Debbie McWilliams, who cast the last 14 James Bond films, has stuck to her guns when it comes to her view that 007 should be white and male, as he was in Ian Fleming’s 007 books. However, she confessed Friday that she’s never read a Bond novel.
Speaking at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in an onstage interview moderated by Variety, the casting director was asked by an audience member whether the spy could be a woman or a person of color. “Not in my opinion. No,” she responded firmly. “Ian Fleming wrote a character, and that’s the character that stays. That’s what I think. I mean, other people might think otherwise, but I don’t think that.”
With McWilliams having retired before Amazon’s acquisition of the Bond franchise, the search for the next 007 actor falls to casting director Nina Gold and director Denis Villeneuve. However, McWilliams still has strong views on the subject as the question and answer session at the Czech festival demonstrated.
McWilliams was asked whether, when she cast previous Bonds, such as Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, there was any specific characteristic that she was looking for.
“Well, I mean, I’ve said this several times before, but part of his job description is license to kill. So you’ve got to think that he could pick a gun up and shoot you,” McWilliams said. “So he’s got to have a kind of threat about him, you know. I’m not sure that Pierce Brosnan had that particularly, but he kind of embodied a different side of him. He was very good looking and suave, and all the rest of it. And Daniel sort of changed that somewhat into the fact that you, you know … he was much tougher.”
She added, “There’s no set rule. It’s whoever fits the bill, frankly, and it will be different for different directors and different producers. And, you know, it’s about to change dramatically, is all I can say. And I’m not sure whether I’ll be paying my money to go and see it or not. But there isn’t an easy answer to that question.”
McWilliams explained how Craig came to be cast as 007 in Martin Campbell’s “Casino Royale.”
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“It took a long time, and I scoured the world pretty much. And the story had changed quite a bit from the very first meeting that we all had together,” she said. “The idea was that it was to start Bond at the very beginning, and so we saw a lot of young actors, and tested some, and then I kind of went out all around the place, Australia to New Zealand, to here, there and everywhere. And I knew Daniel quite well because I’d seen him in pretty much everything he’d ever done, and nobody was particularly interested. And then the film ‘Layer Cake’ came out, and Barbara Broccoli said, ‘I think we’d better meet him.’ And so I said, ‘Are you sure? I’m not sure that he’s quite right for this.’ And she said, ‘No, no, no. I want to meet him.’ So we met him, and he was quite reluctant, I have to say. It wasn’t something that he leapt at, but anyway, eventually he agreed, and so we started off.”
The casting of Eva Green as Vesper Lynd in “Casino Royale” met with resistance, she said.
“There was hesitation and reluctance from everybody for everything, to be honest with you. Martin Campbell, who directed it, wasn’t keen on her at all. He just went, ‘Oh, she’s a model,’ and I said, ‘No, she’s not. She’s a real proper bona fide actress.’ Anyway, eventually we got her to come out here [to the Czech Republic], and she screen tested, and she was so nervous it was almost unbearable, and so I pleaded with them to get her back and to start all over again, and, you know, actually take time with her and rehearse with her, and do her hair and makeup and all the rest of it, and so the second test she nailed it. But none of these things have ever been easy, I have to say.”
Variety asked to what extent, with a film like “Casino Royale,” which is based on a specific book, she would go back to the book for thoughts on who to cast, or whether she just stuck to the script.
“Guess what?” McWilliams responded. “I’ve never read a James Bond book in my life. It always has to be based on the script, and, you know, as the time went on, the scripts bore no relation to the books at all. You know, they made all the films of the books, so it was always script based.”
“Casino Royale” was shot partly in Karlovy Vary — in particular, the casino scenes — and McWilliams explained how she insisted that all the cast learn how to play poker to ensure a high level of realism.
“Well, a kind of gauntlet was thrown down at the very beginning. As soon as I read the script, I thought, ‘Well, you know, the whole denouement was this amazing poker game,’ and so I started going around visiting casinos to see how it worked, and I told one of the guys in this place what we were doing, and he went, ‘You will never get it right.’ I said, ‘I beg your pardon.’ He said, ‘No, nobody ever gets it right in films.’ So I thought, ‘Well, okay, we’re going to.’ And, in fact, Michael Wilson, who’s one of the producers, is a huge poker fan, and so he started to teach me. And then, as each actor was cast, we’d all just sit down and start playing poker. And when we were in Prague, everybody became completely obsessed with it. And so, at lunchtime, sitting in the corridor in the studio, we’d all be playing poker. It was really funny. I can’t remember anything about it now, but it was good fun at the time.”
Asked to share her thoughts on Method actors, McWilliams was open to casting them, but would defer to the director, as ever. “I haven’t had a huge experience of them, I have to say. I think it will very much depend on who the director is. I mean, you know, when you read about how Daniel Day-Lewis ate with his feet and painted with his feet, and never stood outside his character, only certain directors would probably tolerate that,” she said.
“And Jeremy Strong in ‘Succession’ is known to be a Method actor, but to meet as a person he’s absolutely delightful. I mean, I don’t think I’d go out of my way necessarily to cast a Method actor, but you can’t legislate really. It’s the director who has to make the final decision, and if he’s happy and he knows in advance that … you know, we ought to do a bit of research to know whether somebody’s going to be very Method or not … so it just depends on them.”
McWilliams gave Day-Lewis his break when she cast him in Stephen Frears’ “My Beautiful Laundrette,” but he wasn’t her first choice for the role, she told the audience. Her preference was Gary Oldman, so when she was casting Frears’ “Prick Up Your Ears,” it was Oldman who they turned to.
“I wasn’t that sure that Daniel was actually right for [‘My Beautiful Laundrette’]. I mean, I knew him, and I had met him when he was at drama school, and had seen him in various different plays in the theatre […] and we auditioned lots and lots of people. And in fact, one of the actors who I was particularly keen on was Gary Oldman, who to me seemed to fit into the part much more than Daniel. Gary was a real kind of geezer [British slang for a streetwise guy], and Daniel’s from a very aristocratic family.” But Frears wasn’t convinced by Oldman. “He then said, ‘Okay, who is the very best young English actor?’ And I said, ‘Well, without a doubt, it’s Daniel Day-Lewis.’ And he said, ‘Well, okay, let’s have him then.’”
From Variety US