10 Actors That Should Play James Bond Next After Skyfall

7. Idris Elba (40)

Enough of the €˜Bond isn€™t black€™ argument. In the Hellblazer comic series, John Constantine is a blonde-haired Scouser, but on film he's a black-haired bohemian from Canada. In The Shawshank Redemption, a character originally written as a redheaded Irishman suddenly became Morgan Freeman. And in Ian Fleming€™s source novels, James Bond chain-smokes and hates The Beatles. Source material has to adapt to reflect the times €“ we live in an era where the biggest Western power in the world has a black president, and where a British superspy could feasibly be of any race, colour or creed. Taking ethnicity out of the equation, Idris Elba is a fantastic actor, with all the smoothness and €“ as he proved on The Wire €“ all the complexity James Bond requires. It would seem ridiculous for him to lose out on the part just because he wasn't born white.
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Contributor

Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1