Idris Elba has responded to the rumors that he may be the next James Bond.
Speculation has been high in recent weeks following the release of a hacked email sent in early January by Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal to Elizabeth Cantillon, former exec VP of production for Columbia Pictures, which distributes the Bond films, that read “Idris should be the next bond.” However, here’s been online chatter for years now suggesting that the British actor should be next 007.
The “Luther” star addressed the topic coyly on Twitter in classic Elba form.
This tweet also comes on the heels of radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s controversial comments that James Bond must be “white and Scottish.” Elba would be the first black Bond.
“James Bond is a total concept put together by Ian Fleming. He was white and Scottish. Period. That is who James Bond is, was,” Limbaugh said. “But now (they are) suggesting that the next James Bond should be Idris Elba, a black Briton, rather than a white from Scotland. But that’s not who James Bond is.”
“I know it’s racist to probably point this out,” he also acknowledged.
Elba has tackled the rumor of replacing Daniel Craig as the suave British spy before. He told NPR in 2011 that he’s not interested in so-called “black roles.”
“I just don’t want to be the black James Bond,” Elba said. “Sean Connery wasn’t the Scottish James Bond and Daniel Craig wasn’t the blue-eyed James Bond, so if I played him, I don’t want to be called the black James Bond.”
The upcoming Bond pic “Spectre,” which was hard hit by the Sony hack when its script was stolen, opens in theaters on November 6, 2015.