Stephen Hawking does not play himself in the biopic The Theory Of Everything, presumably because he wouldn’t be able to make outrageous threats or feed someone to a shark. According to The Telegraph, the renowned physicist recently told Wired that his ideal film role is that of a James Bond villain, saying, “I think the wheelchair and the computer voice would fit the part.” Although not a trained actor, Hawking has set his thespian sights high after playing cards with Data, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The 007 series has not had a wheelchair-bound antagonist since 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, where John Hollis played an unnamed villain in the pre-credit sequence who was probably Blofeld but couldn’t be named as such for legal reasons. The current rumor is that Christoph Waltz will play the baddie in the as-yet-unnamed Bond 24, but the world’s most unlikely casting coup could still happen, pitting Daniel Craig’s lethal brawn against Hawking’s fierce intellect. A Brief History Of Death would make a great title for a Bond movie.