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French actor Mathieu Amalric has confirmed
rumours that he is to play the villain in
the 22nd James Bond film...
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Mathieu Amalric Is Bond 22 Villain
5th December 2007
French actor Mathieu Amalric has confirmed
rumours that he is to play the villain in the 22nd
James Bond film. Amalric confirmed his status on the production
in an interview with Empire magazine. He is the first actor in
years to publicly confirm his casting ahead of an official announcement.
Last week, there were rumours
that Sony had picked Mathieu Amalric, star of the upcoming "The
Diving Bell And The Butterfly", with Fox News saying
it was a "a done deal:"
Speaking to Empire,
Amalric said "I will, it’s true. I play the
villain, yes. James Bond.It has to do with childhood,
you know? To be a villain in James Bond is just so funny.
I never dreamt about that. It’s not what I want to
do with my career. It’s just that I have kids and
it’s so funny to do that. But it doesn’t mean
that I’m not going to do a very small French film
for free with my friends."
Actor/director Mathieu Amalric was born
on October 25th 1965 in Neuilly-sur-Siene, France.
He will join a roster of French actors
to play a lead villain role in a James Bond film, including Michael
Lonsdale in "Moonraker",
Louis Jourdan in "Octopussy",
and Sophie Marceau in "The
World Is Not Enough" |
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According to Fox, for Bond 22's director Marc
Forster, "Amalric is a brilliant choice. Amalric is a youthful
looking 42-year-old overnight sensation, an independent French
film director who only started seriously acting in films at age
30 and has suddenly been thrust into a hot career.
His character is yet to be revealed, but Eva
Green gave
some potential clues when "Casino
Royale" was released.
Back in November 2006, Green
said, "[Vesper Lynd] had an Algerian boyfriend, and she's
been sent on this mission, and then she begins to feel guilty.
She's
in
love with Bond. It's a deep love. The Algerian boyfriend was
something light, an affair. So there's an internal conflict.
The plan is, the Algerian boyfriend is going to be the baddie
in the second Bond, and we'll understand [better]. But you don't
have to think about it too much. "
Biography
Described by one critic as an "Antoine Doinel for the '90s" who
also evokes François Truffaut's feral Wild Child, Mathieu
Amalric established himself as one of France's top young actors
by playing intellectually-attuned young men dealing with fateful
decisions regarding life and love. Although he began appearing
in films in the 1980s, Amalric became a more prominent cinematic
presence in the 1990s, beginning with the comedy La Chasse aux
Papillons (1992) and a small part in Arnaud Desplechin's Kafkaesque
drama La Sentinelle (1992). One of a new generation of gifted
French directors, Desplechin's My Sex Life ... or How I Got into
an Argument (1996) brought Amalric international renown, as well
as the Most Promising Young Actor César, for his incisive
performance as an irresolute academic who cannot settle his love
life or his career. Talkative and book-smart, yet unwise, Amalric's
Paul Dedalus personified inner paralysis amidst a complex range
of characters that suggested with humor and canny emotion the
roads he could possibly take. Continuing his collaborations with
France's most esteemed filmmakers, Amalric worked with André Téchiné in
Alice et Martin (1998) and played a writer facing a personal
crossroads in Olivier Assayas' voluble, intimate character study
Late August, Early September (1998). An experienced assistant
director and editor as well as actor, Amalric made his own directorial
debut with the low budget slice of life Mange Ta Soupe (1997). ~Lucia
Bozzola, All Movie Guide
