Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
What a special treat today because who is my special guest? Oh, it's Roger. Kate Roger. See what I did there? I saw what you did there.
Mr. Bond. James Bond. My name's Bond. My name is Bond. The name's Bond. James Bond. The name's Bond. James Bond.
I'm Alexia Russell and today on the detail, the next Bond. Because auditions for the new 007 have opened and the reckons have too. Though, let's be fair, they haven't stopped since Daniel Craig hung up his blue swimming togs. The odds are shortening and at least one audition has already taken place, which has put Tom Francis at the top of the list.
Sorry, who? That is a headline. Sorry. Who is Tom Francis? I'd never heard of him. The reason why I think there's going to be a lot of money going against Tom Francis, first of all, he's 26. Second of all, it would be... Oh, no.
Oh, no. I've just looked him up. Too smiley.
No, I know. We're looking at smiley photo. Don't look at that one. I would scroll down and maybe even go into images and have a little play around. There's some pretty wonderful shots of Tom Francis because he's been nominated or has won a Tony Award. He's been doing theatre. I would click on that one, Alexia.
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Chapter 2: Who are the potential candidates for the next James Bond?
He's once again piercing blue eyes.
Piercing blue eyes. And you would give that a decent haircut and get rid of the cowlick. He would bring the chops.
Kate Roger, New Zealand's premier entertainment journalist, joins me to discuss who's up for the job, who's likely to get it, and what the requirements are to dom that tux.
We're excited. Very excited. I mean, I genuinely am. And if we think about the franchise, that's over five decades we've been entertained by 007. And the fascination, I don't think, has waned in that time. And our obsession with wanting to know who this latest Bond is, because it's been 15 years. Daniel Craig just wouldn't let go of Bond and he was so great at it. But that's the longest tenure.
of any actor playing 007. So when we had news that auditions had begun, you can just imagine the bedding houses suddenly had a lot of business.
Yeah, well, we'll get to the odds in a moment, but I want you to run through the Bond kind of zeitgeist for me.
Yeah. The Bond zeitgeist, I know.
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Chapter 3: What makes Tom Francis a strong contender for Bond?
That's exactly how I refer to it as well, Alexia. I don't know how you perceive your relationship with Bond, but I know a huge number of people listening right now grew up with James Bond. And he, whether it was the books, the Fleming books, but obviously the films with the broccolis. as they're known, the owners and the custodians of James Bond.
When they sold, I'm going to say these terrible words, sold out, but I don't actually really mean that. Why wouldn't you bank Bond? But for the first time, of course, Amazon owns Bond.
But there's got to be an art in choosing a bond because there weren't many duds when you think about it, even though you can say, oh, this one's better than that one. They all did the job pretty well.
Yeah, they did. I mean, the shortest, I'm going to say shortest, but he was one of the tallest. And he was the only non-Brit, which we'll go into further shortly, to be cast as Bond was Australian George Lazenby, who has the record of only being Bond for one single film. And the only Bond that got married. and the only Bond that got married. That's interesting. I didn't know that.
He was also like a used car salesman and like a part-time actor. And this is an interesting thing when we look at the casting because everyone's bringing up some of these really, really well-known names as possibilities for auditioning for Bond. But there's quite a history of wanting complete unknowns. And in fact, Bond is the character, not the actor.
and they almost want to have someone that doesn't come with his own image and vibe.
Yeah, because, I mean, every time... I have been doing a little bit of research on this. I'm sure you have. The deep dive into the bonds. A few deep dives. And all the comments on the YouTube videos about who should be next. Henry Cavill! Henry Cavill! Henry Cavill! Like, Henry Cavill's Superman, and he's the guy in The Witcher, and he's got a persona already. Yeah.
So would people believe it when he transitioned... To Bond, you know, because if he's playing cards, he could maybe use his X-ray vision to find out what everybody's got.
I would like to argue that they are actors and that they can personify any character. But when you take someone, I couldn't agree more. Well, first of all, unfortunately, he's too old and we'll come back to the age situation in a minute. He's timeless. Look, you don't need to talk to me. I've had the absolute pleasure of sitting across a room from Henry Cavill on several occasions.
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Chapter 4: How has the Bond franchise evolved over the decades?
And even if we look back through the ages and, you know, at the hamminess of Roger Moore, and also, you know, Pierce was pretty hammy as well. In a glorious way. Yeah, in a glorious way. But of course they could act and they could embed themselves in it.
I think the reason that this conversation is coming up is purely because I believe, compared to the 70s, that our audiences are just more, they demand more, we're a little bit more sophisticated. Some of us are, I'm certainly not. About what we want.
And if you look at the Sam Mendes versions, also Martin Campbell, the New Zealand director who bought us the first Blonde Bond and did Casino Royale, arguably one of my favourite Bond films. We need to feel that grit and we needed to feel what he was going. There was a bruisedness to the Daniel Craig character.
But interestingly, we're not fixated on Daniel Craig as Bond. Because there's been this history of different actors. Unlike, say, Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, you couldn't really do it without him. No, agreed. So is it the film is bigger than the actor?
Kind of, except that the casting of this is headline news for months and months. We're obsessed about it. So you can argue that it is and it isn't. And each time it's been a recalibration of where is Bond going next. And we have coming in from stage left a phenomenal Denis Villeneuve, who is just an extraordinary filmmaker, way back to Sicario days. And of course, he does Dune.
And Arrival, one of my most emotionally crippling films I think I've ever watched. He's an extraordinary storyteller. We're bringing him into the franchise to relaunch another Bond. And for me, I'm excited at Definitely informs the casting process.
The extraordinary casting agent, Nina Gold, never done a Bond, but she's certainly been around for decades, is coming in to be part of this casting process. And it's going to be interesting to see what angle they're coming at.
I love the way you say we're bringing them in, like as if the Bond films are our films. They are. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. But it's been 50 years. What is it? That American thing when something's been a secret for 50 years and now it belongs to the world. It's our Bond films.
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