Henry Cavill Commented On Being James Bond Already. Here’s What He Said

There has been an explosive finale in the debate between Amazon and Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli over the fate of James Bond, where Amazon/MGM has now grabbed the rights in full with the original IP owners stepping back.

This led Jeff Bezos to openly ask who the next James Bond should be, and far and away there was an answer shouted with a deafening yell: Henry Cavill.

Cavill has attracted a legion of superfans between roles as Superman in the DCEU, The Witcher on Netflix and a host of other parts, and as a tall, dark and handsome action star, he seems a likely candidate, provided the plan is not to pivot to a more diverse actor in terms of race or even gender, which would no doubt cause some sort of internet meltdown.

A question, however, is if Cavill actually wants it.

It’s not an insane thing to ask, given that committing to being Bond for an indefinite number of movies is a huge career move. The last Bond, Daniel Craig, played the role for 15 years from 2006 to 2021 across five movies. He was of course able to do many projects in between, but it’s still a lot. Cavill also has a host of projects he’s deep into now, his existing connections to Amazon trying to get a huge Warhammer 40,000 universe started, far and away his favorite nerdy IP, and now he’s committed to a Voltron movie, also for Amazon.

The thing is, before this, Henry Cavill has already been asked about Bond, and despite all the complications yes, he’s interested. Here’s the quote from him on the Rich Eisen show almost a year ago where he was promoting his film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare where he played a character that James Bond was partially based-on, funnily enough. But Bond himself?

CAVILL: “I have no idea, all I’ve got to go off is the rumors. The same information you have. Maybe I’m too old now, maybe I’m not, we’ll see. It’s up to Barbara Broccoli and Mike Wilson, but we’ll see what their plans are.

EISEN: “I mean you’re playing the guy Bond is based on.”

CAVILL: “Seems like a good first step, yeah?

So, obviously things have changed, and it’s not up to Broccoli and Wilson anymore, it’s fully up to Amazon. An Amazon which already has a clearly forged relationship with Cavill, as evidenced by those other projects, and it certainly seems like he’d be on board if things swung his way. As for being too old, Cavill is currently 47. Daniel Craig was 37 when Casino Royale was filmed and again, held the role for 15 years. If Cavill started tomorrow and he ran for 15 years, he’d be 62 when it was done, provided the timeline is the same. That seems…actually fine, but we don’t know if Amazon really does want to go younger. A common name passed around for the role besides Cavill has been Aaron Taylor-Johnson, an English actor who is 34. Another is Taron Egerton, 35.

Cavill already previously auditioned for Bond opposite Daniel Craig way back when, but one issue then was that he was too young. But he impressed producers all the same. Casino Royale director Martin Campbell:

“He looked great. His acting was tremendous. And look, if Daniel didn’t exist, Henry would have made an excellent Bond. He looked terrific, he was in great physical shape…very handsome, very chiseled. He just looked a little young at that time back then.”

In the end, Cavill has my vote. It’s too perfect of casting not to try, and I think him as Bond would be a smash-hit box office draw. We’ll see what Amazon does.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.