Our Friends in the North star Mark Strong has revealed how he be blew an audition for the role of a Bond villain because of a boozy night out with future 007 Daniel Craig.
Both made their names in the iconic North East based drama with Strong as Terry 'Tosker' Cox and Craig as George 'Geordie' Peacock and the pair became good friends.
Strong – best known for his roles in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, as Lord Henry Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes and Merlin in the Kingsman films – said he was up for a role as a villain in a Pierce Brosnan 007 movie.
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However a night out with Brosnan’s eventual successor scuppered his chances.
Strong told the Radio Rimes: “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 (Daniel Craig) – this was way before he was Bond. And unfortunately, I had a bit too much to drink.
“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 I remember the lines, the hotter I got, the more I started to sweat, and the worse it got.”
Brosnan starred in four Bond films from 1995 to 2002, among them GoldenEye and Die Another Day.
According to the Radio Times, after “three failed attempts” Strong was asked to sit down by producers.
He added: “I didn’t get the job. It was excruciating.”
The 58-year-old has become one of Hollywood's best known villains. His breakthrough came alongside Craig in the 1996 drama Our Friends in the North which also starred Gina McKee and Christopher Eccleston.
