Debbie McWilliams, who cast the last 14 James Bond films, has stuck to her guns when it comes to her view that 007 should be white and male.
Speaking at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival Friday in an onstage interview, the casting director was asked by an audience member whether the spy could be a woman or a person of color. “Not in my opinion. No,” she responded firmly. “Ian Fleming wrote a character, and that’s the character that stays. That’s what I think. I mean, other people might think otherwise, but I don’t think that.”
With McWilliams having retired before Amazon’s acquisition of the Bond franchise, the search for the next 007 actor falls to casting director Nina Gold and director Denis Villeneuve. However, McWilliams still has strong views on the subject as the question and answer session at the Czech festival demonstrated.
McWilliams was asked whether, when she cast previous Bonds, such as Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, there was any specific characteristic that she was looking for.
“Well, I mean, I’ve said this several times before, but part of his job description is license to kill. So you’ve got to think that he could pick a gun up and shoot you,” McWilliams said. “So he’s got to have a kind of threat about him, you know. I’m not sure that Pierce Brosnan had that particularly, but he kind of embodied a different side of him. He was very good looking and suave, and all the rest of it. And Daniel sort of changed that somewhat into the fact that you, you know … he was much tougher.”
