Tom Hardy Cast As The New James Bond, According To This Report
Tom Hardy will be taking on the role of 007, says one insider.
With Daniel Craig stepping down as James Bond with the release of November’s No Time to Die, speculation is at an all-time high on who might be the next actor to fill the shoes of 007. If a new report is to be believed, Tom Hardy is the next James Bond.
The Vulcan Reporter reports that the Venom and Mad Max: Fury Road star will play the iconic MI6 agent. The original post doesn’t state where this information comes from and does state that Tom Hardy has been quite a popular guess for the next Bond for quite some time, so it’s unknown if this information is good. The report does say that Hardy was originally going to be revealed as the next Bond in November, but that the delay of No Time to Die due to the coronavirus means that the reveal might not be made until early 2021.
Rumors have run rampant as to who will replace Daniel Craig since, in 2015, Craig said he would rather “slash his wrists” than do a fifth Bond film. Of course, Craig’s wrists are unharmed, as he would go on to film his fifth Bond film, No Time to Die. Frequent names to take up the mantle include actors like Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston, and Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden.
But one of the most frequently predicted actors has been Tom Hardy. In an interview with The Daily Beast in 2017, Hardy was asked about the role, to which he replied, “there’s a saying amongst us in the fraternity of acting, and in the fellowship of my peer group, that if you talk about it you’re automatically out of the race. So I can’t possibly comment on that one! If I mention it, it’s gone.”
Tom Hardy would be only the second Irish actor to play Bond, after Pierce Brosnan, who played the role from 1995’s GoldenEye to 2002’s Die Another Day. In an interview with the Mail in 2018, when asked who he thought could be in the role next, Brosnan replied, “I think Tom Hardy could be a good Bond. I’d be happy to see him do it.” If Hardy were to be cast in the role, he’d arguably be the most famous actor to be cast in the role, having already led several blockbusters in the past, while most other Bond actors have been relative up-and-comers.
Tom Hardy has been relatively low-key over the last few years, as his last three films have been this year’s Capone, 2018’s Venom, and the Christopher Nolan-directed Dunkirk in 2017. In the aforementioned Daily Beast article, Hardy stated he would be very excited to see a Nolan-directed Bond, and Nolan himself has shown interest in directing an installment of the Bond franchise. Hardy’s next role will be Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which is currently scheduled for release in 2021.
It seems extremely unlikely that we’ll hear anything official about who is playing Bond until after the release of No Time to Die, which as of right now is scheduled for a November 20 release, as to not take away from the current Bond. But the casting of Tom Hardy as 007 would certainly be an exciting direction to take this series.
