Ever since the Sony hack, one of the big newsworthy leaks was that Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal had sent an email to former executive vice president of production for Columbia Pictures Elizabeth Cantillon back in January; the email simply reads ‘Idris should be the next bond’, but it was enough to send the rumor mill spinning out of control.
One of the most controversial statements made about this was through Rush Limbaugh, who had this to say;
“James Bond is a total concept put together by Ian Fleming. He was white and Scottish. Period. That is who James Bond is, was. But now Sony is suggesting that the next James Bond should be Idris Elba, a black Britain, rather than a white from Scotland. But that’s not who James Bond is and I know it’s racist to probably point this out.”
What is interesting to me is that James Bond was originally English. In fact, it was only when actor Sean Connery took the super-spy to the big screen that Ian Fleming decided that despite what people originally thought, Bond would be Scottish. A change in the adaptation was welcomed. As such, the casting for Bond has never been strictly rigid – we’ve had a Scottish James Bond, a British James Bond, a Welsh James Bond, …hell, we’ve even had an Australian James Bond! Young or Old, Brown hair to Blonde, in the end it didn’t matter how Bond looked…only how he was presented to us.
Well, Idris responded in a tweet yesterday, pointing out that all Bonds before at least had one thing in common: they were all lookers.
Isn’t 007 supposed to handsome? Glad you think I’ve got a shot! Happy New year people. pic.twitter.com/3g9lAl2Uo3
— Idris Elba (@idriselba) December 27, 2014
Can’t argue with that logic.
