Actors considered for the role of James Bond

1. Cary Grant

Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I."

Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in ...

2. David Niven

Actor | Murder by Death

His mother was the French Lady Comynyplatt Henrietta de Gacher, his father was the British Lieutenant William Graham Niven, who died in the war when David was six years old. Niven was considered a difficult child to educate and had to change schools often until he finally went to Sandhurst Military...

Niven later played the character in the 1967 version of "Casino Royale".

3. Patrick McGoohan

Actor | The Prisoner

Born in America, and raised in Ireland and England, actor Patrick McGoohan rose to become the number-one British TV star in the 1950s to 1960s era. His parents moved to Ireland when he was very young and McGoohan acquired a neutral accent that sounds at home in British or American dialogue. He was ...

4. Laurence Harvey

Actor | The Manchurian Candidate

Laurence Harvey was a British movie star who helped usher in the 1960s with his indelible portrait of a ruthless social climber, and became one of the decade's cultural icons for his appearances in socially themed motion pictures.

Harvey was born Zvi Mosheh Skikne on October 1, 1928 in Joniskis, ...

5. Richard Todd

Actor | The Hasty Heart

British leading man who achieved some success in American films, as well. Born in Ireland as the son of a British officer, Todd grew up in Devon and (for a brief time) in India and attended Shrewsbury Public School. His interest in theatre led him to small roles in stock in England and Scotland and...

6. Trevor Howard

Actor | The Third Man

The son of an insurance underwriter who represented Lloyd's of London in Ceylon, Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith was born in Margate, Kent. He spent his early childhood globetrotting with his mother, frequently left in the care of strangers. After attending private school he went on to study drama at ...

7. Rex Harrison

Actor | My Fair Lady

Rex Harrison was born Reginald Carey Harrison in Huyton, Lancashire, England, to Edith Mary (Carey) and William Reginald Harrison, a cotton broker. He changed his name to Rex as a young boy, knowing it was the Latin word for "King". Starting out on his theater career at age 18, his first job at the ...

8. James Mason

Actor | Lolita

James Mason was born in Huddersfield and had a film career spanning over 50 years during which he appeared in over 100 films in England and America but never won an Oscar. Whatever role he played, from the wounded Belfast gunman in Odd Man Out to Rommel in The Desert Fox, his creamy velvet voice ...

9. Steve Reeves

Actor | Le fatiche di Ercole

Handsome bodybuilder Steve Reeves certainly had an enviable Herculean physique, and made plenty good use of it in Europe during the late 1950s and early 1960s portraying some of filmdom's most famous bronzed gods. Reeves was originally a Montana boy born on a cattle ranch in 1926. His destiny was ...

10. Richard Johnson

Actor | The Haunting

Born in Upminster, Essex, England in 1927, Richard Johnson attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and then performed in John Gielgud's repertory company until joining the navy in 1945 until 1948. After the war, he appeared successfully in the West End and made his film debut in the ...

11. William Franklyn

Actor | Top Secret

Debonair British actor at home on stage (since the age of 15), screen and TV. Initially, his roles tended to be dramatic but, by his 40s, he was increasingly playing tongue-in-cheek comedy parts. His smooth lounge-lizard voice has frequently been used for voice-overs on television advertisements (...

12. Stanley Baker

Actor | Zulu

Stanley Baker was unusual star material to emerge during the Fifties - when impossibly handsome and engagingly romantic leading men were almost de rigueur. Baker was forged from a rougher mould. His was good-looking, but his features were angular, taut, austere and unwelcoming. His screen persona ...

13. Ian Hendry

Actor | Get Carter

Born 13 January 1931 in Ipswich, England, Ian Hendry's career began rather inauspiciously, playing the fall guy for a circus clown. After attending London's Central School of Speech and Drama, things started progressing nicely when he starred as "Dr. Geoffrey Brent" in Police Surgeon (1960). This ...

14. Richard Burton

Actor | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Probably best-remembered for his turbulent personal life with Elizabeth Taylor (whom he married twice), Richard Burton was nonetheless also regarded as an often brilliant British actor of the post-WWII period.

Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in 1925 into a Welsh (Cymraeg)-speaking family in ...

15. Rod Taylor

Actor | Inglourious Basterds

Suave and handsome Australian actor arrived in Hollywood in the 1950s, and built himself up from a supporting actor into taking the lead in several well-remembered movies. Arguably his most fondly remembered role was that as George (Herbert George Wells), the inventor, in George Pal's spectacular ...

16. George Baker

Actor | On Her Majesty's Secret Service

George was stage struck at the age of 14 and ran away from school to get a 25 shilling (25p) a week job at a seaside theatre, He spent 6 years going through the mill of small town repertory theatre then the cinema discovered him. After making 12 films he left the studios for 7 years during which ...

He later appeared in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "The Spy Who Loved Me".

17. John Richardson

Actor | One Million Years B.C.

Classically handsome John Richardson began his career with small roles in British movies at the end of the 1950s. His first role of note was opposite Barbara Steele in the gothic horror classic Black Sunday (1960), directed by Mario Bava. His massive success was Don Chaffey's One Million Years B.C....

18. Hans De Vries

Actor | Doctor Who

Hans De Vries was born in June 1941 in Netherlands. He was an actor, known for Doctor Who (1963), UFO (1970) and My Partner the Ghost (1969). He died in 2018.

19. Anthony Rogers

Actor | Camelot

Anthony Rogers is known for Camelot (1967), Doctor Who (1963) and Red Line 7000 (1965).

20. Michael Gambon

Actor | Gosford Park

Sir Michael Gambon was born in Cabra, Dublin, Ireland, to Mary (Hoare), a seamstress, and Edward Gambon, an engineer. After joining the National Theatre, under the Artistic Directorship of Sir Laurence Olivier, Gambon went on to appear in a number of leading roles in plays written by Alan Ayckbourn...

21. Jeremy Brett

Actor | My Fair Lady

The refined and debonair English actor Jeremy Brett will forever be best remembered for his long-running and critically acclaimed portrayal of Sherlock Holmes for Britain's Granada Television. From a privileged background, Brett was educated at England's most prestigious independent school, Eton ...

22. Michael Caine

Actor | The Dark Knight

Michael Caine was born as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in London, to Ellen (née Burchell), a cook, and Maurice Micklewhite Sr., a fish-market porter. He had a younger brother, Stanley Caine, and an older maternal half-brother named David Burchell. He left school at age 15 and took a series of ...

23. Dick Van Dyke

Actor | Mary Poppins

Dick Van Dyke was born Richard Wayne Van Dyke in West Plains, Missouri, to Hazel Victoria (McCord), a stenographer, and Loren Wayne Van Dyke, a salesman. His younger brother was entertainer Jerry Van Dyke. His ancestry includes English, Dutch, Scottish, German and Swiss-German. Although he had ...

His films defined my childhood but I can't imagine him as Bond!

24. Patrick Mower

Actor | Carry on England

British leading actor, born Patrick Archibald Shaw, one of three siblings of Welsh and English parentage. A 1962 graduate from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he was at the peak of his popularity in the late 60s and early 70s. On the London stage from 1963, he also began acting on television the...

25. Eric Braeden

Actor | The Young and the Restless

Eric Braeden is a German actor in America who began his career playing Nazis and eventually became a star of daytime soap operas. Born Hans Gudegast in Kiel, Germany, during the Second World War, he was a superb athlete who excelled in track-and-field events. As a teenager, he immigrated to the ...

26. Simon Dee

Actor | The Italian Job

Simon Dee was born on July 28, 1935 in Manchester, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Italian Job (1969), Doctor in Trouble (1970) and Dee Time (1967). He was married to Judith Wilson, Sarah Terry and Berry 'Bunny' Cooper. He died on August 29, 2009 in Winchester, Hampshire, England, UK.

27. William Gaunt

Actor | The Champions

William Gaunt was born on April 3, 1937 in Pudsey, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for The Champions (1968), Sergeant Cork (1963) and Colonel Trumper's Private War (1961). He has been married to Carolyn Lyster since September 7, 1974. They have two children.

28. John Gavin

Actor | Psycho

John Gavin, the American film and TV actor, businessman and diplomat who was Ronald Reagan's first Ambassador to Mexico, was born Juan Vincent Apablasa in Los Angeles, California.

The future "Jack" Gavin was a fifth-generation Angeleno, the son of Delia Diana Pablos and Juan Vincent Apablasa, and ...

He was actually cast as Bond in "Diamonds Are Forever" but was fired when Sean Connery agreed to return for his sixth and final Eon film. As Gavin had already signed a contract, he was paid the same salary that he would received had he made the film.

29. Clint Eastwood

Actor | Million Dollar Baby

Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margaret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took ...

30. Adam West

Actor | Batman

Adam West was born William West Anderson on September 19, 1928 in Walla Walla, Washington, to parents Otto West Anderson, a farmer, and his wife Audrey V. (Speer), an opera singer. At age 10, in 1938, West had a cache of comic books; and starting in 1939, Batman, who appeared in Detective Comics, ...

31. Burt Reynolds

Actor | Boogie Nights

Enduring, strong-featured, and genial star of US cinema, Burt Reynolds started off in T.V. westerns in the 1960s and then carved his name into 1970s/1980s popular culture, as a sex symbol (posing nearly naked for "Cosmopolitan" magazine), and on-screen as both a rugged action figure and then as a ...

32. Jon Finch

Actor | Frenzy

Dark, mustachioed and broodingly handsome in an Oliver Reed placid manner, Jon Finch was born in Caterham, Surrey, England, on March 2, 1942, the son of a merchant banker. Educated at Caterham School, his first stage role was in elementary school at age 13 playing a Roman noblewoman(!) After ...

33. Michael Billington

Actor | UFO

Michael Billington was born on December 24, 1941 in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for UFO (1970), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and UFO... annientare S.H.A.D.O. stop. Uccidete Straker... (1974). He was married to Katherine Kristoff. He died on June 3, 2005 in ...

He later appeared in "The Spy Who Loved Me". He was considered Roger Moore's heir presumptive for much of the 1970s.

34. Simon Oates

Actor | Doomwatch

Simon Oates was born on January 6, 1932 in Canning Town, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Doomwatch (1972), Doomwatch (1970) and The Mask of Janus (1965). He was married to Jaki Eastoe. He died on May 20, 2009 in Eastbourne, East Sussex, England, UK.

35. Ranulph Fiennes

Writer | Killer Elite

Ranulph Fiennes was born on March 7, 1944 in Windsor, Berkshire, England, UK. He is a writer and actor, known for Killer Elite (2011), Secret Hunter and The Salient (2015). He was previously married to Virginia Frances Pepper.

36. David Warbeck

Actor | Giù la testa

New Zealand born actor David Warbeck made his feature film debut in My Lover, My Son (1970). Warbeck went pro following studies at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and during the 1970s became a popular European star of low-budget genre pictures made in Italy, the U.S. and England. His ...

37. Julian Glover

Actor | Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Julian Wyatt Glover was born on March 27, 1935 in Hampstead, London, England, to Honor Ellen Morgan (Wyatt), a BBC journalist, and Claude Gordon Glover, a BBC radio producer. He is of English, Scottish and Welsh ancestry. Primarily a classical stage actor, Glover trained at the National Youth ...

38. Lewis Collins

Actor | Jack the Ripper

Underrated British leading man predominantly of the Seventies and Eighties, Collins made his mark in the 1970s action drama The Professionals (1977). As hard man William Bodie, Collins became a household name worldwide. Unfortunately, since the show ended in 1983, Lewis Collins has been miscast in ...

39. Ian Ogilvy

Actor | Death Becomes Her

Ian Ogilvy was born on September 30, 1943 in Woking, Surrey, England, UK. He is an actor and writer, known for Death Becomes Her (1992), I, Claudius (1976) and My Life in Ruins (2009). He has been married to Kathryn Holcomb since 1992. He was previously married to Diane Sarah Patricia Hart.

40. James Brolin

Actor | Traffic

James Brolin is an American actor. Brolin has won two Golden Globes and an Emmy. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 27, 1998. He is the father of actor Josh Brolin.

He is best known for his TV roles such as Stephen Kiley on Marcus Welby, M.D.(1969-1976), Peter McDermott on ...

41. Daniel Pilon

Actor | Shoot 'Em Up

Daniel Pilon was born on November 13, 1940 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He was an actor, known for Shoot 'Em Up (2007), Left Behind: The Movie (2000) and Poltergeist: The Legacy (1996). He was married to Susan Molgora. He died on June 26, 2018 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

42. Sam Neill

Actor | Jurassic Park

Sam Neill was born in Omagh, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, to army parents, an English-born mother, Priscilla Beatrice (Ingham), and a New Zealand-born father, Dermot Neill. His family moved to the South Island of New Zealand in 1954. He went to boarding schools and then attended the universities ...

Probably the best Bond that we never had.

43. Mel Gibson

Actor | Braveheart

Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born January 3, 1956 in Peekskill, New York, USA, as the sixth of eleven children of Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Anne Patricia (Reilly) Gibson (who died in December of 1990). His mother was Irish, from County Longford, while his American-born father is ...

44. Christopher Lambert

Actor | Highlander

Though born in Great Neck, Long Island, Christopher Lambert's family left the US when he was only two years old. His father was a United Nations diplomat assigned to Switzerland and, as a result, Chris was educated at private boarding schools in Geneva. Inspired through his having appeared in a ...

45. Sean Bean

Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Sean Bean's career since the eighties spans theatre, radio, television and movies. Bean was born in Handsworth, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, to Rita (Tuckwood) and Brian Bean. He worked for his father's welding firm before he decided to become an actor. He attended RADA in London and appeared in a ...

He later appeared in "GoldenEye".

46. Mark Frankel

Actor | Young Catherine

Mark Frankel was born on June 13, 1962 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Young Catherine (1991), Fortune Hunter (1994) and Kindred: The Embraced (1996). He was married to Caroline Besson. He died on September 24, 1996 in West London, England, UK.

47. Paul McGann

Actor | The Three Musketeers

Paul McGann was born on November 14, 1959 in Kensington, Liverpool, England, UK. He is an actor and director, known for The Three Musketeers (1993), Withnail & I (1987) and Alien 3 (1992). He has been married to Annie Milner since 1992. They have two children.

He was later cast as another iconic British character, the Doctor!

48. Ralph Fiennes

Actor | The Constant Gardener

Actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes was born on December 22, 1962 in Suffolk, England, to Jennifer Anne Mary Alleyne (Lash), a novelist, and Mark Fiennes, a photographer. He is the eldest of six children. Four of his siblings are also in the arts: Martha Fiennes, a director; Magnus ...

He later played M in "Skyfall" and "Spectre".

49. Liam Neeson

Actor | Kinsey

Liam Neeson was born on June 7, 1952 in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, to Katherine (Brown), a cook, and Bernard Neeson, a school caretaker. He was raised in a Catholic household. During his early years, Liam worked as a forklift operator for Guinness, a truck driver, an assistant architect and an ...

50. Lambert Wilson

Actor | The Matrix Reloaded

Lambert Wilson was born in Paris and studied acting at the Drama Centre in London.

A fluent English speaker, he made his feature film debut at the age of twenty-two in Fred Zinnemann's Five Days One Summer (1981) starring opposite Sean Connery. He went on to work with many of France's most ...

51. Robbie Williams

Soundtrack | Coronation Street

Robert Peter Williams was born in Stoke-on-Trent, on February 13th 1974, to his mother: Jan and father: Pete. Robbie attended Mill Hill Primary School, followed by St. Margaret Ward's Roman Catholic School in Tunstall. At secondary school he became labeled as mischievous and a jester and ...

The least credible potential Bond on the list.

52. Henry Cavill

Actor | Man of Steel

Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill was born on the Bailiwick of Jersey, a British Crown dependency in the Channel Islands. His mother, Marianne (Dalgliesh), a housewife, was also born on Jersey, and is of Irish, Scottish and English ancestry. Henry's father, Colin Richard Cavill, a stockbroker, is of ...

53. Rupert Friend

Actor | Hitman: Agent 47

Rupert William Anthony Friend is a British actor, screenwriter, director, and lyricist. He first gained recognition for his roles in The Libertine (2004) and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005), both of which won him awards for best newcomer. He portrayed George Wickham in Pride & Prejudice (2005)...

54. Julian McMahon

Actor | Fantastic Four

Julian Dana William McMahon was born in Sydney, Australia, the second of three children of Lady Sonia McMahon (née Sonia Rachel Hopkins) and Sir Billy McMahon, the longest continuously serving government minister in Australian history, serving over 21 years as a government minister before serving ...

55. Alex O'Loughlin

Actor | Hawaii Five-0

The Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin was born in August 1976.

Alex started out his film career in 2004, when he starred in Oyster Farmer (2004) as Jack Flange. The following year, he returned to the big screen as Michael Carter in Feed (2005), a movie that he also co-produced and helped write. Also ...

56. James Purefoy

Actor | Rome

James Brian Mark Purefoy was born and brought up in Taunton, Somerset, England, the son of Shirley (Taylor), who ran an employment agency, and Anthony Chetwynd Purefoy. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he took a succession of different jobs, including working on a pig farm and as a ...

57. Clive Owen

Actor | Children of Men

British actor Clive Owen is one of a handful of stars who, though he is best known for his art house films, can handle more mainstream films with equal measures of grace and skill. Owen is typically cast as characters whose primary traits are a balance of physical strength, intellect, conflicting ...

58. Dougray Scott

Actor | Ever After

Born in Scotland, trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where he was named most promising drama student. Scott's early work was in Scottish national theatre and television, first appearing in the series Soldier Soldier as well as on the stage in the Tim Fleming directed production ...

59. Goran Visnjic

Actor | The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Goran Visnjic is a Croatian American actor and producer, born in Sibenik, Croatia. He is married to Eva Visnjic (formerly Ivana Vrdoljak) with whom has three children. From an early age Visnjic started appearing in various theater plays. At the age of 16, he had his screen debut in the film Braca ...

60. Hugh Jackman

Actor | Les Misérables

Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor, singer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer and producer. Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as superhero, period, and romance characters. He is best known for his long-running role as Wolverine in the X-Men film ...

61. Ewan McGregor

Actor | Moulin Rouge!

Ewan Gordon McGregor was born on March 31, 1971 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland, to Carol Diane (Lawson) and James Charles McGregor, both teachers. His uncle is actor Denis Lawson. He was raised in Crieff. At age 16, he left Morrison Academy to join the Perth Repertory Theatre. His parents ...

62. Dominic West

Actor | The Wire

Dominic West was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England as Dominic Gerard Francis Eagleton West. He is an actor and producer, known for The Wire (2002), Chicago (2002), 300 (2006), The Affair (2014) and The Forgotten (2004). He has been married to Catherine Fitzgerald since June 26, 2010. They have ...

63. Colin Salmon

Actor | Resident Evil

Colin Salmon is one of Britain's most renowned actors. With a bold voice and posture, Colin makes his characters a favorite among audiences for every role he plays. He made his feature debut as Sgt. Robert Oswald in the British mega-hit mini-series Prime Suspect 2 (1992), which gave him much ...

He had previously appeared in "Tomorrow Never Dies", "The World is Not Enough" and "Die Another Day".