9. Clint Eastwood
Year Considered: 1970
Reason He Didn't Get The Role: Didn't Want To Encroach on Sean Connery's Territory Don't get me wrong: I love Clint Eastwood, and I'm particularly fond of his limited acting style, which has been purposely tuned to allow as little emotion as humanly possible to seep through onto the screen. There's no real way that label his performances other than "badass," so that's what we'll call them from now on, everyone. Despite that, I think he would have made a truly horrific James Bond, and not just because he's American. Back in 1970, when Connery jumped the Bond ship to pursue other projects, the producers approached the Man With No Name with a little idea they liked to call: "You playing James Bond in the next movie." Though he was reportedly offered a ton of money to assume the role of Ian Fleming's incredibly popular creation, he denied it on account of it feeling too much like "Sean's gig." "But Sean's not doing it anymore," somebody must of said, but it was presumably too late: Eastwood was already riding off into the distance to do something badass.