Mark Strong missed out on the chance to play a Bond villain after he spent the night drinking with Daniel Craig.
Mark Strong
The 58-year-old actor has revealed that he auditioned to play a bad guy opposite Pierce Brosnan as the legendary spy but an evening spent boozing with a future 007 dashed his hopes.
Mark – who starred with Daniel in the 1990s TV drama 'Our Friends in the North' - told the Radio Times magazine: "I was up for a villain in one of the Pierce Brosnan films – I can't remember which – and I had learnt my lines.
"And I was quite cocky about that. Because when I started out auditioning, you didn't learn your lines, you just read them with the director.
"But the night before, I went out for a drink with Danny – this was way before he was Bond. And unfortunately, I had a bit too much to drink."
Mark explained how his drunken night came back to haunt him at the audition as he completely forgot his lines.
The 'Cruella' star said: "So I got to the audition the next day, thinking it would all just come back to me.
"But when I got in the room I dried. The more I couldn't remember the lines, the hotter I got, the more I started to sweat, and the worse it got.
"I didn't get the job. It was excruciating."
Despite their drunken antics costing him a part, Mark praised the way that Daniel has coped with the fame and pressure that comes with being Bond as he bows out as 007 in 'No Time To Die'.
Mark explained: "You have to have the mental capability for it, as we're finding from all these reality shows like 'Love Island'.
"You think you want fame; you get on these shows, you get noticed, and then the brutal eye of the world's attention can be really detrimental.
"Fame isn't joyous in the way you think it is."
Tagged in Daniel Craig Pierce Brosnan Mark Strong