The worst James Bond audition of all time, according to the actor who did it: “It is what it is”
Whenever the role of James Bond becomes available, the casting net is spread across all corners of the globe and draws in dozens of prospective candidates, many of whom are fully aware going in that they don’t have a hope in hell of being cast as cinema’s most famous secret agent.
Still, there’s no harm in trying. The process is gearing up to begin all over again now that Amazon has wrestled creative control away from longtime stewards Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson with a fat stack of cash, and it’ll be interesting to see if any future superstars end up securing a screen test.
After all, Henry Cavill was the runner-up behind Daniel Craig when Casino Royale was searching for its 007, and he’s built a decent career for himself. Matthew Rhys is another name who went in front of the cameras, only to blow his screen test with an ill-timed joke.
Sam Worthington was in the mix, who’s since taken top billing in two of the three highest-grossing movies in cinema history, and he was glad he didn’t get the nod. The internet has a funny way of dredging things up that are better off staying buried, though, as Antony Starr discovered when his Casino Royale audition tape resurfaced online.
At the time, the New Zealander only had a handful of film and television credits under his belt, and his star didn’t start burning brightly until 2019 when The Boys became one of the most-watched shows on streaming, although his four-season stint on Banshee did win him plenty of admirers.
“My metaphor for that was like throwing a baitless hook into a very large pond, knowing you’re not going to catch the fish,” he told Josh Horowitz. “They were dragnetting the globe, and I was just one of the little minnows in there that got caught in the net. I sort of went in and did that reading. It’s not very good, but it’s reflective of where I was at.”
Starr panned his audition and savaged his abilities as an actor at the time, but he reserved special embarrassment for his delivery of the franchise’s most iconic lines. “I mean, we all start somewhere, so it is what it is,” he shared. “It is one of the worst readings of ‘Bond, James Bond’ you’ll ever see.”
Starr wasn’t even the first New Zealand native to bomb their 007 audition either. Sam Neill was forced into testing by his representatives, and he too admitted that he was awful. Countryman Karl Urban was also in the running for Casino Royale but didn’t make the final round of auditionees, so at least he wasn’t alone.
Some actors just aren’t meant to play Bond, and Starr knew he was one of them, which didn’t stop him from auditioning and then cringing at the memory of his brief flirtation with the role.
