AN A-list British actor has ruled himself out of the running to be the next James Bond.
Taron Egerton, who has had big screen success with Elton John biopic Rocketman and as Johnny the gorilla in animated hit Sing, doesn’t see himself as 007.
The 36-year-old is a big fan of the spy franchise but wants to keep appreciating it from afar.
He told Rolling Stone Australia: “I don’t think I’m right for James Bond. I’ve never felt that that was me.
“I think there’s great candidates for it, and I think it’s obviously a huge cinematic institution, I don’t want to be dismissive about it as a thing.
“I just feel that my path is less kind of grand and idealised.”
His remarks are consistent with comments he made to Collider last summer in which he tipped a younger actor for the role and said “it would be wasted on me, probably.”
Taron has dabbled in the spy genre, notably in Kingsman in which his street-wise working class character ‘Eggsy’ is introduced into the world of espionage by Harry “Galahad” Hart (Colin Firth).
Tonight, The Sun revealed the latest 007 adventure — spearheaded by new owners Amazon Prime Video — will start filming before the end of this year.
Work has already begun on assembling the crew and getting all of the production ducks in a row, with a view to starting filming late autumn into early winter.
A TV insider said: “This well and truly starts the firing gun on naming who the new 007 will be, with speculation already rife about who will inherit the Walther PPK and Licence To Kill.
“What’s thrilling about this is that it’s not just a cinematic phenomenon, it’s also one for TV fans too because the pairing with Prime Video raises the possibility that the new movie might drop in cinemas and on the streamer simultaneously, or at least around the same time.
“That’s the first time that would have happened in the 64-year history of the Bond films.”
Previous Bonds including Daniel Craig, Sean Connery and Roger Moore were all in their thirties and forties when they signed up.
Among the names rumoured to be in the frame included Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Callum Turner and Henry Cavill.
But the front-runner is Wuthering Heights heart-throb Jacob Elordi who, by the time he starts filming, would be 29.
That’s the same age of the other famous “young Bond”, and fellow Aussie George Lazenby.
Reports suggested that Jacob had been offered the role, although Amazon has yet to confirm anything about the new Bond movie — and there’s no hint as to what it will be called.
But if the cameras start to roll this year it means it could wrap in 2027 and be on our screens by 2028.
