James Bond: Ranking The 007 Actors From Worst To Best

5. Roger Moore

MGM

After the Lazenby experiment had failed spectacularly, Sean Connery was lured back to the franchise to star in Diamonds Are Forever with a lucrative offer that saw him paid $1.25m and 12.5% of the box office gross. After Connery once again gave up the role, Roger Moore (who had been constantly linked to the character over the last decade) stepped in. The longest-tenured Bond, Moore played the iconic spy in seven movies over 12 years, which unfortunately also coincided with a drastic downturn in the quality of the series.

After playing Simon Templar in 118 episodes of The Saint between 1962 and 1969, the Bond producers decided that changes needed to be made to Moore's version of the character in order to avoid comparisons, and this led to the more light-hearted, comedic and gadget-heavy movies of the '70s and early '80s. While it worked for the first couple, by the time the franchise reached the likes of Moonraker, Octopussy and A View To A Kill Bond had almost descended into self-parody.

Leaning heavily on his charm and ability to deliver a one-liner rather than his physicality, Moore (who was 45 the first time he played Bond and almost 60 in his last appearance) became more and more unconvincing as his time as the character went on, with his eyebrow-raising persona now horribly dated when viewed today.

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