Ben Whishaw: I would do James Bond again but completely new cast likely
The British actor played equipment outfitter Q in the last three 007 movies.
Ben Whishaw has said he would like to be in another James Bond film, though he questioned whether any of the old cast would return for future projects.
The 43-year-old British star played equipment outfitter Q in Spectre and Skyfall as well as in the last film with Daniel Craig as 007, 2021’s No Time To Die.
EON Productions has produced the last nine films in the spy series, and is yet to announce who will next take on the role of Bond.
Nowhere Boy actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Man Of Steel and The Witcher star Henry Cavill, Snowfall’s Damson Idris, Oppenheimer actor Cillian Murphy and Luther star Idris Elba have all previously been touted to play the secret agent.
Whishaw, also known for his roles in the Paddington movies and NHS drama This Is Going To Hurt, told BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “I don’t think I’m going to be in the next one. I think they’re going to start all over again, and with a new cast, a completely new cast, I think that’s my hunch, but I don’t know. I have no idea.”
When asked if he would like to be in another Bond film, he said: “I’d do it if they asked me, but I… think it might need a kind of new lease of life and a whole new group of people. I think it could be good for it, but if they asked me, I would do it, of course.”
He is currently starring in a production of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist drama Waiting For Godot alongside Gangs Of London actor Lucian Msamati.
Whishaw said the play had “such as profound impact on me that I changed my direction, I guess, in my life”, and voiced hoped young people could experience it as well.
He added: “I think that young people have all these questions, and there’s so much that feels incredibly frightening about the world in a very raw way when you’re young, and there’s something this play goes right into about those things unashamedly.
“Although it’s a play that’s quite bleak, there’s something just in… giving those things space, it feels strangely hopeful also.”
When asked if he would like to ban phones in theatres, Whishaw said: “Yeah. I mean, I don’t understand.. why it would be necessary.
“I mean, (you’ve)… paid to be there to watch something, so I find it bizarre, because it’s such a beautiful thing if you give yourself over to that experience, and although it may be uncomfortable, because we’re used to checking the damn thing all the time, I think there’s a deeper pleasure (in watching a play).”
Whishaw has won the Bafta leading actor prize for Richard II (The Hollow Crown), and This Is Going To Hurt, and picked up the best supporting actor gong for A Very English Scandal at the TV awards ceremony.
In films, he is also known for playing serial killer Jean-Baptiste Grenouille in Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer and English Romantic poet John Keats in Bright Star.
