London Casting Office Requires Every Bond Candidate to Parachute Into the Thames Before Reading a Single Line
The search for the next 007 has entered its final round, with the remaining candidates subjected to a stunt regime devised by the capital's most feared casting director.
Remaining candidates for the role of James Bond have been ordered to complete a full week of live stunt rehearsals on the south bank of the Thames, after the casting office declared that no actor may be considered for the role without first proving he can survive a fall from a moving bridge.
The regime was drawn up by the casting director, whose office has told the remaining candidates that dialogue will be tested only once their knees have been certified by a physiotherapy panel drawn from three London hospitals. Candidates now begin each morning with a two-kilometre run along the embankment, followed by a driving test in a converted tram depot in Lambeth, where a stationary sports car has been fitted with a camera rig that films the actor's face at fourteen separate angles.
A spokesperson for the office said that a candidate who cannot hold a steady expression while a stunt double performs a rooftop leap has, in the words of the office, »demonstrated the wrong kind of composure«. Three hopefuls have already been moved to a second tier of training, which now takes place in a disused swimming pool in Brixton, where they practise walking away from explosions in tailored suits.
Local residents in Lambeth have reported that the depot's floodlights now run until dawn, and that a queue of agents forms outside the gate each evening, carrying scripts they have been told not to open. The office says the final round will conclude once the last remaining candidate has completed a single uninterrupted sprint across Westminster Bridge in a dinner jacket, with the result to be announced from the bridge's central span.
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