Regé-Jean Page on life after ‘Bridgerton’ and that James Bond speculation
Rest assured that Regé-Jean Page is well aware of all the buzz and speculation he’s been stirring.
“I spend a lot of time at the moment talking about what other people are saying about me, as opposed to anything I’m actually doing,” the “Bridgerton” star told Variety in a recent interview.
From his rise to global fame via one of Netflix’s hottest shows to hosting “Saturday Night Live” and causing a clamor for him to take over the James Bond role from Daniel Craig, Page is definitely having a moment.
The usually very private 31-year-old British-Zimbabwean actor told the publication he had no fears regarding walking away from playing Simon Basset, the Duke of Hastings, after the success of Season 1 of “Bridgerton.”
“Simon was this bomb of a one-season antagonist, to be reformed and to find his true self through Daphne,” he said. “I think one of the bravest things about the romance genre is allowing people a happy ending.”
The role won him an NAACP Award and Page takes seriously his representation as a Black actor — especially in a Regency era romance drama
“Me and my friends used to joke about the fact that you don’t see a Black man on a horse,” he said.
There’s been lots of speculation that Page could become the first James Bond played by a Black actor. He jokingly refers to it as the “B-word.”
“I can’t talk about the B-word, because I’ve got nothing to say on the B-word,” he said. “I can’t talk about which jobs I’m not doing, because I’m not doing them, [but] I’m very happy with the work I am doing.”
Page is keeping busy with forthcoming roles in the films “Dungeons & Dragons” and “The Gray Man.”
And he’s found a mentor of sorts in “This Is Us” star Sterling K. Brown, who Page met during the 2016 Emmy season.
Brown was impressed.
“He wasn’t somebody who’s like, ‘Give me a couple of years and I’ll be making $10 million a flick,'” Brown said of Page. “He really loves the art of illuminating the human condition.”
