How Timothy Dalton Became James Bond

For The Living Daylights, producers Cubby Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson decided they needed a fresh approach — and a new 007. 

With Roger Moore deciding to step away from the role after A View To A Kill — his seventh film over a 12 year period — the team including Broccoli, Wilson, associate producer Barbara Broccoli and director John Glen, faced the daunting task of finding the new lead for the 15th James Bond film.

“Over the years, many people were tested for Bonds,” said EON publicity and marketing director Jerry Juroe. “There was always a game between Roger and Cubby when the renewal of each picture came up. They would test the most unbelievable people. But eventually Roger said, ‘No more’ and we really had to find someone.”

Casting for the new 007 started in earnest in January 1986. Barbara Broccoli was dispatched to Australia to explore the emergence of young acting talent down under. Broccoli returned with audition tapes of a dozen actors, a couple of which were tested for Bond including model Finlay Light. 

Interviews and auditions continued in London. Head of United Artists Jerry Weintraub wanted Broccoli to consider a young Mel Gibson but the producer had no desire to cast the actor. The search ultimately became a global one; actors tested included New Zealander Sam Neill, Brits Michael Praed and Mark Greenstreet, Australian James Healey and Frenchman Lambert Wilson, who shot a test with actor Maryam d’Abo on April 24 and on the following day, a fight stunt sequence with stunt arranger Vic Armstrong. 

“By this point Ladbrokes, Britain’s leading book-makers, were taking bets on who would play the next James Bond,” remembered Cubby Broccoli. “I favoured Lambert but Michael didn’t. Sam Neill impressed Michael, Barbara, and John, whereas I had my reservations. Ladbrokes had him as a clear favourite”

On May 12, Pierce Brosnan, then the star of the hit TV show Remington Steele, auditioned opposite Annie Lambert, followed by stunt work with Clive Curtis. However, when Brosnan’s contract was renewed by NBC, making him unavailable for Bond, it left the filmmakers in a bind and encouraged them to follow their instincts and look for an actor with a harder edge.

At this point, the team reconsidered an actor who had been on their list of candidates nearly 20 years previously. Having graduated from RADA and working in both TV and film, Timothy Dalton made his film debut as Phillip II of France in The Lion In Winter opposite Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn. The actor, then in his mid-20s, had his reservations.

“In 1968, about the time Sean Connery was looking to relinquish the Bond role, Cubby asked me if I’d be interested in doing James Bond,” recalled Dalton. “It seemed the daftest idea in the world. I was only about 25 years old, and Bond should be in his mid-30s—at least.”

After Moonraker in 1980, Broccoli returned to Dalton when it looked like Roger Moore would exit the series. Yet once again, the actor turned him down, Broccoli reporting that “Timothy said the part intimidated him.” When the producers courted Dalton for the third time for The Living Daylights, the actor felt more suitable for the role. 

“When we met Timothy in 1986, we saw that during these intervening years he had added poise, experience, and self-assurance,” said Cubby Broccoli. “He was excited by the idea. He saw Bond as being more serious, just as ballsy as Connery’s 007, but carrying his own personal imprint. He wanted to play the character closer to the way Fleming wrote it—which was fine with me.”

Scheduling conflicts nearly scuppered Dalton’s chance to play the role but The Living Daylights shifting production dates allowed the actor to take the role. Initially, he refused to screen test, believing his track record as an actor spoke for itself, but the producers wanted to put him on film to gauge his qualities as 007. He tested opposite actor Annie Lambert and stunt performers Paul Weston and Clive Curtis, playing a love scene and action set-piece from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. 

With Dalton signing on the dotted line, the team and actor were united in the decision to return to the spirit of Ian Fleming. In preparation, Dalton re-read all the Fleming novels to immerse himself deeply in the character.

“For me, he clearly lives in the moment,” said Dalton about Bond. “He’s always on the edge of his own death, everything is heightened.”

“Timothy wasn’t as light as Roger — he was hard, closer to Connery,” said John Glen. “This was important to us, as we were taking the series in a different direction.”