Bill Skarsgård Says He ‘Wasn’t Even Thrown Into the Mix’ to Be James Bond: ‘Maybe They Were Like, “We Can’t Do a Swede”’

Bill Skarsgård won’t be the next 007, but he would play a Bond villain.

In a recent appearance on Josh Horowitz’s “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Skarsgård revealed he wasn’t asked to test for Denis Villeneuve’s reboot.

“They didn’t call me about James Bond. I don’t know what that was about,” he joked. “Every single British, Australian [actor] … but maybe they were like, ‘We can’t do a Swede for this guy.’ I wasn’t even thrown into the mix.”

Casting rumors for the new Bond have recently reached a fever pitch, with names like Callum Turner, Josh O’Connor and Jack Lowden swirling around. Most recently, Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult were revealed to have screen-tested for the role.

Skarsgård agreed with Horowitz that he wouldn’t want to sign on for a decade plus of playing 007. “That’s right,” he said. “Just want to go in and do one Mads Mikkelsen villain.”

“It’s not something that I’m actively looking for, but if I feel compelled to do something, yeah,” Skarsgård continued. “It’s the weird thing. A lot of people ask me, what goes into picking your roles or whatever and I don’t really know how to say it other than I feel drawn or compelled to. It’s something that you can’t really put your words on it and describe why it’s happening.”

He added: “But I’ve also noticed that I don’t want to become jaded. Which means that I think I could probably go long stretches without working and waiting for something to be compelling enough for me to work on.”

The Swedish actor is no stranger to a villainous character. He has played Pennywise in the “It” movies, Count Orlok in Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu,” Eric Draven in “The Crow” and Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont in “John Wick: Chapter 4.” But he told Horowitz that he is becoming more discerning about the villain roles he takes on.

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