Roger Moore, a man who earlier this year said Idris Elba could never play James Bond because he wasn’t “English-English,” has smartly waded back into the fray of the debate over future portrayals of the character. The Daily Mail reports the man who played Bond in the greatest number of films has something less than the greatest opinion about what actors should get to play Bond—specifically, that he should always be a straight guy.
“I have heard people talk about how there should be a lady Bond or a gay Bond. But they wouldn’t be Bond for the simple reason that wasn’t what Ian Fleming wrote,” says the man who did a movie where James Bond has a laser battle in space, which wasn’t what Ian Fleming wrote. Moore continues: “It is not about being homophobic or, for that matter, racist—it is simply about being true to the character.” Lucid words from the man whose self-parodying version of the spy is arguably the least like the character Ian Fleming created. It’s also in stark contrast to both Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan, both of whom, when asked the same question, responded “Anything’s possible,” and “Sure, why not?,” respectively. Perhaps they have played Tomb Raider, which features a female character with a personality more like Fleming’s Bond than Moore’s depiction of him.
But Moore seems to embrace his contrarian perspective, since he also thinks Timothy Dalton made the best Bond of anyone. His book Bond On Bond is out now, though his opinions on casting are arguably holdovers from a previous millennium.