James Bond author Ian Fleming wasn’t originally sold on the idea of Sean Connery as 007.

A variety of different actors have portrayed 007 over the years, and the original actor to first suit up in the role is still a favorite for many fans.

However, Sean Connery’s casting was questioned by the creator of the James Bond character, Ian Fleming, who wasn’t totally sold on the casting.

Per IndieWire, new details about the history of the franchise have been divulged in Nicholas Shakespeare’s upcoming biography on Fleming, titled Ian Fleming: The Complete Man.

The book goes into the casting process for the first James Bond, going back to the mid-1950s with several different actors approached.

Fleming had considered a handful of names to get the role, suggesting Richard Burton would “be by far the best James Bond.”

There is an ongoing speculation about who will play James Bond next, and one of the actors who played the character has a good option.

He’d also considered James Stewart, who Fleming wouldn’t mind as Bond “if he can slightly anglicize his accent,” as well as James Mason, noting, “We might have to settle for him.”

Many other names were in consideration as well, including Roger Moore — who’d eventually play a new incarnation years later — along with Peter Finch, Cary Grant, Dirk Bogarde, Trevor Howard, Rex Harrison, Richard Todd, Michael Redgrave, Patrick McGoohan, and Richard Johnson.

“We tried twenty or thirty. No major actor would play the part for more than one picture, and we couldn’t set up a deal with a distributor without commitment from a main actor,” Fleming’s agent, Robert Fenn, is quoted as saying.

When Fleming first met Connery, the author was said to be “shocked because he couldn’t speak the Queen’s English.”

Fenn added, “Fleming said, ‘He’s not my idea of Bond at all, I just want an elegant man, not this roughneck.’”

James Bond is one of the most iconic characters of the screen and literature and its time for the next actor to bring 007 back to the basics.

Sean Connery Is a Favorite Bond for Many Fans

The casting has worked out for the best. Franchise producer Michael G. Wilson has suggested that the movie series may not have taken off in the first place if the wrong person wasn’t cast in the role, as he noted, “Sean Connery was the right guy in the movie for the right time.

If it hadn’t been Sean, who knows? Would it have captured the attention of the whole world?”

Fellow franchise producer Barbara Broccoli added, “It was the sheer self-confidence he exuded. He walked like the most arrogant son-of-a-gun, you’ve ever seen – as if he owned every bit of Jermyn Street from Regent Street to St. James. ‘That’s our Bond,’ I said.”