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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
As told to Rich Pelley

Alan Partridge on cars, Canadians and Sunday roasts: ‘I’m already about 70% vegan’

Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) in Alpha Papa
Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) in Alpha Papa. Photograph: Baby Cow/Kobal/Shutterstock

If the call came, would you be the next James Bond? Bigbadsean
Wouldn’t happen. There’s a sequence to the casting of 007. They choose an actor from one of the smaller UK nations, then from a non-British Commonwealth country and finally an Englishman – and repeat. Actor from smaller UK nation (Connery, Scotland), non-British actor (Lazenby, Australia), Englishman (Moore, England). Sequence completed, we go again: actor from smaller UK nation (Dalton, Wales), non-British actor (Brosnan, Ireland), Englishman (Craig, England).

So, you see, I couldn’t be the next Bond. It’ll be James Nesbitt (Northern Ireland), Ryan Gosling (Canada), then an Englishman. Assuming Nesbitt and Gosling do three movies each (one every three years), the earliest I could take the role would be 2041, when I’d be in my 80s. That’s almost certainly too old. While I have ideas as to how the role could be slightly rewritten to accommodate the secret agent’s mobility and bladder issues, even then I think it very, very unlikely they’d choose me. Given all that? Not going to happen … probably not going to happen.

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