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Why Swedish Hollywood star Peter Stormare said no to James Bond role

Swedish actor Peter Stormare revealed on Friday that he was offered a role in the world-famous James Bond franchise – but turned it down.

Published: 29 September 2017 17:15 CEST

Why Swedish Hollywood star Peter Stormare said no to James Bond role

Actor Peter Stormare. Photo: TT

The 64-year-old – who played the fictional spy known as 'Sweden's James Bond', Carl Hamilton in 1998 – said that the Bond films were too predicable for his taste.

“Everyone in the audience knows he [Bond] is never going to die, the old devil, and that's a bad recipe,” Stormare said on Swedish-Norwegian TV talk show Skavlan.

“I've never understood James Bond. I think it's so cheesy and boring. It's the same old 'Yeah, Mr Bond, I'm gonna kill you',” he added. “I had other offers which were better.”

READ ALSO: Swedish couple continue to fight for the right to name their son Q

Because of the hero's apparent immortality and the fact the series repeats the same tropes, Stormare said he wouldn't even want to watch the films.

“I don't feel any need to say something which is 'paint by numbers',” he said.

Stormare has starred in films and TV series including Fargo, Prison Break, and Jurassic Park, one of several Swedes putting the Nordic nation on the map in Hollywood.

READ ALSO: Have two Swedish amateurs made the last real Bond film?

WATCH: New Bond film begins filming in southern Italy... with a car chase

Matera: not a bad backdrop for a car chase. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

Filming on No Time To Die, 007's 25th movie outing and the fifth and final time he'll be played by Daniel Craig, arrived in this year's European Capital of Culture on Sunday.

Originally slated to begin in April, the shoot got off to an appropriate start: with an Aston Martin speeding through Matera's scenic streets.

Watched by a curious crowd, the crew closed down part of the city centre as stunt doubles – including what looked to be a long-haired blonde in the passenger seat – shot off on a car chase, the spy's distinctive silver DB5 in pursuit of another vehicle.

Craig himself is expected to arrive in Matera in the next few days, for a shoot that will last nearly four weeks and bring an estimated €12 million of investment to the city.

Some 400 jobs are expected to be created by the production, not to mention the knock-on boost for tourism that's likely to follow once the film comes out in April 2020.

READ ALSO: Matera, Italy's city of caves, contrasts, and culture

As well as the scenes by Matera's grand cathedral and ancient, Unesco-listed cave houses, some sequences will be shot in the neighbouring region of Puglia.

The crew picked Gravina di Puglia in the province of Bari, a town famous for its dramatic two-level Roman bridge spanning a ravine, as the film's second southern Italian location.

Gravina di Puglia. Photo: Depositphotos

Bond is well-travelled in Italy, having had memorable escapades over the years in Venice, Rome, Siena, by Lakes Como and Garda, in the mountains of Cortina D'Ampezzo and on the Sardinian coast, but this is the first time the secret agent has headed to the far south of the mainland.

No Time To Die will also feature locations in Norway, Jamaica and the UK, with a supporting cast that includes Naomie Harris as Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw as Q, Ralph Fiennes as M, Léa Sedoux as Madeleine Swann, and Rami Malek as the as yet unnamed villain.

READ ALSO: James Bond's best Italian moments

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