Idris Elba "Disheartened" By People Who Don't Want Black Bond

Over the last week or so there's been a drip-drip-drip of new info from the Bond 25 set, including reports of another apparently abandoned name for the project, but now we've circled back on a well-worn talking point: the idea of Idris Elba as the next James Bond.

The man himself isn't particularly enamoured of the idea these days, and has admitted to feeling "disheartened" by reactions from people who say they could never accept a black actor as Bond, and wary of it being a "difficult position to put myself into when I don’t need to". That's not to say he doesn't get the pull of it, though.

"James Bond is a hugely coveted, iconic, beloved character, that takes audiences on this massive escapism journey," Elba told Vanity Fair. "Of course, if someone said to me 'Do you want to play James Bond?,' I’d be like, 'Yeah!' That’s fascinating to me. But it’s not something I’ve expressed, like, Yeah, I wanna be the black James Bond."

While the profile points out that while Elba "doesn't love" talking about Bond - entirely understandably - he did note that a black Bond might make sense from an operational perspective.

"Because, by the way, we’re talking about a spy," he said. "If you really want to break it down, the more less-obvious it is, the better."

But when it comes down to it, Elba said, the virulent reaction of some observers against the very idea of a black Bond has put him off the whole thing, as he worries he'd be putting himself into a no-win scenario at a point when things are ticking along quite nicely, thanks very much.

"You just get disheartened when you get people from a generational point of view going, 'It can’t be.' And it really turns out to be the colour of my skin. And then if I get it and it didn’t work, or it did work, would it be because of the colour of my skin? That’s a difficult position to put myself into when I don’t need to."