I have no problem with Rege-Jean Page, the 34 year-old Bridgerton and Gray Man costar, becoming the next James Bond.
Well, maybe I do. I wasn’t knocked out by his one-note Gray Man performance, and Page is kind of slender and small-shouldered and lacks the necessary Sean Connery-like brawn, no? If he were to get into a brutal fight with Robert Shaw aboard the Orient Express (Istanbul to Venice), nobody but nobody would bet on him winning. He’s a bit willowy.
Just for the pure euphoria of it, I would love it if they write the next Bond so he’s not in touch with his delicate inner feelings, but would regress into a courtly, well-educated, Connery-like hound. Connery’s Bond was polite and deferential with women, but he was also a caddish, semi-entitled, self-amused sexist swaggerer. Which is what everyone liked that about him.
A friend says “alpha men can’t be eliminated from film or film will die” — it’s that simple.
Honestly? I say put aside the idea of a BIPOC James Bond and cast Jake Picking. You can dismiss the idea but Picking has the goods — 31, good-looking, muscular, big-chested, nice jawline. All he lacks in the British accent, but that can be learned.
And may I say one other thing? The last time I checked James Bond was dead — killed by British missiles at the end of No Time To Die. I realize that at the end of the credit crawl it didn’t say “007 will be back” but that “James Bond will return.” Which made no sense, of course. How would that work unless the Bond films are going to become period pieces, set in the ’60s or ’70s or whatever? What’s the point of killing a franchise figurehead if you’re just going to bring the character back in a couple of years, like nothing ever happened?
