Now that James Bond is under new ownership, there’s been plenty of speculation about who might be cast as the iconic character in the next film installment. Michael Fassbender, meanwhile, is revealing that the last time the Broccoli family was casting the character, he was one of the people who auditioned.
“I met with Barbara Broccoli just, you know, through passing and I actually went in to an audition phase before Daniel [Craig] was cast, but I don’t think I was ever in the mix,” Fassbender said during an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “But I remember going into that room and meeting with her and [Michael G.] Wilson and I think I was like, ‘Daniel Craig is…’ I don’t know why I was promoting him. I should have been promoting myself.”
Fassbender added that he had also bombed an audition for Mad Max: Fury Road after showing up at the Warner Bros. lot an hour late. “This is what I was saying. I was terrible at auditions,” he said. “Obviously Daniel did a fantastic job and went on to be, I think, the most successful Bond in history. But that was it really, there was never a conversation after that.”
Fassbender was one of several young, international stars who auditioned for the role at the time.
Martin Campbell, who directed Casino Royale, Craig’s first Bond film, said that Henry Cavill made an excellent impression during his audition. Ultimately, though, he ended up being too young for the part.
“He looked great in the audition. His acting was tremendous,” Campbell told Express UK. “And look, if Daniel didn’t exist, Henry would have made an excellent Bond. He looked terrific, he was in great physical shape… Very handsome, very chiseled. He just looked a little young at that time back then.”
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.