Although endless ink has been spilled over Idris Elba’s Bond 26 prospects, there’s one secret factor that few analyses of his potential in the James Bond role have noted. It takes a lot to earn an actor the coveted part of super-spy James Bond. As proven by the long search for Daniel Craig’s replacement, the iconic gig is not easily won, even if a star has hype on their side.
For years, fans have argued that Idris Elba should take on the role in Bond’s next movie, although fellow blockbuster stars Tom Hardy and Henry Cavill have also been major contenders for the part. Bond 26 needs to change a lot about the long-running series, and some fans feel that Elba’s charismatic screen presence would be a welcome switch-up after Craig’s gruff, self-serious take on the role. However, even Elba’s fans sometimes fail to note one secret ingredient that makes the actor ideal for the role.
At 49 years old, Elba would be at least 50 shooting his first James Bond movie and, as such, would be older already than any first-time actor in the role. His closest comparison would be Pierce Brosnan, who played the part from the age of 42 until 49, and Roger Moore, who began his 007 tenure at 45 and ended it at 59. Both Brosnan and Moore’s older Bonds brought arch, campy charm to the role precisely because their advanced ages made the character a little more inherently silly and less self-serious. This sort of winking self-awareness is exactly what Bond needs after Craig’s hyper-gritty, grounded 007, and Elba’s age means that the actor would be guaranteed to bring both levity and gravitas to the part.
An older Bond actor is a major boon to the role since it means that the character’s co-workers can treat 007 as an institution and thus offer room for self-referential in-jokes. M’s classic dismissal of Brosnan’s Bond as a misogynistic dinosaur from the Cold War wouldn’t have worked with a younger actor in the role, and it is these sorts of jibes that make Idris Elba a better James Bond fit than, for example, Rege-Jean Page or Cavill. Part of Bond’s appeal is the character’s indestructibility and casting an older actor in the part forces viewers to wonder what it is like for the super-spy to still be around and working when so many of his former colleagues are dead, retired, or otherwise MIA, a rich vein of pathos that Elba could tap into much like Moore and Brosnan before him.
More than anything, though, casting an older actor as Bond will allow the franchise to bring back its campy sense of humor since there’s something inherently funny about a man in his fifties knocking out henchmen half his age. Both Moore and Brosnan knew this and played into it, and Craig’s dour, humorless Bond was comparatively ill-equipped for goofy one-liners and silly quips. With Craig moving on from the part, Bond 26 should make James Bond fun again, and an older actor like Idris Elba bringing a welcome element of silliness to the series would be perfectly suited to this mission.