Austin Butler Says an American James Bond Is ‘Sacrilegious’

Butler told Hits Radio UK (in an interview we first came across at Deadline) that while Villeneuve hasn’t called to discuss the role of Bond with him, Butler wouldn’t take the part even if he did. “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Butler said. “Because I’m an American. I can do an accent but that would be kind of sacrilegious.”

While Austin thinks the role of James Bond must be someone from the UK, he said he would play a Bond villain. That sounds great (really great, actually), but Butler is selling both himself and his country short. We can’t get one American Bond? Seriously? How is that fair when we keep casting British Spider-Mans? We had a British Batman and a British Superman, too. We even let our mates from across the Atlantic play Founding Fathers, don’t we? Was it “sacrilegious” when the HBO John Adams mini-series cast Stephen Dillane as Thomas Jefferson and Tom Wilkinson as Benjamin Franklin?

……Eh, maybe a little bit. But that’s fine! Acting is about pretending to be someone else. You don’t have to be born in the same country as your character to be the right person for the job. Nicholas Hoult has a better American accent than most Americans!

Besides, Butler should want the role specifically because of where he’s from. The list of people who’ve played James Bond is highly exclusive, but he’d be the only American on the list. And how can that be sacrilegious when we already got a Pope from Chicago?