Idris Elba has once again opened up James Bond discussions by mooting the idea of a black, female 007.
English actor Idris previously shut down talk of him playing Bond, blaming the intense speculation of him taking on the role as the reason why producers would now not offer him the part.
However, he is still ready to see Bond bosses do something totally different with the super sleuth, currently played by Daniel Craig.
“There’s no such thing as a black Bond,” Idris said in a chat with Variety at the Sundance Film Festival.
“Are we interested in having a Bond character other than being a male? It could be a woman, it could be a black woman, it could be a white woman, but I think, that character, everybody would like to see it have… do something different with it, why not?”
Many film fans thought Idris was a shoo-in for the role before Daniel confirmed he’d be back for at least one more outing as the suave spy. But all the gossip surrounding Idris helming the part left a bad taste in the actor’s mouth.
“Honestly, it’s a rumor that’s really starting to eat itself,” he previously stated. “If there was ever any chance of me getting Bond, it’s gone.”
He also spoke out about his dislike of the phrase “black Bond”.
“I’ve always detested the phrase ‘Black Bond’, I just don’t understand it,” he sighed on U.K. breakfast show Lorraine. “We don’t say ‘White Bond’, we just say ‘Bond’, so it suddenly becomes a black man and he’s a ‘Black Bond’. So I hate that phrase – and it’s a rumor that’s gotten out of control, basically – but that’s all it is. There’s no truth in it whatsoever.”
The 45-year-old Luther star was at Sundance to promote his directorial debut, Yardie – an adaption of the 1992 book by Victor Headley, about a young Jamaican’s rise from the streets of London to the top of the drug-dealing underworld.
