BRITISH ACTOR BEN Whishaw will play James Bond’s tech expert in the new 007 movie Skyfall.
In a shakeup, the character will be played by somebody younger than Bond for the first time ever in the movie franchise’s 49-year-history. In fact, Q did not appear in either of Daniel Craig’s two Bond offerings, reports NME.com
According to The Sun, Whishaw will not only be the youngest ever Q, he will also be the most serious.
The other two actors to play the role of Q were John Cleese and Desmond Llewelyn. Llewelyn owned the role from 1963 (From Russia With Love) to 1999 (The World is Not Enough).
Wealth of roles
It has been a good year for Whishaw who made his mark on the acting world playing Hamlet in the West End when he left drama school.
Since then, he has also starred as John Keats in the biopic Bright Star (2009) and Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited (2008).
The Bond role is a bit of the departure then for the 31-year-old actor who was also recently cast in the title role of the BBC’s upcoming adaptation of Richard II. However, he did play a part alongside Craig in the 2004 movie Layer Cake.
The rest of the film’s cast was revealed earlier this month but the makers had been keeping the details of the gadget expert on the Q-T (sorry!).
They have also been extremely secretive about what new gadgets will be in Q’s repertoire.
Craig and Whishaw will be joined by Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Bérénice Marlohe, Javier Bardem, Albert Finney and Naomie Harris in the 23rd Bond instalment, with Bardem playing the main villain. Directed by Oscar-winning director Sam Mendese, filming started in London on the 3 November.
