Many actors would love to play the role of James Bond, but just as many would jump at the chance to play a villain in the iconic franchise. While speaking with GQ, Paul Giamatti said that he would love to play a James Bond villain but has a few requests.
“I’d want an accent of some kind. I’d definitely want an accent,” Giamatti said. “It’d be nice to have an animal with me of some kind. Not necessarily a cat, but something. Any animal, maybe. Not a parrot or something. Something real. I don’t know. An accent, though, of some kind I’d have to have. A guy who’s all in fur coats and stuff like that? Be great.“
When one of our greatest actors says he wants to be a James Bond villain, I say sign him up! Paul Giamatti did recently get to live out his Bond villain dreams in the second season of 30 Coins on Max. The actor, who plays ruthless billionaire Christian Barbrow, told Bloody Disgusting that he signed on because of the Bond comparisons. “I was like, ‘Oh, it’s like a Bond film. Sure, I’ll do this, absolutely,’” Giamatti said. “Yeah, no question about it. He’s a Bond villain. This is my shot at playing a Bond villain. I’m never going to play a Bond villain other than this.“
With Daniel Craig calling it quits after No Time to Die, the long-running series will be reinvented yet again with a new actor taking on the role of James Bond.
Paul Giamatti can currently be seen in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, which has been receiving rave reviews. The film follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker (Dominic Sessa) — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). Our own Chris Bumbray called The Holdovers his favourite film of the year, and you can check out his review right here. The Holdovers is already available on PVOD, but will debut on the Peacock streaming service on December 29th.
Would you like to see Paul Giamatti as a James Bond villain?