feeling and emotional connection blended in with the wry laughs. With Debikci’s Jed Marshall it’s essentially a more complex, heartfelt and genuinely emotional Bond girl sort of affair. Hiddleston would bring a sensitivity to the role of the womanizer while still retaining enough conviction to the philandering side of Bond as a man oozing with rampant sexuality. Speaking of Debicki, if this, The Great Gatsby and especially The Man From U.N.C.L.E. are anything to go by, she’d be a brilliant Bond girl, Bond villain, seriously anything. She’s already one of my favourite actresses working today.

And it’s not just The Night Manager which has me rooting for Hiddleston. He’s fairly well-known and famous now for being Loki in the Marvel cinematic universe but I wouldn’t say it’d be to the point of distraction for a Bond casting. He’s shown talent in EXTREMELY limited leading roles in the likes of Crimson Peak, High-Rise and I Saw the Light, in fact one of the biggest faults of these underwhelming films is that they underutilize Hiddleston through script, direction etc.. He is very chameleonic (see: Only Lovers Left Alive), and when displaying effortless grace and command can be absolutely outstanding (his Henry V, while unconventional, is a terrific highlight of the first Hollow Crown series). ‘Nuff said –this man has the skill and criteria to be the next Bond. If he wants to, cast him please.