All round

Majority Of Americans think Idris Elba should be the next James Bond

Via

411 HQ

Updated on July 6, 2023

See more articles on:Daniel Craig, Idris Elba, Pierce Brosnan

get top stories via email

Despite the fact that the first James Bond picture, Dr. No, was released 56 years ago, there has yet to be a James Bond who isn’t a heterosexual, white male.

While Daniel Craig has signed up for two more James Bond films, curiosity over who will play the role next is unabated.

According to a poll done by The Hollywood Reporter of 2,201 respondents, 63% of US Bond fans favor Elba wearing a tuxedo and 53% support the casting of a black James Bond.

In particular, 52% of individuals believe a black James Bond should be cast. When asked if Idris Elba should take over for Daniel Craig (the Wire actor has long been speculated to be a favorite), 63 percent of those polled said yes.

Elba sparked debate earlier this year when he tweeted, “My name is Elba, Idris Elba,” in response to claims that producer Barbara Broccoli had declared the “door was open” for a black Bond. Later, he stressed that he would not be taking up the role of Bond.

Elba has already decried the way that the argument has so far been defined by race. According to the New York Times, he said: “It’s interesting that the James Bond thing continues to go. I think it’s more about, we just want to have a black guy play James Bond rather than Idris Elba the actor play James Bond. That’s the part that I’m like, ‘Ugh, come on.’”

“No,” he answered in August when asked if he was going to play Bond.

Elba said to Variety in January, deflecting the question, “Are we interested in having a Bond character other than being a male? Could be a woman, could be a black woman, could be a white woman, but I think that character, everybody would like to see it have—do something different with it, why not?”

Elba went even farther in his Esquire December cover story, discussing his dissatisfaction with being referred to as a “black actor” all the time.

“I don’t like the term ‘black actor’ in the first place. I don’t understand what that is. When we talk about Benedict Cumberbatch, we don’t call him a ‘white actor’.

He went on to say: “When you speak about van Gogh, or any other painter, they’re painters; they use all the colours in the spectrum. They don’t use colours confined to where they’re from.”

Aidan Turner, James Norton, and Jamie Bell are among the other actors in the running to replace Craig in the role.

Still, nothing is official until it is officially announced. In either scenario, a black James Bond is massively popular in the United States. Other types of potential diversification yielded less conclusive results. Only 39% of those questioned want to see a Hispanic Bond, 37% want to see an Asian Bond, and, worst of all, only 28% want to see a gay James Bond. On the other hand, there’s one thing that everyone agrees on: Pierce Brosnan was a better Bond than Daniel Craig, with 51 percent of the vote versus the current Bond’s 41 percent.