Dwayne Johnson wants to play James Bond. The WWE-turned-action star threw his hat in the ring for the coveted role of the British secret agent in a recent interview with Esquire.
“Yes, my grandfather was a Bond villain in You Only Live Twice with Sean Connery,” Johnson revealed, referring to Peter Maivia’s appearance as a henchman in the 1967 flick. But now that Daniel Craig has officially wrapped up his tenure as the 007, Johnson says it’s all or nothing for him. “I don’t want to be a villain,” he said. “Gotta be Bond.”
No Time to Die, the 25th edition to the Bond series and Craig’s fifth and final crack at the role, hit theaters in September following a slew of release delays due to COVID-19. Now that another era has ended for the franchise, Barbara Broccoli and the rest of the Bond production team are burdened with the difficult task of teaching The Rock to do a British accent.
Johnson certainly has the work ethic to take on the 007 role, having recently revealed that he trains so hard that he pees in water bottles at the gym for efficiency. He also gifted the world with the best guest verse the rap world has ever seen (give the man a prize for rhyming hours with ours). Meanwhile, he once again showed off his action chops in Red Notice, which enjoyed Netflix’s biggest movie opening weekend ever.
In all seriousness, it’s hard to envision Johnson being considered a serious candidate for the role. He’s closing in on 50, bald, and not actually British. While Broccoli and her half-brother, Michael G. Wilson, are casting a wide net in her search for Craig’s successor, they have said being a native of the British Commonwealth is a perquisite for the role.
“You think of [Bond] as being from Britain or the Commonwealth, but Britain is a very diverse place,” said Wilson, who inherited the cinematic rights alongside Barbara from their father, producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli. The commonwealth consists of a collection of over 50 countries, mostly ex-British colonies, that includes the likes of Canada and Australia as well as India and great swathes of Africa.
