James Bond casting director explains younger actors don’t have the ‘gravitas’ and ‘mental capacity’ to play 007

Now that Daniel Craig has finished playing James Bond, the franchise production team is looking for the next actor to play the role of 007. Michael G. Wilson said they are looking for a “30-year-old” actor to fill the role of Bond. At one point though, before casting Craig as Bond, they were trying to get younger, but that obviously didn’t work out.

During a recent interview with Radio Times, longtime casting director for the Bond franchise, Debbie McWilliams, explained why younger actors don’t really work for James Bond. When they were watching younger actors, he said they lacked the gravitas and mental capacity of the character. She said:

“When we started, it was a slightly different feeling. We looked at a lot of younger actors and I don’t think they had the gravitas. They didn’t have the experience, they didn’t have the mental capacity to take it, because it’s not just the part they’re taking, it’s a huge responsibility. So we scrapped that idea and went back to the drawing board and started again.

The team ended up choosing Craig, who was in his 30s at the time. He was fantastic in the role, but when his casting was first announced there were many disgruntled fans who didn’t think he was the right actor for the part. But then, everyone fell in love with him. Speaking about the first initial reaction, McWilliams said:

“It was incredibly negative, I have to say. The press response was terrible and I felt so sorry for him but in a funny way I think it almost goaded him to do the best he could to prove everyone wrong.

“Throughout the film, things came up [how] he couldn’t walk and talk, he couldn’t run, he couldn’t drive a car properly, so many things that were completely and totally false. And she just kept her head down and got on with the job and then the movie came out and everybody was like, ‘Oh wow, I think we kind of like it after all.’”

Craig continued to do great as Bond and starred in a total of five 007 films. Now, everyone is wondering and speculating who will play Bond next! In this regard, producer Barbara Broccoli previously said:

“When people say, ‘Oh, who are you going to get?’ it’s not just about choosing an actor for a film. It’s a reinvention and “Where are we taking this?” What do we want to do with the character?’ And then, once you figure it out, who is the right person for that particular reinvention?

McWilliams went on to talk about how most of the James Bond actors who have been cast are relatively unknown at the level of mainstream film when cast:

“Timothy Dalton was known, but he was known as a Shakespearean actor, really. Drill [Brosnan] it was known, but it was basically from television. Roger Moore was known from television. Sean Connery was not [known] – no one had ever heard of him. A certain audience had heard of Daniel Craig, but much more the independent cinema type of audience. He had never done a big commercial film, really… [2004 film] ‘Layer Cake’ I suppose was the most popular, should we say, of the things he did before Bond, but he wasn’t a very well known actor.

As for the younger actors, it’s really a bit sad that there aren’t any young actors out there who have what it takes to play James Bond.