Gulshan Grover recalls being fired as James Bond villain for disrespecting contract
ITAHARI: DEC. 1 – Actor Gulshan Grover said that even though he was fired from Casino Royale—he was cast as the villain Le Chiffre in the film, Daniel Craig’s first as James Bond—he cannot be kept away from playing an antagonist in a 007 movie for too long. “One day I will play a Bond villain, I’m sure,” he told RJ Siddharth Kannan in a new interview.
This is not the first time that Gulshan Grover has spoken about this incident. He had previously told Rediff that because of his inability to keep a lid on his casting, and the fault of a gossipy friend, the news leaked in the British press, which really upset the Bond producers.
Asked if this was a rumor, Gulshan Grover said that the story is absolutely true. He said in the new interview, “I had signed the agreement. Casino Royale was the film. I shared the news with one of my closest friends in London. The biggest newspaper, the Daily Mirror, ran a story with the headline ‘Bollywood’s Bond villain’. Everything that I had said the previous night had been printed. That upset everybody. They said I hadn’t respected the contract, and various other things happened, and I had to leave.”
Previously, the actor had identified the role he was up for was none other than Le Chiffre, the primary antagonist of the film. The character was eventually played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.
Interestingly, director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra revealed in his autobiography recently that Daniel Craig had auditioned for a part in Rang De Basanti, but was forced to drop out because he was cast as Bond around the same time.
Craig played the iconic British spy for the final time this year, in the critically and commercially successful No Time to Die. Oscar-winner Rami Malek played the antagonist Safin in the film, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga.
