Seemingly every actor with a British accent has had a brush with James Bond. Recently, we did a long-form video about the actors who nearly played 007, but there’s also a great new book out called “The Search for Bond” by Robert Sellers (buy it here) that takes a deep look into the James Bond casting sessions. His book reveals just how broad a look EON took at potential 007 actors, showing how many came particularly close to playing the role. One surprising name took himself out of consideration early – Matthew Rhys.
While best known for The Americans and HBO’s late, great Perry Mason reboot, where he affects an American accent, Rhys is actually Welsh. Of course, Timothy Dalton, the most underrated James Bond of them all, was a Welshman, and at one point, Rhys was considered a possible successor to Pierce Brosnan when they were casting Casino Royale.
As described in the book, Rhys blew his audition because he was nervous in the room, and used humour to deflate the situation. When they asked him what he would do differently as Bond, Rhys, thinking it was a trick question, replied, “limp?”. As he describes it, “it went very quiet. So then I thought I would double down and said, eyepatch?” Rhys says he was thanked for his time and excused, ending his short brush with 007.
All that said, Rhys likely isn’t too regretful about missing out on the role, as he’s had a terrific career since then. He was amazing as a spy (of Russian descent) on FX’s The Americans, in which he co-starred with his future partner, Keri Russell. He then headlined Perry Mason for two seasons, and next stars in Netflix’s The Beast in Me with Claire Danes. After that he’s headlining not one, but two series for Apple TV, Widow’s Bay – from the creators of Atlanta, and the second season of Presumed Innocent.
Do you think Rhys would have been a good James Bond? Rhys is a terrific actor, but is probably too much of an everyman to have ever really been convincing in the part. Also, we would have never gotten The Americans, which ruled, so I think it worked out for the best for all concerned.
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