10 Actors Who Would Make Great James Bond Replacements For Daniel Craig

Tom Hardy. Idris Elba. Hugh Jackman. Damian Lewis. These are the names that are currently being bandied around as producers line up prospective replacements for Daniel Craig when he jumps ship post-Spectre. At least, that's what we should probably assume at this point, considering Craig said in a recent interview that he'd rather slash his wrists than play Bond again. Craig's are large shoes to fill. After years of Pierce Brosnan rehashing the Connery model, Craig helped to reinvigorate the Bond franchise by making the character his distinctive own. Now, the actor has left 007 in unfamiliar territory - a land not just of absurd gadgets and rampant sexism, but a place of relative realism and grit. James Bond - and the movies around him - has always changed according to who's playing the part. So who producers pick now will help decide the path that Bond will take next. Putting aside the more obvious contenders for the moment, here are ten actors who could make great replacements for Bond and do something truly unique with the character. 10) Nikolaj Coster-Waldau Yes, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau's actually Danish, but come on, in Game of Thrones - could you really tell? For all Roger Moore's talk of Idris Elba not being "English-English" enough to play Bond (any ideas what he's getting at there?), only two out of the six Bonds have actually been English-English: Moore himself, and Craig. Otherwise, Bond has been played by a Scot, an Australian, a Welshman, and a man who spent his formative years in Ireland. If all it takes to play Bond is to pull off a convincing English accent, then old Nikolaj fits the bill. Not just because he's handsome, sophisticated, and a smooth-talker like Bond is in the traditional sense. In fact, no, it is all those things - but there's also the fact that Coster-Waldau can actually act whilst looking the part. He's a talented performer in his home country, who's just happened to have mostly ended up in dreck Stateside (GoT excepted). Norwegian thriller Headhunters is proof he could easily do Bond, though. 9) Matthias Schoenaerts Like Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Matthias Schoenaerts isn't native to the UK - he was born and raised in Belgium - but he does accents convincingly enough that you'd never be able to tell. He's played French, German, and American without anybody noticing the difference, while in Far From the Madding Crowd he played it convincingly English enough that they had him portraying a guy called Gabriel Oak. Personality-wise, meanwhile, Schoenaerts encapsulates the best of Bond. He's been called the 'Belgian Brando,' possessing the good looks, charm and searing acting talent to earn the comparison. He's also a malleable, Tom Hardy-esque method man, bulking up, slimming down, and transforming completely according to what the role asks of him. Matthias Schoenaerts could be whatever 007 producers want Bond to be next, and luckily he also happens to be the same age Daniel Craig was when he was cast to play Bond. 8) Clive Owen Daniel Craig was - when he was first introduced as 007 in Casino Royale - a fresher, younger Bond, a spy just starting out his career with MI6. So now that Craig's Bond has become older and creakier (see Skyfall), why not carry on down that road with his successor? Why not keep the character as an older, more world-weary spy? Why not, at last, hire Clive Owen? It would lend the franchise an interesting dynamic and, crucially, allow erstwhile Brosnan-replacement favorite Owen to have another crack at playing the character. Audiences are used to their stars being a little older now (hell, look at Brad Pitt (51), Tom Cruise (52), and Liam Neeson (62) regularly cleaning up at the box office), so it couldn't hurt that much to have Owen - rejuvenated by The Knick - playing Bond at 51. Lord knows he's still a great fit for the part. 7) Dominic West Fun fact: Dominic West could have been Bond a decade ago, if he hadn't pulled out of the running for Casino Royale when he heard the rumor that Brosnan was returning. It's easy to see why producers were pursuing West: he's cool and confident like Ian Fleming wrote Bond to be, but there's also a roughness to West that would have suited the new, diamond-in-the-rough take on Bond that producers were going for with Casino Royale onwards. Now in his mid-40s (and actually younger than Daniel Craig), there's still time for West to take on Bond and bring that certain stiff-upper-lipped British humor with him. God knows Daniel Craig is many things, but he isn't particularly funny - even in The Wire, dark as it was, West managed to bring a brevity to proceedings that would suit a new Bond. Plus, the guy's got a killer plummy accent. 6) Chiwetel Ejiofor Idris Elba would make a great black James Bond - but he's not the only one. As the debate continues over what race 007 should be, those in the favorable camp have come to typically cite Elba as the favorite to be the first 'black Bond,' without considering that - if it were decided that Bond could be played by a star of any color - it would open the field up to so many other choices. And hey, the Oscar-nominated Chiwetel Ejiofor is available. Ejiofor was asked to play what is now Andrew Scott's part in Spectre, which doesn't seem fitting for an actor of his caliber. He turned the part down, which makes sense considering he could do stellar work as the man in the main gig. There wasn't a great deal for him to do in the film, but even in his most recent movie The Martian, Ejiofor was a touch of class. Give him more to do - as in the likes of 12 Years a Slave - and he's even better. 5) Oscar Isaac It's sad to say, but any actor considered 'not white enough' is probably still going to find it hard to convince people they can play Bond for a long time yet, which likely rules Ejiofor out. And yeah, Oscar Isaac - as a Guatemalan-born American - is probably on paper similarly not "English-English" enough to pass the Roger Moore test. But consider this: Isaac is not just one of the best young actors around - he's also played just about every nationality there is. In his career, the former Llewyn Davis has played Russian, Cuban, Middle-Eastern, Mexican, Welsh-Italian, Colombian, and American-Polish. Oh, and he's also played an English monarch. Anyone arguing about Bond's ethnicity will be too confused to be angry about the casting of this guy, perhaps the most chameleonic lead actor of his generation, and someone who's just as adept at playing charming, calculating, and occasionally ruthless when the part calls for it. 4) Charlie Hunnam Perhaps it was his solid seven-year stint running the dramatic gauntlet on Sons of Anarchy that did it, but Charlie Hunnam has of late quietly turned into a solid British actor. In the early days, it's safe to say Hunnam coasted by on his looks alone, without ever really stretching himself. Now, aged 35, he's finally become the dependable lead that execs were pushing him to be back in his 20s. Now no longer just a pretty face, he's good enough to be Bond. The fact that Hunnam was originally cast as Christian Grey suggests the producers on Fifty Shades saw some essential Bondian traits in him: the dangerous charm, the borderline-sociopathic level of threat, the ability to look the absolute business in a suit. Luckily, Hunnam dropped out of that franchise, meaning he's now free and the right age - 35 - to begin again in a new, more critically-acclaimed series. 3) Sam Riley In 2007, Sam Riley gave a barnstorming performance as Joy Division's Ian Curtis in Anton Corbijn's biopic Control; big things seemed to be on the horizon for the actor. Since then, however, Riley's career has stalled - not because he suddenly lost his innate raw acting talent, but because a series of bad role choices have left him in the Hollywood doldrums. Still, stranger things have happened than a once-promising talent staging a major comeback in a single, career-defining role. Riley's not just outwardly right for Bond (he was a model before he got into all this acting malarky), but he's also got the brooding intensity of classic Bond and wounded fragility of Craig. After almost a decade of barely getting the chance to show what he's made of, Riley must be more than ready to take on a significant leading man role by now. Bond could be it. 2) Colin Farrell A few years ago, Colin Farrell wouldn't have gotten this nomination. Not after years of him coasting through turgid film after turgid film, after all the Alexanders and the Daredevils. Lately, however, Farrell has been on a hot streak - so funny and affecting in In Bruges and The Lobster, and so mesmerizing in the otherwise mixed bag that was True Detective's second season. The truth is, Farrell has grown to be a real talent in recent years. Obviously he's always had the looks, but of late Farrell has acquired the depth to play the part, too. He's still infuriatingly wayward when it comes to choosing projects - even after In Bruges, this guy still did many, many shitty or middling movies until he landed on another good one - so it would be nice to see Farrell tied down to a franchise that has real quality legs to it now, and that could showcase him at his best. 1) Matthew Goode Maybe it's his sporadic contempt for the industry (he called romantic comedy Leap Year - of which he was co-lead - "turgid") that's seen Matthew Goode's career go seemingly backwards, from topline star in a superhero movie (Watchmen) to supporting actor for television. No offence to TV, but Goode shouldn't be having to carve out a career on the small screen in The Good Wife and Downton Abbey when he's talented enough to be a major movie star, and when he's - judged by his finest work - good enough for Bond. Goode's developed something of a reputation for being difficult, but that didn't stop 007's producers casting awkward before (ahem, George Lazenby). Plus, in front of the camera, Goode's perfect for the part: in films like The Lookout, A Single Man, and Stoker, he's unfailingly suave, assured and dangerous. There's always a certain gleeful sadism to Goode's best performances that Bond hasn't had since Connery.