Ralph Fiennes has said he missed out on the chance to play James Bond because he behaved like “a d***” to the producers. The 63-year-old actor was invited to audition for the role of 007 but admits he blew it.
He told bosses to stop making the British secret agent a “funny wink-wink” character like Roger Moore and instead turn him “dark, sexy and slightly violent”. He also suggested they stay more faithful to the books by creator Ian Fleming by setting the stories in the 1950s and making the films in black and white.
What Fiennes Said About the Bond Audition
Fiennes revealed: “I used to love James Bond when I was younger and at one point they talked to me about Bond some years ago.” Asked why he never got the role, he added: “I think maybe I was a bit of d***.”
He added: “I mean, I loved the books, and I like Barbara Broccoli enormously. But I suggested - could they not do them in the mid 1950s and black and white and very sort of film noir-y? I mean the earlier ones are closer to (the books). I think From Russia With Love is the closest to the book. He’s sort of lonely, sexy, dark, and slightly violent. The films got increasingly funny, wink-wink, tongue in cheek and they were very successful and I just think my taste was kind of less tongue in cheek.”
Daniel Craig's Reinvention of Bond
“Then Daniel Craig just re-invented Bond in a fantastic way by going so grittily right in, totally plausible, complex, dark and he satisfied all the ‘franchisey’ things like the wit and the human. I think he is fantastic.”
The star did eventually end up in the Bond movies after being cast as Gareth Mallory, the head of British Secret Intelligence Service. He originally appeared in Skyfall in 2012, where Dame Judi Dench, who was playing M at the time, was killed off. Fiennes took over the role in Spectre in 2015 and No Time To Die in 2021.
Nearly Missing Out on Voldemort
The actor, who has also appeared in Schindler's List, The English Patient and 28 Years Later, also admits he very nearly missed out on playing the evil Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter franchise. When he was offered the role of the “dark lord”, he was all set to turn it down because he was not a fan of films with “goblins and people on funny broomsticks”.
He tells The Essay starting November 9 on Radio Three: “It was presented to me... the role of Voldemort…. by Mary Selway, a great, great casting director, who sadly is no longer with us. And I have got to be frank, I was instinctively dismissive of this sort of goblins and magic and people on funny broomsticks and I was probably a bit snobby about it really. It was out of ignorance. It hadn't intrigued me at all.”
“Then my sister Martha said ‘What? They asked you to play Voldemort?’ She had three children of Harry Potter age. She was passionate that I shouldn't just breezily walk away from it. And I looked at some designs for the look of him and I talked to Mike Newell and then I got excited about it. I loved it. I relished it and then the part got great and its conclusion with the big set pieces in the last books.” Asked if he relished playing someone evil, he laughed: “No acting required!”
