Mel Gibson wanted to play James Bond in the worst way but producers though he was a tad wee.
Mad Mel had high hopes of landing the Bond part when the franchise changed leads but producers shattered his master plan with a jab at his diminished height.
According to scriptwriter Tom Mankiewicz who wrote Live and Let Die andThe Man With the Golden Gun, "At one point Mel Gibson to play Bond. And (producer) Cubby (Broccoli) was against it. Cubby first of all had a thing about tall people. Bond had to be tall. And so Mel Gibson was too short.
"But he WAS a big star.
"Somebody at United Artists said to me, ‘Call him and tell him Mel Gibson would be great.’ And Cubby said, ‘I don’t want to make a Mel Gibson movie, I want to make a James Bond movie!’"
Yet Mel had his revenge in a roundabout way – his current GF Oksana Grigorieva is the ex of former 007 Timothy Dalton.
