If Paul Giamatti were to play a James Bond villain, he has a wishlist for the role.

A Bond villain with an accent

Paul Giamatti wants to give Daniel Craig a run for his money in Knives Out 3

During an interview with GQ breaking down his iconic characters, Giamatti discussed potentially playing a Bond villain. He was tasked with building an archetype for his villain and happily obliged.

“I'd want an accent of some kind,” Giamatti revealed. “I definitely want an accent, it'd be nice to have an animal with me of some kind. Not necessarily a cat, but something. Any animal, maybe. Not a parrot or something — something real.”

He circled back and reinforced that an accent was the top priority. Giamatti also threw in having a fur coat at the buzzer as his last wishlist item. “A guy who's all in fur coats and stuff, that'd be great,” he concluded.

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Paul Giamatti is an award-winning actor. He first hit Broadway with a role in Arcadia. Giamatti's other stage credits include Three Sisters and The Iceman Cometh.

Some of his early film credits include Private Parts, My Best Friend's Wedding, Saving Private Ryan, and Man on the Moon. Giamatti has also starred in Cinderella Man, earning an Oscar nomination for that performance, The Illusionist, Fred Clause, 12 Years a Slave, and 2001's Planet of the Apes.

In 2023, Giamatti reunited with Sideways filmmaker Alexander Payne for The Holdovers. The film follows a boarding school professor, played by Giamatti, who is tasked with watching over kids who don't have a place to go over Christmas break. The Holdovers premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in August before being released in theaters on October 27.

The James Bond franchise has been on ice since 2021. Daniel Craig played the role for five films and capped off his run with No Time to Die. The series will surely return with a new Bond, and perhaps Giamatti will get his wish.