Stirred, Not Shaken
by CoreyRuehling | created - 06 May 2022 | updated - 10 months ago | PublicAll of the actors who were once seriously considered or desired for the role of James Bond, but never ended up playing him. All of my info here I learned from Wikipedia so take that as you will.
Absent from IMDb:
- Peter Anthony, a 28-year-old model who won a contest to play Bond in Dr. No. However, it was soon proven he could not handle the role.
- Robert Campbell, who was considered for On Her Majesty's Secret Service
1. Cary Grant
Actor | North by Northwest
Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I."
Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in ...
Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman wanted him to star in their inaugural Bond film, Dr. No. However, Grant was only willing to commit to one film. As they intended to make a series, Grant was dropped from consideration.
2. Richard Johnson
Actor | The Haunting
Born in Upminster, Essex, England in 1927, Richard Johnson attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and then performed in John Gielgud's repertory company until joining the navy in 1945 until 1948. After the war, he appeared successfully in the West End and made his film debut in the ...
Claimed to have been director Terence Young's first choice to star in Dr. No. Johnson turned it down due to a contract with MGM.
3. Patrick McGoohan
Actor | The Prisoner
Born in America, and raised in Ireland and England, actor Patrick McGoohan rose to become the number-one British TV star in the 1950s to 1960s era. His parents moved to Ireland when he was very young and McGoohan acquired a neutral accent that sounds at home in British or American dialogue. He was ...
Turned down Dr. No. McGoohan, a devout Catholic, turned down the film on moral grounds.
4. Richard Todd
Actor | The Hasty Heart
British leading man who achieved some success in American films, as well. Born in Ireland as the son of a British officer, Todd grew up in Devon and (for a brief time) in India and attended Shrewsbury Public School. His interest in theatre led him to small roles in stock in England and Scotland and...
Supposedly desired for the role by author Ian Fleming, but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts.
5. Edward Underdown
Actor | Thunderball
A London-born stage and film veteran, actor Edward Underdown was educated at Eton College and began in theatre roles in 1932 with "Words and Music". A former jockey and steeplechase rider, he quickly forged ahead in films making his debut in The Warren Case (1934) and appearing in secondary roles. ...
Another actor that Fleming supposedly wanted as Bond, according to Fleming's stepson.
6. John Richardson
Actor | One Million Years B.C.
Classically handsome John Richardson began his career with small roles in British movies at the end of the 1950s. His first role of note was opposite Barbara Steele in the gothic horror classic Black Sunday (1960), directed by Mario Bava. His massive success was Don Chaffey's One Million Years B.C....
Considered for On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
7. Hans De Vries
Actor | Doctor Who
Hans De Vries was born in June 1941 in Netherlands. He was an actor, known for Doctor Who (1963), UFO (1970) and My Partner the Ghost (1969). He died in 2018.
Considered for On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
8. Anthony Rogers
Actor | Camelot
Anthony Rogers is known for Camelot (1967), Doctor Who (1963) and Red Line 7000 (1965).
Considered for On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
9. John Gavin
Actor | Psycho
John Gavin, the American film and TV actor, businessman and diplomat who was Ronald Reagan's first Ambassador to Mexico, was born Juan Vincent Apablasa in Los Angeles, California.
The future "Jack" Gavin was a fifth-generation Angeleno, the son of Delia Diana Pablos and Juan Vincent Apablasa, and ...
Was cast for Diamonds Are Forever, but Sean Connery was secured. Gavin was still paid according to his contract. After Connery's exit, Gavin was lined up for Live and Let Die, but the producers insisted on a British actor, so cast Roger Moore instead.
10. Clint Eastwood
Actor | Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in ...
Considered for Diamonds Are Forever. Turned the role down as he believed Bond should be played by a British actor.
11. Adam West
Actor | Batman
Adam West was born William West Anderson on September 19, 1928 in Walla Walla, Washington, to parents Otto West Anderson, a farmer, and his wife Audrey V. (Speer), an opera singer. At age 10, in 1938, West had a cache of comic books; and starting in 1939, Batman, who appeared in Detective Comics, ...
Considered for Diamonds Are Forever and Live and Let Die. Turned the role down as he believed Bond should be played by a British actor.
12. Burt Reynolds
Actor | Boogie Nights
Enduring, strong-featured, and genial star of US cinema, Burt Reynolds started off in T.V. westerns in the 1960s and then carved his name into 1970s/1980s popular culture, as a sex symbol (posing nearly naked for "Cosmopolitan" magazine), and on-screen as both a rugged action figure and then as a ...
Considered for Diamonds Are Forever and Live and Let Die. Turned the role down as he believed Bond should be played by a British actor.
13. Robert Wagner
Actor | The Towering Inferno
R.J. Wagner was born 1930 in Detroit, the son of a steel executive. His family moved to L.A. when he was six. Always wanting to be an actor, he held a variety of jobs (including one as a golf caddy for Clark Gable) while pursuing his goal, but it was while dining with his parents at a Beverly Hills...
Was urged by Broccoli to audition for Diamonds Are Forever, but he didn't.
14. Brett Halsey
Actor | The Godfather Part III
Internationally-known actor Brett Halsey, one of Hollywood's busiest and handsomest actors of the mid-to-late '50s and early '60s, was born Charles Oliver Hand to a builder/contractor in Santa Ana, California on June 20, 1933. Interested in performing from childhood (he appeared in local community ...
Considered for Diamonds Are Forever.
15. Malcolm Roberts
Soundtrack | Subterfuge
Malcolm Roberts was born on March 31, 1944 in Manchester, England, UK. He is known for Subterfuge (1968), The Kenneth Williams Show (1970) and Moods of Love (1973). He died on February 7, 2003 in Chertsey, Surrey, England, UK.
Considered for Diamonds Are Forever.
16. Ranulph Fiennes
Writer | Killer Elite
Ranulph Fiennes was born on March 7, 1944 in Windsor, Berkshire, England, UK. He is a writer and actor, known for Killer Elite (2011), Secret Hunter and The Salient (2015). He was previously married to Virginia Frances Pepper.
Considered for Diamonds Are Forever, but was ultimately turned down because Broccoli thought he had "hands too big and a face like a farmer."
17. Michael Gambon
Actor | Gosford Park
Sir Michael Gambon was born in Cabra, Dublin, Ireland, to Mary (Hoare), a seamstress, and Edward Gambon, an engineer. After joining the National Theatre, under the Artistic Directorship of Sir Laurence Olivier, Gambon went on to appear in a number of leading roles in plays written by Alan Ayckbourn...
Urged by Broccoli to audition for Diamonds Are Forever.
18. Julian Glover
Actor | Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Julian Wyatt Glover was born on March 27, 1935 in Hampstead, London, England, to Honor Ellen Morgan (Wyatt), a BBC journalist, and Claude Gordon Glover, a BBC radio producer. He is of English, Scottish and Welsh ancestry. Primarily a classical stage actor, Glover trained at the National Youth ...
Considered for Live and Let Die.
19. Jeremy Brett
Actor | My Fair Lady
The refined and debonair English actor Jeremy Brett will forever be best remembered for his long-running and critically acclaimed portrayal of Sherlock Holmes for Britain's Granada Television. From a privileged background, Brett was educated at England's most prestigious independent school, Eton ...
Considered for Live and Let Die, but turned it down over fear that it would harm his career.
20. Simon Oates
Actor | Doomwatch
Simon Oates was born on January 6, 1932 in Canning Town, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Doomwatch (1972), Doomwatch (1970) and The Mask of Janus (1965). He was married to Jaki Eastoe. He died on May 20, 2009 in Eastbourne, East Sussex, England, UK.
Considered for either Diamonds Are Forever or Live and Let Die.
21. John Ronane
Actor | Most High
John Ronane was born on December 11, 1933 in Kensington, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Most High (2012), The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970) and The Avengers (1961). He was married to Carole Bullock. He died on May 15, 2019 in Eureka, Illinois, USA.
Considered for Live and Let Die.
22. William Gaunt
Actor | The Champions
William Gaunt was born on April 3, 1937 in Pudsey, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for The Champions (1968), Sergeant Cork (1963) and Colonel Trumper's Private War (1961). He has been married to Carolyn Lyster since September 7, 1974. They have two children.
Considered for Live and Let Die.
23. Michael Billington
Actor | UFO
Michael Billington was born on December 24, 1941 in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for UFO (1970), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and UFO... annientare S.H.A.D.O. stop. Uccidete Straker... (1974). He was married to Katherine Kristoff. He died on June 3, 2005 in ...
Considered for Live and Let Die, For Your Eyes Only, and Octopussy.
24. Anthony Hopkins
Actor | The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, ...
Considered for Live and Let Die. He declined, feeling he was not a good fit for the role.
25. Lewis Collins
Actor | Jack the Ripper
Underrated British leading man predominantly of the Seventies and Eighties, Collins made his mark in the 1970s action drama The Professionals (1977). As hard man William Bodie, Collins became a household name worldwide. Unfortunately, since the show ended in 1983, Lewis Collins has been miscast in ...
Considered for For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy.
26. Ian Ogilvy
Actor | Death Becomes Her
Ian Ogilvy was born on September 30, 1943 in Woking, Surrey, England, UK. He is an actor and writer, known for Death Becomes Her (1992), I, Claudius (1976) and My Life in Ruins (2009). He has been married to Kathryn Holcomb since 1992. He was previously married to Diane Sarah Patricia Hart.
Considered for For Your Eyes Only.
27. Michael Jayston
Actor | Nicholas and Alexandra
Michael was born in Nottingham where he was educated at Becket Roman Catholic Grammar School, West Bridgeford in Nottingham where he was known as Jimmy - his real name is Michael James - and where he was caned some 130 times. While that might have been a record, the one that went into the record ...
Considered for For Your Eyes Only.
28. Oliver Tobias
Actor | Dick Turpin
A remote and rather prevailing sullenness has only enhanced the mystique and charisma found in dashingly handsome Oliver Tobias, who has enjoyed over a Five decade-long career on stage, screen and TV. Born Oliver Tobias Freitag in Zurich, Switzerland on August 6, 1947, he was the son of Swiss actor ...
Considered for Octopussy.
29. James Brolin
Actor | Traffic
James Brolin is an American actor. Brolin has won two Golden Globes and an Emmy. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 27, 1998. He is the father of actor Josh Brolin.
He is best known for his TV roles such as Stephen Kiley on Marcus Welby, M.D.(1969-1976), Peter McDermott on ...
Considered for Octopussy.
30. Richard Burton
Actor | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Probably best-remembered for his turbulent personal life with Elizabeth Taylor (whom he married twice), Richard Burton was nonetheless also regarded as an often brilliant British actor of the post-WWII period.
Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in 1925 into a Welsh (Cymraeg)-speaking family in ...
Considered for Never Say Never Again in its earliest stages in the 1960s.
31. Sam Neill
Actor | Jurassic Park
Sam Neill was born in Omagh, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, to army parents, an English-born mother, Priscilla Beatrice (Ingham), and a New Zealand-born father, Dermot Neill. His family moved to the South Island of New Zealand in 1954. He went to boarding schools and then attended the universities ...
Considered and screentested for The Living Daylights. Albert R. Broccoli was not interested, despite approval by Michael G. Wilson, Dana Broccoli, Barbara Broccoli and John Glen.
32. Mel Gibson
Actor | Braveheart
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born January 3, 1956 in Peekskill, New York, USA, as the sixth of eleven children of Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Anne Patricia (Reilly) Gibson (who died in December of 1990). His mother was Irish, from County Longford, while his American-born father is ...
Considered for The Living Daylights and GoldenEye.
33. Hugh Grant
Actor | Love Actually
Hugh Grant, one of Britain's best known faces, has been equally entertaining on-screen as well as in real life, and has had enough sense of humor to survive a media frenzy. He is known for his roles in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), with Andie MacDowell, Notting Hill (1999), opposite Julia ...
Considered for GoldenEye.
34. Liam Neeson
Actor | Kinsey
Liam Neeson was born on June 7, 1952 in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, to Katherine (Brown), a cook, and Bernard Neeson, a school caretaker. He was raised in a Catholic household. During his early years, Liam worked as a forklift operator for Guinness, a truck driver, an assistant architect and an ...
Considered for GoldenEye.
35. Ralph Fiennes
Actor | The Constant Gardener
Actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes was born on December 22, 1962 in Suffolk, England, to Jennifer Anne Mary Alleyne (Lash), a novelist, and Mark Fiennes, a photographer. He is the eldest of six children. Four of his siblings are also in the arts: Martha Fiennes, a director; Magnus ...
Considered for GoldenEye.
36. Paul McGann
Actor | The Three Musketeers
Paul McGann was born on November 14, 1959 in Kensington, Liverpool, England, UK. He is an actor and director, known for The Three Musketeers (1993), Withnail & I (1987) and Alien³ (1992). He has been married to Annie Milner since 1992. They have two children.
Considered for GoldenEye, reportedly the second choice behind Pierce Brosnan.
37. Goran Visnjic
Actor | The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Goran Visnjic is a Croatian American actor and producer, born in Sibenik, Croatia. He is married to Eva Visnjic (formerly Ivana Vrdoljak) with whom has three children. From an early age Visnjic started appearing in various theater plays. At the age of 16, he had his screen debut in the film Braca ...
Auditioned for Casino Royale, but could not master an English accent.
38. Karl Urban
Actor | Star Trek
Originally from Wellington, New Zealand, Karl Urban now lives in Auckland. Born on June 7, 1972, he is the son of a leather-goods manufacturer (who had hoped that Karl would follow in his footsteps). His first acting role was when he was 8 -- he had a line on a television series. However, he did ...
Considered for Casino Royale.
39. Henry Cavill
Actor | Man of Steel
Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill was born on the Bailiwick of Jersey, a British Crown dependency in the Channel Islands. His mother, Marianne (Dalgliesh), a housewife, was also born on Jersey, and is of Irish, Scottish and English ancestry. Henry's father, Colin Richard Cavill, a stockbroker, is of ...
Reportedly the decision for the role in Casino Royale was down to Daniel Craig and Henry Cavill. Craig was chosen as Cavill was deemed too young for the part, at 22 years of age.
40. Sam Worthington
Actor | Avatar
Samuel Henry John Worthington was born August 2, 1976 in Surrey, England. His parents, Jeanne (Martyn) and Ronald Worthington, a power plant employee, moved the family to Australia when he was six months old, and raised him and his sister Lucinda in Warnbro, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia.
...
Considered for Casino Royale.
41. Dougray Scott
Actor | Ever After
Born in Scotland, trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where he was named most promising drama student. Scott's early work was in Scottish national theatre and television, first appearing in the series Soldier Soldier as well as on the stage in the Tim Fleming directed production ...
Considered for Casino Royale.
42. Alex O'Loughlin
Actor | Hawaii Five-0
The Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin was born in August 1976.
Alex started out his film career in 2004, when he starred in Oyster Farmer (2004) as Jack Flange. The following year, he returned to the big screen as Michael Carter in Feed (2005), a movie that he also co-produced and helped write. Also ...
Considered for Casino Royale.
43. Julian McMahon
Actor | Fantastic Four
Julian Dana William McMahon was born in Sydney, Australia, the second of three children of Lady Sonia McMahon (née Sonia Rachel Hopkins) and Sir Billy McMahon, the longest continuously serving government minister in Australian history, serving over 21 years as a government minister before serving ...
Considered for Casino Royale.
44. Ewan McGregor
Actor | Moulin Rouge!
Ewan Gordon McGregor was born on March 31, 1971 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland, to Carol Diane (Lawson) and James Charles McGregor, both teachers. His uncle is actor Denis Lawson. He was raised in Crieff. At age 16, he left Morrison Academy to join the Perth Repertory Theatre. His parents ...
Considered for Casino Royale.
45. Rupert Friend
Actor | Hitman: Agent 47
Rupert William Anthony Friend is a British actor, screenwriter, director, and lyricist. He first gained recognition for his roles in The Libertine (2004) and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005), both of which won him awards for best newcomer. He portrayed George Wickham in Pride & Prejudice (2005)...
Considered for Casino Royale.
46. Antony Starr
Actor | Outrageous Fortune
Antony Starr is a New Zealand actor best known for his starring role as Homelander in Amazon Prime Video's original series The Boys, which is based on the comic book series of the same name. In New Zealand, he is best known for his dual role as twins Jethro and Van West in Outrageous Fortune and ...
Considered for Casino Royale.
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