James Bond is a character a lot of actors would love to play, but there’s a special casting process when looking for a new Bond, and not everyone would be up for it – such as Christian Bale, who turned down playing James Bond in the early 2000s. The famous British secret agent was created by Ian Fleming in 1952, appearing in a series of 12 novels and two short story collections. Although James Bond’s literary adventures had their audience, the character became widely popular thanks to its various adaptations to the big screen.
In total, there have been 27 James Bond films, the first one released in 1962 and with Sean Connery in charge of portraying the famous spy. The Bond film series has been unstoppable ever since, and various actors have taken on the role, most of them for more than one film, such as Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan. The most recent version of Bond on the big screen is that of Daniel Craig, beginning in 2006 with Casino Royale and culminating with No Time To Die, set to be released in late 2020.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view.
As mentioned above, choosing a new actor to play James Bond is not easy, as there are a couple of standards that have to be met, and not any actor can be in consideration to play the role. However, there are others that were offered the opportunity to play the British spy and turned it down, among those none other than Christian Bale.
James Bond: Why Christian Bale Turned Down Playing 007
Back in 1999, Christian Bale played serial killer Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, based on Bret Easton Ellis’ novel of the same name. Though Bale was not new in the film industry, having been part of films like Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun and Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 version of Little Women, American Psycho was his breakthrough role. As a result, many directors and producers turned their attention to him and began to consider him for bigger projects, among those the James Bond film series.
As revealed in the book Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman, Bale’s performance in American Psycho caught the attention of Bond producer Barbara Broccoli. Pierce Brosnan was still playing James Bond at the time, with The World Is Not Enough being released that year, but producers knew they had to start looking for a replacement, and Christian Bale was on their list. According to the book, Broccoli said the role “would be Christian’s for the asking”, but he wasn’t really interested in it, as he wasn’t into committing to a franchise that was “very British”, and even thought James Bond represented “every despicable stereotype about England and British actors”, and he had “already played a serial killer”. The role ended up going to Daniel Craig, and the rest is history.
Turning down the role of James Bond didn’t hurt Christian Bale’s career at all; following American Psycho, he starred in a number of films from different genres, but his next big gig was Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, where he played Bruce Wayne/Batman. His most recent roles were in the biographical drama Vice and the sports action film Ford v Ferrari, and he will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe very soon in Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder. While James Bond is a big character that holds an important place in pop culture, Christian Bale knew how to play his cards right, and made the correct the decision in turning down the offer.
- No Time to Die/James Bond 25 (2020)Release date: Nov 25, 2020
