Idris Elba: Black James Bond was never 'realistic' possibility

An actor who has long been rumored as the next James Bond has finally put his cards on the table.

During an interview in GQ, Idris Elba stopped talking about how hates interviews long enough to discuss the future of the iconic franchise.

'In realistic terms, some markets just don't go for that.'

The 53-year-old Brit began by addressing the more than a decade of speculation that he would take over the role from Daniel Craig — making him the first-ever black 007.

"It was never legit. It was always just a rumor," Elba told the outlet.

License to chill

The London-born Elba, whose mother and father hail from Ghana and Sierra Leone, respectively, said that fans simply took the rumor and ran with it.

"I've always felt that it's not a realistic thing," Elba continued. "James Bond was written how he was written for a reason. But I was complimented by it."

Elba suggested that for many fans, Bond's white, Anglo-Saxon ancestry is part of what makes him Bond.

"[S]ome markets just don't go for that," he said. "Bond is big all over the world. And [audiences] won't [all] go for a black male, an African male, playing Bond. That's not what they like in their culture. Period."

While Elba — whose full legal name is Idrissa Akuna Elba — said he was not opposed to other attempts to revamp Bond to appeal to modern audiences, he said he would draw the line at anything "woke."

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Mike Marsland/Getty Images/Omega

Shaken, not stirred

"Bond is so unrealistic, so a hint of reality is good, but let's not try and make it woke," Elba told the magazine. "I think you've got to be pure to what it is: escapism. Don't try and answer the world's taste. Just be Bond."

Elba is far from the only A-lister to come to Bond's defense. Last year, while doing press for "The Thursday Murder Club" with former Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren shut down his musing that it was time for a woman to take on the role. "I'm such a feminist, but James Bond has to be a guy. You can't have a woman. It just doesn't work," said Mirren.

Brosnan, who played the spy in four films from 1995 to 2002, had previously suggested the recasting in September 2019. "Get out of the way, guys, and put a woman up there," Brosnan said at the time.

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Keith Hamshere/Getty Images

Agents of change

Much of the impetus to change Bond's sex or ethnicity seems to come from the white males who have played him.

In 2008, just two years into his tenure as Bond, Daniel Craig opined that the next actor to play the spy should be black.

"If we can have a black U.S. president, we can have a black James Bond," Craig said after Barack Obama's election, per the Daily Mail.

Craig, who went on to play Bond for another 13 years, presumably meant when he was finished with the role.

The most recent actor to portray James Bond was Irishman Patrick Gibson, who portrayed and voiced the video game character of Bond in 007 First Light (2026).

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