By With the confirmation that Bond 23 was back on track for a November 2012 release, just in time for the series’ 50th anniversary, casting rumours have also once again kicked off in earnest. With Sam Mendes still attached to direct, the media are scouring his previous casts for clues as to who will be joining Daniel Craig on Bond’s latest outing.
Aside from the predictable spate of ‘Kate Winslet is next Bond girl!’ rumours, which seem to have been flying in the build-up to every Bond film released since Titanic, one of the strongest candidates to surface has been theatrical heavyweight Simon Russell Beale, whose filmography is virtually non-existant but is considered one of the greatest board-treaders of his generation. Mendes has directed Beale on stage numerous times, notably in a number of Shakespeare plays including Othello, Troilus and Cressida and most startlingly as androgynous fairy Ariel in The Tempest.
Rumours of Beale’s involvement have been strengthened by reports that Bond producer Barbara Broccoli has twice been to watch Beale perform in the play Deathtrap, as well as Beale’s own comments that “every actor wants to be in Bond” and that he’d “love to play…
With the confirmation that Bond 23 was back on track for a November 2012 release, just in time for the series' 50th anniversary, casting rumours have also once again kicked off in earnest. With Sam Mendes still attached to direct, the media are scouring his previous casts for clues as to who will be joining Daniel Craig on Bond's latest outing.
Aside from the predictable spate of 'Kate Winslet is next Bond girl!' rumours, which seem to have been flying in the build-up to every Bond film released since Titanic, one of the strongest candidates to surface has been theatrical heavyweight Simon Russell Beale, whose filmography is virtually non-existant but is considered one of the greatest board-treaders of his generation. Mendes has directed Beale on stage numerous times, notably in a number of Shakespeare plays including Othello, Troilus and Cressida and most startlingly as androgynous fairy Ariel in The Tempest.
Rumours of Beale's involvement have been strengthened by reports that Bond producer Barbara Broccoli has twice been to watch Beale perform in the play Deathtrap, as well as Beale's own comments that "every actor wants to be in Bond" and that he'd "love to play a baddie." Beale's not entirely unfamiliar with the on-screen spy world, having played the British Home Secretary in the latest season of the BBC's espionage series Spooks (known as MI5 in the US).
[via Obsessed With Film and The Daily Mail]