As the search continues to find the next James Bond going forward, Avatar lead Sam Worthington is looking back at the time he blew his audition to play the suave secret agent.
In a chat with Variety, Worthington recalls he was a finalist for the role, which eventually went to Daniel Craig. Now-former Superman Henry Cavill, and E.R. veteran and recent Hellraiser star Goran Visnjic were also in the running, the trade notes.
Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson put the actors through their paces, and into a tux, to perform one of Sean Connery‘s scenes from 1963’s From Russia with Love.
It seems Broccoli was pulling for Worthington, even personally cutting his hair before the audition, which the actor admits he biffed.
“I had no idea what I was doing,” he expressed.
“I could play Bond as a killer, but I couldn’t get the debonair down for the life of me,” the Aussie recalled, adding, “The suit did not fit.”
Speaking of ill-fitting suits, Worthington also revealed he lost out on playing Green Lantern in an eventually drubbed 2011 film.
“It didn’t make much sense to me — the suit comes out of his skin?” Worthington says. “And I was like, ‘He’s got this powerful ring that can create anything. Well, what can beat the ring?’ The answer was nothing. I was like, ‘Well, something needs to beat it, or it won’t be very interesting.'”
A “very bizarre” attempt to psyche him up by putting on the actual ring prop didn’t help, either.
While Craig went on to play Bond in five films, losing Green Lantern helped Worthington dodge a bullet: Ryan Reynolds took the job and hasn’t stopped making fun of himself for it since.
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