By The long, long, long, long-running rumours that Idris Elba might follow Daniel Craig as James Bond have finally been put to bed by Elba himself. It's not happening. It's off. Please stop asking him about it.
Elba was stopped on the red carpet at the premiere of his directorial debut, Yardie, where Good Morning Britain waved a bright blue drink in a martini glass at him and asked whether he liked his martinis shaken or stirred. Cryptic.
Elba replied: "Stir-fried, actually," and started wandering off. Clearly not quite satisfied by this quite good joke GMB asked directly whether we were looking at the next 007. Looking back over his shoulder, Elba said, "No".
So that's that. Despite those teasing tweets from last week, it's not happening. It's a testament to Elba's apparently limitless reservoirs of self-possession and tolerance that he's not been driven mad by the endless chatter about him and Bond, Bond and him, Bond and Katie Hopkins and him, Bond and Katie Hopkins and the culture wars and him.
Still, this will come as another knock the Bond franchise probably didn't need. You might have heard that Danny Boyle's walked away from directing Bond 25 over "creative differences", which could mean anything. Maybe he wanted Daniel Craig to embrace his northern accent, or to work that sequence with the lindy-hopping nurses from the Olympic opening ceremony into the credits sequence at the beginning. We may never know.
