No Time To Die casting director had a ‘very strange time’ roping in Rami Malek for James Bond film

Rami Malek has left an intriguing first impression with his appearance as Safin in the trailers of No Time To Die. Although the film has been delayed to September 2021, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, fans are still eager to watch Rami’s showdown with Daniel Craig’s James Bond in the film. 

Roping in the Academy Award winner for the film wasn’t easy, revealed the film’s casting director Debbie McWilliams. Calling it a ‘strange time’, Debbie revealed that when she reached out to Rami Malek’s agent for a meeting, they did not respond. She later learned that Rami wasn’t even informed. 

“I had a very strange time trying to get Rami Malek into the room because, with all due respect to his agents, they didn’t really respond when I suggested that they might want to meet him. Because every single person on a Bond film pretty much has to come in and be met by everybody first, you don’t just get the contract through the post,” she told Entertainment Weekly recently. 

“I again just happened to be in the right place in the right time, I went to a screening of Bohemian Rhapsody that he was at and then we were invited afterwards for a drink so I marched up to him and said, ‘Have you had any call from your agent about a James Bond film?’ He went, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘Well, we’ve been trying to meet you for quite a long time.’ Within a second he was on the phone and the very next day he was in the office and that was that. [Laughs] I’ve learned to be quite bold. If you want something you go and get it,” she added. 

Also read: James Bond ‘could be a man or woman’ of any race or age, says No Time To Die actor Lashana Lynch

Rami, in an interview with GQ in November 2020, had said that he would have never turned down the offer of starring in a James Bond movie. “Look, there was no way I was going to say no. It’s a 007 film, man. They’re a part of our cinematic history. An opportunity to go toe-to-toe, head-to-head with Daniel and give them all I got? That’s something I’ll look back on as as big as it gets,” he said.