Luther and The Wire star Idris Elba has admitted that becoming the first black actor to play James Bond would put him in a "difficult position".
Current 007 Daniel Craig is expected to make his final appearance as Ian Fleming's famous spy in the upcoming Bond 25.
Elba, who has been tipped for the career-defining role, told Vanity Fair magazine: "Of course, if someone said to me, 'Do you want to play James Bond?,' I'd be like, 'Yeah!'
"That's fascinating to me. But it's not something I've expressed, like, 'Yeah, I wanna be the black James Bond'," the 46-year-old added, before pointing out the potential pitfalls.
"You just get disheartened when you get people from a generational point of view going, 'It can't be.' And it really turns out to be the colour of my skin.
"And then if I get it and it didn't work, or it did work, would it be because of the colour of my skin? That's a difficult position to put myself into when I don't need to."
The likes of Richard Madden, James Norton, Tom Hardy and Tom Hiddleston are among the other names who have been tipped to succeed Daniel Craig in the Bond role.
As for his hugely successful BBC drama, Elba said he would "love to see three or four Luthers come out as films", following the success of the show, which has run since 2010 and for five seasons.
The London-born actor also said that he was unusual as a black British actor in the US when he started looking for work on the other side of the Atlantic.
"When I got to America and was like, I want to be an actor, I was like a novelty act in all my casting meetings," he said.
"They were like, 'Wow! I love your accent, it's so refined,'" before telling him: "'OK, so you're Gangster number one.'"
