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Lewis Collins: a home-grown action hero too tough for James Bond

posted 4 years ago by JohnRyder (47)
2 replies | jump to latest

2013 Guardian article
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2013/nov/28/lewis-collins-bodie-professionals

note: the article mistakenly states that Collins auditioned for the Bond role *before* Roger Moore got the part while that would be extremely unlikely as Moore got the part in the early 70s when Collins was in his mid-20s (and almost 20 years younger than Moore)... in actuality he auditioned in the early 80s to be Moore's *successor* -most probably after Octopussy (1983).

[–] NotoriousRio (12927) 4 years ago

He'd have been great if Moore had retired from the role in the early 80's!

A shame he never became an A list action star, he was awesome as Bodie and also memorable in Who Dares Wins.

[–] DoctorThirteen (13920) 4 years ago

Collins would indeed have been a great Bond. Sort of a mixture of Pierce Brosnan's smoothness and Daniel Craig's roughness. I was a huge fan of The Professionals back in the day. In fact I've still got the series hardbacked annuals I had as a kid. I enjoyed Collins' movie Who Dares Wins, too. Shame things didn't work out for him. He wasn't the greatest actor in the world, but he had presence and a winning persona, and was great at the rough stuff (I remember he used to do most of it himself). RIP 37.