Debbie McWilliams, Former James Bond Casting Director, Sticks to Her Guns

Debbie McWilliams, who cast the last 14 James Bond films, has stuck to her guns when it comes to her view that 007 should be white and male.

Speaking at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival Friday in an onstage interview, the casting director was asked by an audience member whether the spy could be a woman or a person of color. “Not in my opinion. No,” she responded firmly. “Ian Fleming wrote a character, and that’s the character that stays. That’s what I think. I mean, other people might think otherwise, but I don’t think that.”

With McWilliams having retired before Amazon’s acquisition of the Bond franchise, the search for the next 007 actor falls to casting director Nina Gold and director Denis Villeneuve. However, McWilliams still has strong views on the subject as the question and answer session at the Czech festival demonstrated.

McWilliams was asked whether, when she cast previous Bonds, such as Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, there was any specific characteristic that she was looking for.

“Well, I mean, I’ve said this several times before, but part of his job description is license to kill. So you’ve got to think that he could pick a gun up and shoot you,” McWilliams said. “So he’s got to have a kind of threat about him, you know. I’m not sure that Pierce Brosnan had that particularly, but he kind of embodied a different side of him. He was very good looking and suave, and all the rest of it. And Daniel sort of changed that somewhat into the fact that you, you know … he was much tougher.”

She added, “There’s no set rule. It’s whoever fits the bill, frankly, and it will be different for different directors and different producers. And, you know, it’s about to change dramatically, is all I can say. And I’m not sure whether I’ll be paying my money to go and see it or not. But there isn’t an easy answer to that question.”

Asked to share her thoughts on Method acting, McWilliams was less fixed in her views. “I haven’t had a huge experience of them, I have to say. I think it will very much depend on who the director is. I mean, you know, when you read about how Daniel Day-Lewis ate with his feet and painted with his feet, and never stood outside his character, only certain directors would probably tolerate that,” she said.

“And Jeremy Strong in ‘Succession’ is known to be a Method actor, but to meet as a person he’s absolutely delightful. I mean, I don’t think I’d go out of my way necessarily to cast a Method actor, but you can’t legislate really. It’s the director who has to make the final decision, and if he’s happy and he knows in advance that … you know, we ought to do a bit of research to know whether somebody’s going to be very Method or not … so it just depends on them.”

McWilliams gave Day-Lewis his break when she cast him in Stephen Frears’ “My Beautiful Laundrette,” but he wasn’t her first choice for the role, she told the audience. Her preference was Gary Oldman, so when she was casting Frears’ “Prick Up Your Ears,” it was Oldman who they turned to.

“I wasn’t that sure that Daniel was actually right for [‘My Beautiful Laundrette’]. I mean, I knew him, and I had met him when he was at drama school, and had seen him in various different plays in the theater […] and we auditioned lots and lots of people. And in fact, one of the actors who I was particularly keen on was Gary Oldman, who to me seemed to fit into the part much more than Daniel. Gary was a real kind of geezer, and Daniel’s from a very aristocratic family.”