Bill Skarsgård Says He Was Never in the Running for Bond: 'We Can't Do a Swede'

Bill Skarsgård says nobody called him about playing James Bond in Denis Villeneuve's upcoming reboot. The Swedish actor made the disclosure on Josh Horowitz's "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, joking that his nationality may have ruled him out from the start.

"They didn't call me about James Bond. I don't know what that was about," Skarsgård said. "Every single British, Australian [actor] … but maybe they were like, 'We can't do a Swede for this guy.' I wasn't even thrown into the mix."

Who is actually in the running?

Casting rumors for the new 007 have intensified in recent weeks. Callum Turner, Josh O'Connor and Jack Lowden have all circulated as candidates. Most recently, Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult were reported to have screen-tested for the role. Skarsgård's name, by his own account, never reached that stage.

What does Skarsgård want instead?

The actor told Horowitz he has no interest in a decade-plus commitment to the franchise. "That's right," he said when Horowitz raised the point. "Just want to go in and do one Mads Mikkelsen villain" — a reference to a single-film antagonist turn like Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre in "Casino Royale."

Skarsgård said he is not chasing the part. "It's not something that I'm actively looking for, but if I feel compelled to do something, yeah," he explained. "It's the weird thing. A lot of people ask me, what goes into picking your roles or whatever and I don't really know how to say it other than I feel drawn or compelled to. It's something that you can't really put your words on it and describe why it's happening."

He added a caveat about his own appetite for work: "But I've also noticed that I don't want to become jaded. Which means that I think I could probably go long stretches without working and waiting for something to be compelling enough for me to work on."

A career built on villains — with conditions

Skarsgård is no stranger to dark roles. He played Pennywise in the "It" movies, Count Orlok in Robert Eggers' "Nosferatu," Eric Draven in "The Crow" and Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont in "John Wick: Chapter 4." He told Horowitz he is now more selective about which villains he takes.

"For a villain, it would have to be something that felt original to me, that was something that I hadn't done before," Skarsgård said. "I feel, kind of, spent with those things. But there are villains [that] could be really fun in different ways and if it's the right kind."

What does this change for Villeneuve's Bond? Nothing officially — the search continues, and Skarsgård's podcast appearance is candor, not a campaign. But if the director wants a villain with a proven record of menace, the phone line, Skarsgård has made clear, works both ways.