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As the quest continues to find the next James Bond now that Daniel Craig has retired from the role, actors have been recalling their auditions for the iconic role. These auditions ranged from putting actors in the running to sending them packing with a “thank you” after a downright dreadful attempt to become 007. One of those actors was Sam Worthington. An actor who by looks alone would fit the aesthetic of James Bond to a “T.” But, alas, that role was not meant to be given that Worthington was one of the actors that did anything but give a performance of a lifetime.
When the Terminator Salvation star was considered for the iconic role, he was in good company. Fellow actors, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Clive Owen, and Henry Cavill were considered great candidates to take over the franchise from Pierce Brosnan. But because of not wanting to be tied down for a decade or more or being too young, they were ultimately passed on. What became clear later, however, was that Craig was always the front-runner and none of the others really stood a chance at playing the British Secret Service agent in a series of films.
Here is why Sam Worthington lost out on his chance of playing 007.
Being Charming Was Not Easy For Sam Worthington
One of the things that Bond is known for is being suave and charming. Because of this, a screen test was needed to see if the actors were able to portray this properly.
It was during this screen test that the 9 Bullets star realized just how much he was lacking in those departments as an actor.
The audition was a scene from the 1963 Bond film, From Russia With Love. In the scene, Bond walks over to a woman in a bed acting very debonair and oozing charm. And all Worthington had to do was recreate the scene as brilliantly as Sean Connery had decades ago.
“So you [have to] walk in, and there’s the girl in the bed,” Worthington explained. “You charm her …And I couldn’t catch the Bond killer. I just couldn’t get the charm out of her, I couldn’t charm her. The suit didn’t fit the man.”
This was just part of the “horrible audition” that the Lansky star was able to recall. There was more that would completely seal the deal that Worthington was not meant to play the role of Bond.
Sam Worthington Was Afraid He Would Be The “Next George Lazenby”
As all Bond fans know, 007 is of British descent. He works for the British Secret Service. Therefore, Bond needs to have a British or British-adjacent accent. An accent that the Fractured star thought he would be able to pull off for the audition given that his parents are both British.
But as a result of the thick Australian accent that Worthington possesses, nothing could have been further from the truth.
“I said, ‘If I do an Australian I’m gonna be the next George Lazenby,'” Worthington explained, referencing the Australian actor whose time with the franchise lasted for only one Bond. “He only did one and I didn’t want to be like that. So I tried British. It was awful.”
Worthington went on to explain that his accent sounded less upper-class and more like “Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins.“
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The accent was so “laughable” that the director told the Avatar star to just say the lines using his “normal voice.”
But in the end, the audition was such a complete disaster that Worthington knew that the days of being considered for the role of Bond had come to an end.
Sam Worthington Has Career Regrets But Not Being Cast As Bond Is Not One
Worthington has expressed having regrets about the films that he chose to do after becoming an instant celebrity after his casting in Avatar. His choices revolved around big-budget films that did not allow for much character development.
And while Bond does have some introspective moments, they are few and far between. This means that being cast in the role would have done nothing but frustrate the Rogue star, much like his time in the Clash of the Titans films.
“Back then I used to do a lot of reflecting and research into careers,” Worthington explained. “I thought that’s how you did it. But I was just putting my head up my own butt. It wasn’t healthy. The job isn’t about trying to crack a formula. It isn’t an algorithm.”
Therefore, with all the auditions he went on and the roles that were played, Worthington tried to find a backstory with which he could relate. Given that the Bond audition fell into this timeframe, that was likely the approach taken to portray the iconic spy as well.
“You can’t create a character if there’s nothing there,” Worthington went on to say. And while Bond was not specifically referenced in the same breath as the Clash movies as having this problem, it is lumped into the category of being one of the movies after Avatar that “were great big spectacles.”
Worthington realized that he “should have been looking for movies that pried a little bit more into the human condition.” Instead, he went the route of the action star that did nothing but bore the actor to tears.
As such, Worthington went the way of some smaller films until James Cameron came calling with Avatar: The Way of Water.
Given that he is slated to star in four more of the films over the next several years, Worthington may have finally found it is possible to be both an action star and portray a character with depth as well.
