Pierce Brosnan says Aaron Taylor-Johnson “has the chops” to play James Bond.
Though it has yet to be confirmed, all signs point towards Aaron Taylor-Johnson becoming the next James Bond. Should that end up being the case, the Kraven star will become the eighth actor to play the superspy, and previous Bonds are speaking out in support of Taylor-Johnson’s potential casting. Earlier this month, George Lazenby threw his support behind Taylor-Johnson and now, Pierce Brosnan says he thinks the actor would do great in the role.
“I think the man has the chops and the talent and the charisma to play Bond, very much so,” the GoldenEye star said during a recent stop on The Ray D’Arcy Show. “”One of the first movies we made, one of the earliest movies, was The Greatest. And he was the greatest in it. So, yes, I read the news about his possibilities of being a Bond, so I would definitely tip my hat to the fellow.”
Interestingly enough, Brosnan previously said he thought a different actor—Oppenheimer’s Oscar-winning Cillian Murphy—would be the perfect person to play 007.
“Cillian would do a magnificent job as James Bond on His Majesty’s Secret Service,” Brosnan opined earlier this month.
As recently as last year, however, longtime Bond producer Barbara Broccoli said there’s no official frontrunner for the role.
“Nobody’s in the running,” she began last year. “We’re working out where to go with him, we’re talking that through. There isn’t a script and we can’t come up with one until we decide how we’re going to approach the next film because, really, it’s a reinvention of Bond. We’re reinventing who he is and that takes time. I’d say that filming is at least two years away.”
“He can be of any color, but he is male,” Broccoli told the press before that when asked about switching up the formula. “I believe we should be creating new characters for women — strong female characters. I’m not particularly interested in taking a male character and having a woman play it. I think women are far more interesting than that.”
