After we learned yesterday that Mads Mikkelsen was cast as the James Bond baddie Le Chiffre in the upcoming Casino Royale two more roles were made official today.
Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc, and Sony Pictures Entertainment announced that Eva Green has been cast to play the enticing Vesper Lynd and Jeffrey Wright has joined the cast as Felix Leiter.
Casino Royale reunites Wilson and Broccoli with Martin Campbell, who directed the 1995 blockbuster GoldenEye, and will be the 21st James Bond film produced by the franchise holders, EON Productions. The MGM/Columbia Pictures production began shooting in January this year and will be released worldwide on November 17. It will be filmed on location in the Czech Republic, the Bahamas, Italy and the UK.
Wilson and Broccoli said, “We are thrilled that Eva and Mads have joined the cast of Casino Royale completing a first rate international cast. They bring exceptional talent to the characters Ian Fleming described so vividly in his first James Bond novel.
After an extensive search we have found the perfect actress. Eva is one of France’s most accomplished young actresses, now receiving international acclaim. She brings to the complex role of Vesper an exciting combination of enigmatic and seductive beauty.
Likewise Mads has such a compelling onscreen presence and his riveting performances in Open Hearts and Adam’s Apples convinced both us and director Martin Campbell that he was ideal for the role of Le Chiffre.”
Neal Purvis and Robert Wade wrote the screenplay based on author Ian Fleming’s first novel. Additional writing was contributed by Academy Award-nominated writer, Paul Haggis (Crash/Million Dollar Baby).
“Vesper is a pivotal role in Casino Royale and it takes much more than beauty to make this role work,” said Amy Pascal, Chairman of the Columbia Pictures Motion Picture Group. “When you think about the great James Bond adventures, of course you think about action and espionage, but you need to have palpable sexual tension in the movie and in casting Vesper, we really needed to up the ante, because this character is very much an equal to Bond and central to our story. We believe Eva as Vesper, Mads as Le Chiffre and Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter are perfect additions to our cast and we couldn’t be more excited about the way this project has come together.”
Described by Bernardo Bertolucci as “so beautiful it’s indecent,” Eva Green is one of the most intriguing actresses today. Born in Paris, France, she made her debut in Bertolucci’s critically acclaimed The Dreamers. Green then starred opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Romain Duris in Jean-Paul Salome’s French-language film, Arsene Lupin. In 2005 she made her Hollywood debut, starring as the female lead in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven with Orlando Bloom and Liam Neeson.
Mads Mikkelsen made his American debut opposite Clive Owen and Keira Knightley in Disney’s King Arthur, directed by Antoine Fuqua and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Mikkelsen has won many Scandinavian awards for his work on screen and television. He is best known for his starring role in Susanne Bier’s Open Hearts for which he was nominated for “Best Actor” for the Robert (Danish Academy Award) and Bodil (Danish Film Critics’ Award) in 2003.
Mikkelsen has recently appeared in Anders Thomas Jensen’s Adam’s Apples, Susanne Bier’s After The Wedding and the Swedish thriller Exit, directed by Peter Lindmark, due for release later this year.
The acclaimed stage actor, Wright, who first came to film audiences’ attention as the doomed artist Jean Michel Basquiat in Basquiat, has subsequently garnered critical acclaim in his Emmy-winning performance in HBO’s miniseries “Angels in America,” and in such films as Shaft, Ali, The Manchurian Candidate, Broken Flowers, Syriana and HBO’s recent “Lackawanna Blues.” He will soon be seen in Lady in the Water and The Visiting.
The producers are delighted that the cast is rounded out by talented international actors in feature roles, including; Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis, Caterina Murino as Solonge, Simon Abkarian as Dimitrios, Tobias Menzies as Villiers, Ivana Milicevic as Valenka, Clemens Schik as Kratt, Ludger Pistor as Mendel, and Claudio Santamaria as Carlos.
