express– Over the years many stars have auditioned to play James Bond, but only six actors have officially been cast in the role. Famously the secret screen tests involve acting out a scene in From Russia With Love in which Sean Connery walks into a bedroom in a towel while holding a gun. One actor who lost out to both Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig at Bond auditions is Rome and Altered Carbon star James Purefoy.
The 56-year-old sighed in a new interview: “The Bond thing…
“I kind of wish it had never been found out that I’d gone up for Bond. It has plagued my life – the job that I didn’t get.”
Purefoy admitted that Bond was one of those acting jobs he got very close to before he started “pulling away” because the more he thought about how it would change his life the more he found it “a little troubling”.
He added: “The closer I got to Bond, the more I wasn’t really sure.”
Since Daniel Craig was cast for Casino Royale in 2005, it’s been unearthed that he spent a lot of time thinking about saying yes for similar reasons.
Purefoy told The Independent: “From what I gather, he turned it down two or three times because of a similar thing – being uncomfortable with being locked into a massive corporate world where you’re gonna spend more time publicising the movie and wearing watches and suits and having to go to photoshoots and publicity drives.
“And you end up having to deal with a lot of stuff that you’d just really rather not deal with because it’s not your job.
“It’s not what you do. What you do is exist as somebody else between action and cut. That’s the purest and most interesting part of the job.”
Express.co.uk recently spoke with a Bond expert who interviewed Casino Royale director Martin Campbell and it turns out he originally wasn’t convinced by Craig as 007.
Author of the new book The Lost Adventures of James Bond, Mark Edlitz said: “When Daniel Craig was announced, I watched Layer Cake and thought, ‘Good actor but not Bond.’ I was wrong.
“Incidentally, Martin Campbell, director of Casino Royale, had the same initial impression of Craig. Good actor, not Bond.
“But Campbell deferred to Barbara Broccoli and now enthusiastically supports Craig.”
Despite the new take on Bond with Craig, EON Productions’ risk paid off at the box office.
Edlitz continued: “Craig’s a great Bond. But you also must match the Bond actor to the script and the story they want to tell.
“A film about 007’s early days would need a different actor than Bond.”
Interestingly Superman star Henry Cavill, who was supposedly Campbell’s preferred choice, lost out to Craig when he was 21-years-old.
Last year, Cavill told Men’s Health that he wasn’t in his current Man of Steel physique when he auditioned in a towel.
The star said: “I probably could have prepared better.
“I remember the director. Martin Campbell, saying, ‘Looking a little chubby there, Henry’.
Nevertheless, Cavill took the comment in his stride, which ended up inspiring him to get into shape.
