William Boyd, the author of a new James Bond novel approved by creator Ian Fleming's family, said that Daniel Day-Lewis fits Fleming’s original description of Bond more than Daniel Craig.
Boyd told The Associated Press that the three-time Oscar winner would have been perfect to play Bond as Fleming conceived 007. Fleming once said that Bond looked “like the American singer-songwriter Hoagy Carmichael,” said Boyd. “Daniel Day-Lewis looks like Hoagy Carmichael.”
The author’s new Bond novel is titled Solo and is set in 1969, with an older Bond being sent on a dangerous mission to a West African country and then to Washington. Readers should not picture Bond looking like Craig, who has played the character in the last three films, or even Sean Connery.
According to The Telegraph, Boyd also believes that we shouldn’t call the women in the Bond universe “Bond Girls.” Instead, he likes the phrase “Bond Women.”
“I’m not too keen on the expression ‘Bond Girl’. I think Bond has relationships with women. It seems to me that he wants a relationship, not just casual sex,” Boyd explained. “I think of the many that I have read I remember Honey Ryder – and not because she was played by Ursula Andress in the film. I think she was a very interesting Bond Girl… Bond Woman.”
Boyd follows in the footsteps of Kingsley Amis and Sebastian Faulks, who have also written Bond novels authorized by the Fleming family.
“You have to respect the tradition of Bond,” Boyd said in an interview with the Times, notes the Telegraph. “It’s my invention, but of course being Bond you’d be a fool not to nod to certain aspects to Bond and aspects we love.”
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