Henry Golding Says James Bond Should Stay A White British Man
The "Another Simple Favor" star doesn't think James Bond needs to be "reimagined."
Henry Golding’s name has been tossed around for years as a possible next Bond. He’s British, he’s got the charm, and he’s undeniably camera-ready. But while the world debates who should step into Daniel Craig’s shoes, Golding is stepping back from the idea that James Bond needs to be reimagined at all.
“I don’t think there should be a pressure to change the ethnicity of a character like Bond,” he told Radio Times. “I think sometimes it is good to pay justice to the source material, and how Ian Fleming saw this idea of Bond.”
In other words, Bond should stay white and preferably British, if you ask former 007 Pierce Brosnan. Speaking to The Telegraph, Brosnan said it was a “given” that Craig’s successor should be British. His comments came after Amazon took creative control of the franchise from longtime producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. “I lamented it,” Brosnan said. “But it’s been coming for some time.”
However, Golding wasn’t dismissive of the role, far from it. “Obviously, it’s a privilege to be in any conversation for a property like that,” he said, later adding, “Sign me up.” But he also offered an alternative. “There’s plenty more characters in that universe to play and explore,” he said, floating the idea of playing 008 instead, calling it a “lucky Chinese number.”
It’s a nuanced stance, especially in an industry obsessed with symbolic casting, and Golding isn’t the only one pushing back on what some see as performative progress. At Cannes earlier this month, Halle Berry (herself a Bond girl in Die Another Day) was asked whether James Bond should ever be a woman.
“I don’t know if 007 really should be a woman,” she said. “I mean, you know, in 2025 it's nice to say, oh, she should be a woman, but I don't really know if I think that's the right thing to do.”
Berry wasn’t rejecting the idea of strong female leads. She wanted Jinx, her NSA agent character, to get her own franchise. And she wasn’t alone in that thinking. Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, and Gemma Arterton all made similar points. Don’t retrofit Bond into a box he was never meant to be in and write something new. Something made for women, not recycled from men.
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