Mark Strong Was Almost a ‘James Bond’ Villain, and He Would’ve Killed It

Mark Strong has established himself as one of the finest bad guy actors in the business, lending his gravelly voice and glowering gaze to any number of villains across film and television. Not all of his roles have been antagonistic, but his skill with the darker sides of film acting has made him a recognizable figure for over 30 years. Currently appearing in the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers, he’s not exactly a bad guy, but his prior filmography might make viewers question his true nature.

But for all his villainous roles, one particular gig eluded him, though not for lack of trying. Earlier in his career, Strong missed out on an opportunity to play that most coveted of bad guys, a James Bond villain. Though the reason he didn’t make the grade had less to do with his skills as an actor and more to do with some rather unfortunate external circumstances.

Mark Strong’s Brush with ‘Bond’ Infamy

In an appearance on the British panel show There’s Something About Movies back in 2021, Strong told the unfortunate true story of how he failed to land a villain role in one of the Pierce Brosnan-starring James Bond movies. He doesn’t specify which movie it was for, but the night before the audition, Strong went out drinking with a friend to celebrate and ended up overdoing it a little. Despite a nasty hangover, he decided to go to the audition anyway, though things quickly fell apart. Strong forgot his lines and generally left a pretty bad impression on the movie’s casting team.

While probably every actor has had a similar experience at one time or another, what makes the story extra ironic is that the friend he went out drinking with the night before was none other than Daniel Craig. Craig wouldn’t make his first appearance as James Bond until Casino Royale in 2006, so there likely wasn’t any sabotage involved, but blowing an audition for a Bond movie by drinking too much with a future James Bond is undeniably pretty funny. At the very least, it made for a good anecdote for a TV appearance.

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While the young actor was undoubtedly disappointed by the experience, Strong also made sure to say that he learned something from his hungover Bond villain mishap. He doesn’t really elaborate on what lesson he took from it, but “don’t get trashed the night before a big audition” seems like a decent guess. In any case, things worked out pretty well for Strong, as he went on to a fantastic career, Bond villain or not.

Mark Strong’s Villainous Credentials

Really, not casting Strong in a Bond movie was more the franchise’s loss than his, because there’s no doubt he would have made an excellent Bond villain. The actor has tackled a wide array of memorable tough guys and bad guys throughout his career, in all manner of genres, from sci-fi and fantasy and gritty crime drama. He played a crime boss’s assassin in Guy Ritchie’s Revolver in 2005, a spaceship captain driven mad in Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, a vicious gangster in Matthew Vaughan’s Kick-Ass, and managed to get through the Ryan Reynolds-starring Green Lantern with his dignity largely intact, even under some heavy-duty prosthetics. And that’s just from a roughly six-year period of his career.

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Strong is the kind of actor who can calibrate his performance to fit the needs of the project, feeling equally at home in Ritchie’s flashy gangster tales as in high-concept sci-fi like 2012’s John Carter or war dramas like 1917. His versatility as a villain has made him one of the most in-demand actors around, even if it’s sometimes made him inclined to be typecast (a quick author’s note: I had the opportunity to see a special premiere screening of the first two episodes of Strong’s short-lived AMC series Low Winter Sun with a cast Q&A, and he was nothing but warm and gracious with the audience, in a stark contrast to his onscreen persona).

Strong may have blown his chance at becoming a part of the immortal James Bond franchise, but it certainly didn’t slow down his career, which has been going steadily since the end of the last century. Arguably, he avoided the same fate as his old pal Daniel Craig, whose time as Bond continues to define his public image, even as he’s done some great work since leaving the role. Strong’s hungover actor’s nightmare, those many years ago, seemed to have taught him a lesson to take his craft seriously, which has paid dividends ever since. Sometimes, the hardest lessons are the most important ones to learn.