What if Bond actors starred in different films?

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Just for a little bit of fun, let’s imagine the six actors who have portrayed Bond in EON in different Bond films. What would have been different and what would it have been meant for the series as a whole? I wanted to go through all the realistic scenarios that could’ve happened and share some of my own thoughts.

Sean Connery

What if…Connery was in OHMSS?

I don’t know if we would have gotten the masterpiece we got with OHMSS, such as not having Diana Rigg as Tracy. But I don’t think the producers would’ve omitted the love story from the novel. I also think Connery, while never really showing much of a emotional vulnerable side to Bond, would’ve been able to pull off that side of Bond very well. He’s a great actor after all and it seems he did want to take character into that direction actually around the time of YOLT, which makes it ironic that he just happened to miss out on the most character driven Bond film pre-Craig. Also, DAF would have been a very different movie if it followed up from OHMSS and starred Connery again and probably would have had a revenge angle.

What if…Connery continued after DAF?

Connery at his peak would’ve been fantastic during the Moore era and especially the early films like LALD and TWMTGG seems like they were written more with the idea of Bond in the image of Connery. He could’ve technically continued all the way to AVTAK like Moore, but…there are a few issues. Connery during DAF looked out of shape and didn’t bring the same level of performance as he did in his earlier films, whereas Moore (while older than Connery) had much more youthful energy around this time and worked better as Bond at this time in my opinion. Also, if Connery had continued for that long it might have been impossible to ever replace him and the series might not have survived and continued to have success as it did.

George Lazenby

What if Lazenby…accepted his 7 movie contract?

This would have meant that Lazenby would’ve continued until FYEO. A perfect movie to bring his era full circle. DAF would’ve defenitely benifitted from having him in it as the movie would’ve been the sequel OHMSS needed. Savalas and Ferzetti would’ve probably returned as Blofeld and Draco as well and the movie would have been revenge driven. After that I think he fits perfectly in the Moore era, even in something like MR, as I think Lazenby was able to do the comic side of Bond well and he could’ve grown as the character, but defenitely not always as brilliant as Moore with the fun (obviously).

What if Lazenby…went beyond his 7 movie contract?

He technically could’ve continued even far beyond that well until LTK and still be fit enough for Bond. Imagine his era coming full circle with LTK harkening back to OHMSS?

Roger Moore

What if Moore…was the first cinematic Bond?

Moore in DN. I have often imagined what it would look like. Of course he was considered for the role at the time and there might be various reasons why he didn’t get the part then (not available, too pretty boyish looking at the time), but looking at his performance in the Saint I think he would’ve been brilliant as well. Would he have been as good as Connery and would it have been the same success? Not sure, but I think it would have still been a good sucess as these movies really were something special and Moore would be able to establish the cinematic character with his charisma. An often overlooked aspect of Moore is that his Bond might have been the most versitile of all (maybe along with Brosnan). He could play a harder-edged (TMWTGG) or more emotionally involved (FYEO, AVTAK) Bond perfectly if the script allowed for it. He could play the harder-edged style of FRWL, but also the outlandishess of YOLT and even emotional and vulnerable in OHMSS. I think it’s certain Moore would have stayed on longer than Connery did as he was easier with handling and enjoying the fame of the part, though the finances might have been an issue like it was for Connery, but Moore would’ve handled it in a more quiet way. I always felt Moore would’ve personally liked to continue forever as long as he was fit and youthful looking enough. He could’ve continued from DN well until AVTAK technically , though maybe until MR would have been more realistic. The problem would have been similair to Connery though. It would be almost impossible to recast him after so many films and years. Maybe some time would’ve needed to pass before the role could be recast, rather than immediately going to the next actor. I think it is possible we would’ve gotten Brosnan eventually, as he does have some of those similair traditional and lighthearted qualities to Moore and a lot people would’ve accepted him because of that, but it probably would’ve been quite some years, maybe like 10 years until the producers would recast the role.

What if Moore…was in TLD?

This is a personal thing for me, but I honestly don’t care about age or age gaps with romantic interests in movies. For me an actor is never too old to play Bond, as long as the movie itself complements it and the actor looks fit enough to do what he does on screen. Which maybe was a bit of the problem with AVTAK, which OP handled better. With a few tweaks I think TLD is defenitely a film where I could see Moore as Bond and still have some of those more harder-edged qualities.

Timothy Dalton

What if Dalton…was in OHMSS?

Yes, I know he was approached, but this is such an out-there scenario. I don’t think the producers were realistically going to cast Dalton that early. He simply would’ve been too boyish, especially for a movie that was supposed to be a continuation of what came before. I heard he was also approached for DAF, I’m not sure if this is true, but again too early for Dalton to be a convincing Bond.

What if Dalton…started with FYEO?

This seems to be a more realistic scenario. Again, similair to Connery declining OHMSS, it’s kind of ironic how Dalton declined FYEO because of the direction of the series, while FYEO is one of the more down to earth, harder-edged, emotionally involved films of the series and perfect for the kind of Bond Dalton wanted to portray. Can you imagine Dalton in the scene where he kills Locque? I think generally all the 80’s movies perfectly fit Dalton’s strenghts, as the series was starting to go back to a more down to earth, serious style already anyway. TLD is not that different in tone to OP or AVTAK for example. Maybe only OP does have a few things that are very specifically Moore, but still Dalton would have been great and it probably would have been adjusted to Dalton’s strengths.

What if Dalton…continued beyond LTK?

Obviously this is what the original plan was. We of course have the famous script for Bond 17 titled The Property of Lady which would’ve been released in 1991 or 1992 and it would have been great if we had another movie between LTK and GE with Dalton. As for beyond that, I love GE as it is, but Dalton would’ve been brilliant in it as well and he was actually involved until very late in pre-production and approved of the script. He also would’ve been great in TND and TWINE and he could technically continue until DAD. But I think somewhere until TND or TWINE would be more realistic. Also, he might have even declined for DAD as that movie defenitely goes against his particular idea of Bond.

Pierce Brosnan

What if Brosnan…was in TLD?

I am sure Brosnan would have been amazing in TLD. Same as with Moore, I think you could have had Brosnan in it without the need to change too much and it would still have been great. Yes there are defenitely some particular qualities Dalton brought to the part, but Brosnan would’ve brought different but equally great qualities to the film. It also would’ve been interesting what LTK would’ve looked like if Brosnan started with TLD. We probably would’ve gotten a very different film as it seems LTK was really tailored to go into the direction Dalton wanted. Though I could defenitely see Brosnan pull it off and it’s not like we haven’t seen this darker version of Bond throughout Brosnan’s actual run (TWINE is a perfect example).

What if Brosnan…continued after DAD?

Same as with Lazenby after OHMSS and Dalton after LTK, Brosnan not continuing after DAD is one of those three moments in the series that still frustrates me to this day. He deserved another film and he was up for it, maybe even two. Not sure if that would have been CR or something different. But looking back at the Craig era in hindsight and the series not really doing anything special with the reboot angle, they might as well have kept Brosnan around and omitted the whole ‘‘Bond begins’’ angle as it doesn’t add a lot to the story in my opinion. The only problem I have with Brosnan in CR, is that we already had the twist of a woman betraying Bond twice during the previous films (Elektra in TWINE and Miranda in DAD), so it might have been a bit repetitive to have it again with Vesper in CR. For me ideally, Brosnan would’ve starred as Bond in 2004 in a movie SF-like movie that really goes into the character’s history and legacy and has a more down-to-earth tone, before getting the CR we got in 2006.

Daniel Craig

What if Craig…started earlier?

Yes, I know, there was no way of Craig starting earlier. But what if Brosnan stopped earlier and the producers just cast Craig to do TWINE or DAD and step into the ‘‘original timeline’’? Would he have been able to play Bond in a more traditional sense or did his quality lie in something that was very different? Or maybe the producers would have decided at an earlier stage that they wanted to reboot the series with CR. Maybe after TWINE, since they got the rights back to the novel in 1999. It might have been a totally different movie, might have been very similair. I think it not coming after DAD would’ve made a huge difference. One positive would have been that Craig at a younger age would’ve been a bit more convincing as a starting 007 and they actually could’ve done more with the reboot angle in subsequent movies, rather than SF making him an old dog.

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Connery

If Connery had been in OHMSS, maybe it would’ve made more money, been better received by critics and convinced Connery there was enough left in the role for an actor to stick around. But for that to happen, it would have had to follow TB or even GF (as once planned) since YOLT was the straw that broke the camel’s back for him. It would have to have been directed by Peter Hunt, who was the one pushing for a faithful adaptation of the novel. Harry and Cubby would’ve had to go along with that plan. Someone as charismatic as Diana Rigg would had to have been cast. And on and on. Which is to say, it’s pretty hard to imagine.

Had it happened, though, maybe Sean would’ve stayed on longer, making it that much harder to finally replace him and maybe ensuring the series would end when he left, especially if he stuck around long enough to adapt all the Fleming titles.

Lazenby

Had he stuck around, DAF might’ve been very different. Maybe that film’s concerted effort to make us forget OHMSS ever happened wasn’t driven so much by the quality or plot developments of OHMSS itself but rather the sense that “we goofed with that last guy, but look we got the original back to let’s have a mulligan.”

If he’d stuck around, there’d have been more incentive to continue “his” story by dealing with the fallout from Tracy’s death. Maybe, given that it was the age of “Dirty Harry,” “The French Connection” and “Get Carter” we’d even have seen a turn towards a darker, grittier approach. But I doubt it. Throughout Bond history the arc bends towards the fantastical and I’m pretty sure we’d have gotten more or less the films we actually ended up with. Whether Laz could’ve risen to the occasion by developing on-screen charisma to match Connery or Moore will remain a mystery.

Moore

I love Roger but if he’d been cast in Doctor No I have serious doubts the series would’ve had the impact it did. Connery captured attention because he was a “British” character who looked anything but. He didn’t sound British, he was too dark to look British and he was too “tough” to fit (at least the Yanks’) mental stereotype of what a British character was. He looked “ethnic” in a non-specific way that helped sell him all over the world, and he had an animal sex appeal that gave everything a subversive edge. Roger in contrast was inoffensively handsome (pretty, even), mannered and cultured. If he’d delivered that wine critique to Colonel Smithers and M, we’d have thought, “Well, of course he knows wines, he’s an aristocrat” and not, “Ha! He’s sending up those elite snobs with their own pretentious goobly-de-gook!”

That said, if he’d started in the role, and if the series had clicked with audiences, I think he’d have stayed with it until age forced him to retire, as it did in our universe. But it may have come even later than AVTAK because EON would’ve realized the series might not survive without him. He might’ve been like Harrison Ford playing Indy into his 80s because no one can imagine another actor in the role.

Dalton

I can see Dalton starting with FYEO. Or rather I’d like to see it, much as I enjoy the real FYEO. But I can’t imagine him hanging around for very long regardless of when he started. I think Bond for him was a bit of a challenge as an actor – how do you infuse humanity into a character like that – but once he felt he’d cracked that nut, I think he’d lose interest and move on.

Brosnan

If he’d started with TLD, I think we’d have gotten another Roger Moore film with a younger Roger Moore. It would’ve been interesting to find out if what seemed to be the Bond fatigue of late 80s audiences was more a case being tired of Roger specifically or tired of the entire Bond formula. Regardless I don’t think LTK would’ve happened at all with anyone but Dalton in the role.

I’d say I can’t imagine Brosnan having anywhere left to go after the insane excesses of DAD, but Roger did come back down to Earth after MR, so who knows. I think a retooling would’ve been necessary but instead of going “back to the beginning” with CR, maybe it would’ve gone in the other direction and shown a jaded Bond dealing with the advance of years and the weariness that comes with it. Actually, though, I think of all the actors, Brosnan’s Bond is the most uniformly and consistently what it is: people knew exactly what they would get with his films and there was little if any variation. Given the desire to try a dramatic change of course, it was probably less of a gamble to go with a new face than try to convince us BrozzaBond could be anything other than what we expected.

There seems little point in imagining Craig starting earlier. He only works as a complete reinvention of the character, and wouldn’t have fit anywhere else in the series. Besides, EON had to wait for Jason Bourne to show up and point the way.

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The fact that EON was really pushing to make OHMSS ever since finishing GF leads me to believe that they were always planning on staying at least relatively close to the novel and to its core story. Why else would they want to adapt the novel so early on? Then again the way YOLT was adapted from novel to movie remains one of the strangest things this series has ever done (and I love YOLT the movie as is) and maybe if things turned out differently they might have completely scrapped the emotional core of OHMSS for the movie adaptation, especially if they felt it didn’t fit the way Connery’s Bond was established. One thing is for certain, I think we are very lucky we got the OHMSS we got. Everything just kind of came together perfectly at the right time, even if its story was never properly continued.

I think Connery would have stayed longer if OHMSS allowed for more character development over the course of multiple films. But I don’t think he would have stayed longer than let’s say TMWTGG, even with a significant salary raise. He had difficulty handling the fame that came with the part, but of course he might still change his mind over time and come back like he did in NSNA and the FRWL video game. Funnily enough, while I think peak Connery is as perfect as Bond can be, I defenitely think it was overall for the better that he quit the part early on to ensure the series could go on like it did.

I think so too, but DAF would have been radically different, especially considering Peter Hunt would have directed it if Lazenby starred in it. Who knows though, maybe DAF with Lazenby would have been such a success and audiences would have accepted him better and with the direction the series would have been going they would continue that for the next film or two. But eventually they would defenitely go to the lighter fantastical approach like they actually did in the 70’s and whether Lazenby could have carried Bond through that era is really difficult to say, but I think he could’ve grown in the part.

I completely agree with your arguments here. I also don’t think the series would have had the same impact and the early movies in particular would not have been as good (DAF would probably be around the same though or maybe even better if Moore starred in it). But then again, Moore did win over audiences during his era and was a massive success, even if he was quite different, older and physically less imposing compared to what the audiences had gotten used to with Connery (and even Lazenby) in the 60’s. He even won the ‘‘battle of the Bonds’’ when OP and NSNA were released the same year by a massive amount. Now imagine a young Moore as Bond in the 60’s when he was at peak handsomeness, even if maybe a little too pretty for Bond at the time. I remember watching him in the Maverick tv series, which was before DN and thinking what an amazing charismatic presence he is on screen and how he could have pulled it off as the first cinematic Bond.

Yes, this is very likely. I think Dalton like Craig focused more on the challenge of making the character more human and grounded but they didn’t really seem too interested in the idea of just being one of the most iconic characters in cinema history. But unlike Craig, I think Dalton from the start was less interested what it would do to his overall status as an actor and more concerned how the role would forever follow him. All of this is why was reluctant to accept the part initially and why he probably wouldn’t have done more than 3 films overall.

I disagree here, but that might because I’m a huge fan of the Brosnan era. I think EON would have been easily able to give Brosnan a more grounded fifth Bond film in the style of FYEO and he would have played a more down to earth maybe grittier Bond perfectly, especially when you look at some aspects of his films more closely. I literally see no reason why they had to recast, other than EON being completely out of creative ideas and adapting CR was sort of an easy solution with the story and direction already there. But as the rest of the Craig era showed, there really wasn’t much of a clear direction after that other than do what CR did over and over again.

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The thing to remember - though it’s hard for us doing so from our perspective of hindsight - is that Eon, more often than not, just made their stuff up as they moved along. There may have been a general idea to do this and do that - but all of it in the vaguest possible way and subject to change from day to day.

They made two moderately successful films, had their basis and cornerstones established - or so they thought - and then their third film became a massive success kicking off not just reruns of their previous films but a whole Bond craze that got bigger with THUNDERBALL and bigger again with YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. And both entries connects that they were significantly influenced by other writers and a fantastical, science fiction-y element.

It would seem by YOLT the prevalent notion on the production side was to use Fleming’s name and his characters, but largely avoid his more down to earth thriller vibes in favour of outright sf and spectacle. Had they tackled OHMSS at any point between GOLDFINGER and Connery’s departure the result likely would have been quite different. The question is whether Connery could have sold this to the audience - or if maybe the onset of Bond fatigue might have lead to Connery tanking with OHMSS.

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But didn’t they try this with TWINE? And while I enjoy that film and am always happy to defend it, I do sometimes feel like it gets blitzed (or worse, forgotten) by everyone else.

Agreed. When it worked, they copied. And when there was a sense of backlash, they went the other way. TWINE’s poor critical reception was met with a sense of - GE and TND were massive so with DAD let’s go old-school big epic, rather than TWINE’s attempt at making a more character-driven story.

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Which is the way movies were/are made. I love Martin Scorsese’s story about a shot he had planned for SILENCE–he had it in mind for years–that come day of shooting, could not be done. The wonder of great films is that when all the necessary ingredients have been assembled–the toolbox emptied and arranged–there is still the moment of filming/production, when the unplanned takes a seat at the table, and starts affecting everything. As Orson Welles said, a director is “the man who presides over accidents.”

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Oh defenitely, that has always been the approach. The thing with the Craig era though is that they did want to go for clear continuity even as early as CR (in case the film was a success of course), but there wasn’t a clear plan for it. They wanted to go back to basics and the only way they felt they could do it was adapting CR, recasting the lead actor and reboot the whole thing…only to abandon this whole reboot thing with SF. But this sort of grounded Bond over the hill story and reflecting on decades of service would have been far more interesting towards the end of the Brosnan then immediately follwing the whole ‘‘Bond begins’’ arc following CR and QOS. Of course the Craig era was a huge success, but I don’t buy the argument that they absolutely had to recast after DAD, especially since that film was a huge success as well.

Very possible, but I do wonder whether they would actually omit the core emotional story from the OHMSS novel, since that novel was and is regarded as one of Fleming’s best, if not the best. But yes, it likely would’ve turned out very different if it was made during the early Connery run and not for the better.

Yes, that is very true. I personally love TWINE, it is one of my favorite Bond films and I consider it the most underrated film in the series. And I find it strange that its more gritty emotionally involved grounded approach with a fantastic performance by Brosnan gets so often overlooked and it just gets dismissed campy or outlandish (probably because it’s very heavy on action scenes) just like everything after GE in the Brosnan era. Though it seems people who grew up during the Brosnan era (like myself) are far more positive towards TWINE. But I think the film is a great example that they could’ve easily brought the Brosnan era back down to earth following DAD.

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