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Idris Elba says he wouldn’t mind playing James Bond if his talent was more of a focus than his race.
The UK-bred actor recently opened up about the controversy around him being the next 007 and said it bothered him that he wouldn’t be considered for the role because he’s black.
“You just get disheartened when you get people from a generational point of view going, ‘It can’t be.’ And it really turns out to be the color of my skin,” Elba told Vanity Fair. “And then if I get it and it didn’t work, or it did work, would it be because of the color of my skin? That’s a difficult position to put myself into when I don’t need to.”
His race being an issue stripped the excitement of playing the role away from Elba, but he said he would have been honored to be the next Bond.
“James Bond is a hugely coveted, iconic, beloved character, that takes audiences on this massive escapism journey. Of course, if someone said to me ‘Do you want to play James Bond?,’ I’d be like, Yeah! That’s fascinating to me. But it’s not something I’ve expressed, like, yeah, I wanna be the black James Bond.”
Back in 2014, the 46-year-old told NPR he didn’t want to he called the black James Bond if he was to get the role.
“I just don’t want to be called the first black James Bond. Do you understand what I’m saying? Sean Connery wasn’t the Scottish James Bond and Daniel Craig wasn’t the blue-eyed James Bond. So if I played him, I don’t want to be called the black James Bond.”
Naysayers had a lot to say when it was first speculated that Elba could be the next James Bond. James Bond author Anthony Horowitz said Elba was “too street” for the role while previous Bond character Sir Roger Moore said Elba “wasn’t English enough” to play the role despite him being from England.
