A regular is back, while a potential candidate for a female role is now out. The JBIFC recently recorded rumours that a new name had emerged as part of the speculation over casting for key roles in Bond 25. According to a report in a UK newspaper, the Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o was being wooed by 007 producer Barbara Broccoli and director Cary Fukunaga.
However, the latest news on this, as revealed to ‘Deadline’, is that Nyong’o’s team has let it be known that ‘it won’t work out with her’. Quite how far direct contact or negotations had reached is not known.
But, what is now known, as revealed by the respected film trade journal Variety, is that, in addition to the return of Lea Seydoux, there are apparently two main female roles waiting to be cast for Bond 25. The journal reported that one female role will be comparable to the character Camille (Olga Kurylenko) in Quantum of Solace, while the other main female role will be a new female MI6 agent. Meanwhile, in another piece of casting news, ‘Q’ actor Ben Whishaw has revealed that he will be reprising his role as the MI6 gadgets man and quartermaster. There will be a huge sigh of relief from Whishaw fans at the news and also from fans of the iconic character of ‘Q’, a figure who has become beloved by generations of 007 aficionados, and who has been given a nicely eccentric re-interpretation by the talented stage and film actor (Whishaw first took on the role, of course, in Skyfall and returned in Spectre; he is also an old friend of Daniel Craig, the pair having first appeared together on screen in Layer Cake).
From Norway With Love?
There are also interesting indications of some set construction now taking place in Norway, and the possibility of a key sequence involving a young child. In the meantime, as the JBIFC noted in a previous news update, screenwriter Scott Z. Burns was recently brought on board by the Bond producers and has been conducting some additional work on the Bond 25 script, which is a reworking of an earlier script by Bond veterans Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. The return of Whishaw as ‘Q’, of course, means a reunion of the usual MI6 support team of recent Craig 007 adventures. As Baz Bamigboye observed recently in the Daily Mail, Ralph Fiennes as ‘M’ and Naomie Harris (‘maybe with an expanded Moneypenny role’) have also been on their marks, waiting to be recalled back to duty at MI6.
Watch this space for further news updates as they happen. You know the name, and you know the number.
