18 Great Actors Totally Wasted In James Bond Movies
Rami Malek's certainly not the first talent this franchise wasted...
Throughout its nearly sixty-year history, the James Bond franchise has attracted an extraordinary range of acting talent from all over the world, and most of them have been used pretty well.
Many of the actors that have played the title role have been successful and there are many great performances to be found across the twenty-five films in the series.
Some of the highlights include: Desmond Llewellyn, Robert Shaw, Gert Frobe, Diana Rigg, Christopher Lee, Christopher Walken, Benicio Del Toro, Sean Bean, Famke Janssen, Michelle Yeoh, Sophie Marceau, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Javier Bardem, Lea Seydoux and perhaps best of all, Dame Judi Dench.
Unfortunately, not all of the talent the franchise has attracted has been put to such good use. In fact, many strong actors have been squandered over the years, especially in some of the more recent Bond films.
This was definitely the case for the following 18 actors. Some of them were let-down by too little screen-time while others have been trapped by bad writing but regardless of the reasons, every one of these cases was absolutely infuriating and all of these actors deserved so much better.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for No Time to Die.
18. Donald Pleasance
Character: Ernst Stavro Blofeld in You Only Live Twice.
Alright, this might seem like an odd choice because after all, Donald Pleasance's performance as Blofeld is not only very good, but it's also iconic. So what's the problem?
Well, Pleasance is barely even in the movie. He's just a voice for much of it and then he's on-screen for around ten minutes at the end. It would've been so nice to see a lot more of this legendary presence and frankly, it would've been lovely had he come back for more. Sadly, this storied character actor's spell in the franchise was all too brief.
Still, Telly Salvalas - who took over the role in the next film and did an absolutely excellent job at following Pleasance up - got a lot more screen-time and wasn't wasted in the slightest, so that's something.