James Bond: ‘The next 007 should be gay’ says Sir Ian McKellen

Nobody carezzz

Former Bond star Pierce Brosnan supported the idea of a gay Bond a couple of years ago.

He said: “Sure. Why not? It would certainly make for interesting viewing.”

But added: “Actually, I don’t know how it would work. I don’t think Barbara [Broccoli, producer] would allow a gay Bond to happen in her lifetime.”

Idris Elba

They actually had Bond imply he slept with men before in Skyfall (Bond is chatting up a villain so its unclear how serious he was). It was a pretty surprising moment. That was probably the best bond movie

If they want to attract the gay audience, he'll need a larger name: 008 or more

And M will need to be Auntie Em!

YUM! R6

There will never be an M like Judi Dench. She remade the role in her image

Sir Ian is right.

And then they'd finally consider DL Fave (and long-time Bond wanna-be) Ben Barnes for the part.

Make Q the new Bond

WTF is this obsession with making 007 and superheroes gay?

I mean, I'm gay, but these gestures don't mean much to me.

The change is something Sir Ian would like to see, having highlighted the lack of gay character representation in major Hollywood movies and franchises.

Absolutely not! Boycotting!

According to Datalounge, fictional characters may never be changed .

Shit... he doesn’t know anything.

Bond was created by Ian Fleming, not Ian Flaming.

I thought Roger Moore was the first gay James Bond. He didn't have sex with men as far as we knew, but he was such a sissy in manner compared to Sean Connery.

Why not just make him bisexual? Why one or the other. That's restricting! Men won't go to the cinema to watch him woo men, and even then the story will have some woman try make a move and what will he do, outright reject her? Probably would go against his mission. Does not make for good viewing. Make him at least bisexual to have m-m action so it casts a wider audience net.

Early on, James Bond was a heavy smoker, once smoking over 70 cigarettes a day. Pole is safer.

"The next 007 should be gay"

That definitely would mean I'll never make a comeback.

Gay men are hetero underneath their clothes? That sounds inconvenient.

What site is R1 from?

[quote]There will never be an M like Judi Dench. She remade the role in her image

Really? I don’t see much difference between her and the original. Stern and cranky. Might as well have been Bernard Lee in drag.

The next 007 should be Idris Elba.

I'd love to see a gay actor play James Bond. There is no reason to make the character gay, he is a famous womanizer, that is a defining aspect of the character.

Idris has said repeatedly that he's sick of the whole thing. There are other black actors.

Nah! The next spy should be gay. But not James Bond.

Seriously. There should different secret agents, with cool, badass stories.

You want a middle aged Black man ? Here you go Idris Elba.

You want a woman ? No problem. Choose a cool one. Plan great adventures for her. You want a gay spy ? Have two ! Make them a power couple, a double threat.

That really would be fun and change us from 007. But James Bond is a White, hetero man. He should not even be blond.

I nominate O-T Fagbenle from "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Looking". I've been bingeing on "The Five" on Netflix and crushing on him at the same time.

Idris as Bond and Kristen Stewart as villain for the next Bond film

As an aside, I show you Sir Ian McKellen as Dame Maggie Smith.

YES, let's have a gay James Bond! Time to really shake things up.

I don't want a gay Bond.

I want a villain who is a worthy adversary to Bond - who may in fact be 008 or other former spy - to be a gay man. Not a caricature of evilness and villainy camping around being gay. But a serious, smart, accomplished, and deadly foe.

Or I want a classic buddy flick where a fellow agent who is just as accomplished and deadly as Bond is gay - with no sad, gay-best-friend vibe, or pining for the unattainable with a sad little bone (no pun intended) thrown in at the end.

We’ve already had former 00s as villains. Goldeneye (Alec Trevelyan) and Skyfall (Raoul Silva).

And Silva was at least bi.

"I don't want a gay Bond."

What if I changed my name to James Bondage?

R35 Sean Bean dragged up for a BBC drama that gained him an award.

The current one should be gay.

The Spy Who Rimmed Me

From Mykonos With Love

Thunderballs

[quote]I nominate O-T Fagbenle from "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Looking". I've been bingeing on "The Five" on Netflix and crushing on him at the same time.

He played an agent in The Interceptor. I wasn't that impressed. He's been ok in other roles I've seen him in, though.

[quote]Why not just make him bisexual? Why one or the other. That's restricting! Men won't go to the cinema to watch him woo men, and even then the story will have some woman try make a move and what will he do, outright reject her? Probably would go against his mission. Does not make for good viewing. Make him at least bisexual to have m-m action so it casts a wider audience net.

That makes so much sense to me, it's amazing it hasn't happened already, R19. It's that very quality that gives Edward Fox's Jackal in [italic]The Day of the Jackal[/italic] so much hotness, caginess, slipperiness, and pure fucking MENACE.

Obviously he didn't need the money, since he came from wealth (and even a title, I think?), but Fox was so damned smooth and sexy in this role it amazes me he didn't become an international A-list actor.

If any character should ever be bisexual, it's Bond! He should be able to seduce anyone, male, female, intersex, transsex, and satisfy them if he needs to!

As long as he's the top, of course.

I see him bottoming to get ahead.

Bring him on!!!

R41 One can dream!

Well of course it wouldn't have been Bond's first time in "Skyfall", he went to a good English boys' school after all.

What double entendre names would the Bond boys have?

Know your gay history, little gaylings. Listen and learn.

I enjoyed having a campy gay villain. All the bond villains are campy

No, he should be trans.

This is why they hate us.

A trans villain could be fun. Could also be poorly done.

We had a gay Bond-ish action movie in "Kiss Me Deadly. (2008)" with Robert Gant. I enjoyed it, even if it wasn't the best movie. I'd love to see a really good gay noir or spy movie.

R30 KStew?? She'd be stuttering all over the place.

Have we had a female as the primary villain and not some kind of lieutenant

They could do a remake R53, Kiss Me, Dudley.

Octopussy, R55?

And I seem to remember that in one of the Brosnan films, the Bond Girl was revealed to be the mastermind behind the primary male villain.

Which hot young piece will play Mussy Galore?

Make him bi or pansexual. But why gay? He's clearly already been into woman. I'm also not really into changing characters sexualities, gender, or race when we could just create new characters. Couldn't there be a gay character in the bond franchise that gets a spin off?

R54 and looking extremely haggard.

I'd like to see a transgender Jasmina Bond

Blonde, Jasmina Blonde, at your service.

R62 Thats a great look!

bond films are so over...and the women in them aren't even hot anymore.

Imagine pic in R62 wooing both men and women... yeah, I can't imagine it either.

transgender Jayne Bond Laverne Cox

R60 = troll

R60 not a troll, that is a genuine opinion that isn't out to purposely annoy another. She has major bags under her eyes for her age. Watch her in Equals (image below), I did not enjoy her at all as the female lead as she just looked tired all the time to me.

^ was to R67.

Mr McKellen is a whimsical and indulged old man.

He'd be a nobody if he weren't homosexual.

Octopussy was a criminal, but not a villain. Her smuggling ring was being used without her knowledge by Kamal Khan and the Russian General to plant a nuclear bomb in West Germany. Octopussy joins forces with Bond to defeat them.

Oh hell no.

One thing Bond does incredibly badly is handle women and sex. He is 'sexy' but also a complete misogynistic trope. The LAST thing anyone needs is for him to be a self-loathing homophobic trope.

R57, you are thinking of the subtly-named Elecktra King in The World Is Not Enough.

I believe Toby Stephen's character in Die Another Day was gay and in a relationship with his second in command. His father didn't approve and "Gustav" faked his death and took on a new face to get a step closer to live out and proud as a gay man, but his anger management issues and hunger for revenge made him beard up with Miranda Frost, his fag hag.

I agree with Sir Ian

McKellen came out when he was 49 and when it was clear his career would in no way be effected. Neither brave nor radical. Not that it would have been that risky earlier as he was mainly well known for theatre. Hardly a profession riven with homophobia. Yet, somehow, his every utterance about being gay is seen as wisdom from on high.

He’s a self satisfied bore.

The Bond franchise has always been based on the fundamental tropes of wish fulfilment for straight men - gadgets, women and spy adventure. The notion that they will mess with that formula is silly.

The ever-present problem is the fact that it's a bit self-limiting and there's only so much you can do with the Bond character. Maybe a couple of spin-off series under the Bond franchise would help to freshen up the brand, such as a female or gay fellow MI6 agent. You could make their stories and assignments very different than Bond's.

He's right

r76 He was in a relationship with a man for a long time before that, and I guess he had relationships with men before that as well. And I guess gay sex was still illegal in Britain for a lot of that time, and I don't think he pretended to be straight much or maybe not even at all and he bearded not or hardly ever, ridiculous to put hardly closeted celebs in the same box as others.

James Brown's mother is Swiss. Not sure how this fits in, it hasn't to date but it could be an angle.

James Bond 007 should be rebooted as gay

I support the idea of 007 as bi - openly bi please.

openly gay

i loathe "sir" ian mc. he subbed for the erased kevin spacey in all the money in the world BUT he had accusations about his sexual behavior years ago as well. fuck him.

R84 he had accusations about his sexual behavior years ago as well

What accusations? I never heard any about Sir Ian