Luke Evans Eager to Play James Bond Villain (Exclusive)
Furious 7 and The Hobbit star Luke Evans recently made headlines for putting it out into the universe that he would love to be considered for the ultimate role, James Bond. As fans are well aware, EON Productions are seeking out who will be the next person to play the part of Ian Flemming's 007. When speaking with Men's Health, Evans called Bond a "wonderful role" but lamented that it's big shoes to fill...and if he doesn't get it this time he'll be too old the next time they hire a new James Bond. But what about a different part in the franchise?
Speaking with ComicBook.com's Chris Killian for the new Apple TV+ series Echo 3, we asked Evans if instead of playing Bond if he'd want to play the guy that tries to kill Bond, the big bad. Naturally, his reply was: "Oh, hell yeah, Yeah, Yeah. With this face?" The trouble for Luke Evans is that he's got steep competition to play the villain in the next James Bond movie too, Stranger Things breakout Jamie Campbell Bower and Academy Award winner Daniel Kaluuya have also expressed interest in playing the big bad of the new Bond.
Who will play the next James Bond?
After Daniel Craig's run as James Bond wrapped up with No Time to Die, the hunt for who would be his successor naturally began in earnest. Talk of someone taking the part began long before the movie was even released, but the actual search for an actor to take on the part is one that the franchise's producers aren't really digging into for a bit.
"When you change the actor you have to reimagine the direction the film's gonna go in," producer Barbara Broccoli told Empire. "When you hire an actor, you're hoping you're going to spend a decade at least with them and make four or five or six films with them. So you have to think through, 'what is the trajectory? What is that actor going to bring? How are you going to move the series into another direction?'"
"It's not just flicking through Spotlight and saying, 'Oh, there's a guy who's 6'1,'" Broccoli continued. "We're going to take our time. We want to get a sense of where we want to go with the series and we want to do that before we bring anybody else on. We'll start the process probably with [writers] Rob [Wade] and Neil [Purvis] and we'll see where we go!"