Bill Skarsgard Says He’s “Spent” Playing Bad Guys but Would Still Play a James Bond Villain

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Bill Skarsgard is feeling “spent” when it comes to playing villains.

The 36-year-old actor is known for taking on dark characters, including Pennywise in the It movies, Count Orlok in Nosferatu, Eric Draven in The Crow and Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont in John Wick: Chapter 4. But during a recent episode of Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Skarsgard explained that he’s becoming more selective about taking on villain roles.

“For a villain, it would have to be something that felt original to me, that was something that I hadn’t done before,” Skarsgard said. “I feel, kind of, spent with those things. But there’s villains [that] could be really fun in different ways and if it’s the right kind.”

Horowitz then brought up Skarsgard’s longtime interest in playing a villain in the James Bond franchise.

“Yeah! Well, because they didn’t call me about James Bond. I don’t know what that was about,” Skarsgard quipped. “Maybe they were like, ‘We can’t do a Swede for this guy.’ I wasn’t even thrown into the mix.”

The Dead Man’s Wire actor agreed with Horowitz that he wouldn’t necessarily want to commit to leading the James Bond franchise for 10 or 15 years. Instead, he said he’d be interested in taking on a one-off villain role, citing Mads Mikkelsen and Javier Bardem as examples.

Skarsgard’s comments come as the search for the next actor to play 007 continues ahead of Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming film. The Hollywood Reporter previously reported that Callum Turner, Jack Lowden and Josh O’Connor had screen tested for the part. However, on Friday, THR reported that Robert Pattinson had also screen tested, while Nicholas Hoult’s name has emerged as another potential contender.

As for Skarsgard, he stars in Peter Berg’s war film The Mosquito Bowl, which is currently playing in theaters and set to release on Netflix Nov. 25.