The name’s Aquilina… Yell actor cast as James Bond in new major video game
JAMES Bond is one of the most iconic roles in cinema history – and let’s face it, most young boys have at some point dreamed of being the one to fill that iconic black tuxedo.
Generations of cinemagoers have gawped up at the big screen at the litany of cool gadgets, fast cars and witty one-liners and wished it could be them in the role.
Actor Luke Aquilina himself long imagined what it would be like to be the super spy – only now he is a little closer to knowing the answer.
Aquilina, who grew up in Yell, revealed this week that he performed the motion capture work for Bond in the newly released 007: First Light video game – which was released on Wednesday to rave reviews.
In fitting Bond style, Aquilina has been sworn to agonising silence for a whole four years while the game has been in development.
The 30-year-old said he got into acting with the specific goal of portraying Bond, Doctor Who or a superhero – and called his Bond experience a “dream come true”.
Aquilina has taken on motion capture work for as many as eight video games – some of which he cannot talk about yet – and said this seemed like a normal job at first.
“I had no idea what it was I was going to be doing,” he laughed as he spoke to Shetland News from his home in Streatham, South London, this week.
“I got an email from my agent saying ‘hey, there’s this job in a mo-cap [motion capture] studio, are you free’, and I just said ‘yeah’.
“I got given the script, which came with documents to sign and a password saying it would expire in 24 hours.
“When I opened the script there were a lot of references to James Bond. There’s not many ways you can hide that it’s James Bond!”
Only on the way to the studio did Aquilina get confirmation that he had just signed up to play James Bond.
“I had a bit of a freak out at that point,” he said.
“Ideally you would have liked to have more time to prepare for a thing like that, when it’s one of the most well-known things in the world.”
He spent two days in the studio acting out James Bond’s movements, which are used within the game.
When gamers press play on First Light and move the iconic character around, it will be Aquilina’s movements that they see as Bond walks, runs and jumps.
Bond’s face and voice, however are provided by actor Patrick Gibson.
Aquilina explained it thusly: “Essentially a famous celebrity’s face is on my body”.
“When a player presses a joystick forward and the character takes a step forward, that’s the movements that I did,” he said.
“I did the running, jumping, a couple of bits of falling and bits of guns and weaponry, like flicking guns off the floor into my hand.
He admitted that the mo-cap suit – basically an all-body morph suit with white balls attached to map out the character – was “not quite as smart” as Bond’s tuxedo.
Incredibly Aquilina then had to wait four years after his two-day stint in the studio to reveal to the world that he was about to be seen worldwide as Bond.
First Light – designed by Hitman creators IO Interactive – has also been one of the year’s most anticipated video games, which has caused Aquilina some difficult moments.
“It’s really difficult to keep your mouth shut,” he laughed.
“You’re speaking to people and they’re saying, ‘I see there’s a new James Bond game coming out’, and you just have to say ‘oh yeah, I heard that…’
“I’ve essentially had to keep my trap shut for four years.”
Aquilina is not sure how much of his movement work was used within First Light, and he estimates that another three or four motion-capture artists would have been used too.
However he knows that enough of his work has been used to ensure that he can firmly add it to the top of his CV.
“I’ve never had a job of this kind of scale before,” he said.
“When I first started acting I said I would be completely happy if I could play James Bond, a superhero or Doctor Who.
“It’s definitely a dream come true, just to say that I’ve been able to do even tangentially.”
And Aquilina said it was “utterly bizarre” to know that millions of people the world over will be turning on their PlayStation, PC or Xbox to essentially move him around their screens.
Aquilina faces an agonising week-long wait to play First Light himself, and said he was “very excited to play it” after returning from a holiday.
He was last on the Shetland News pages in late 2024 after booking a role in the National Theatre’s performance of Coriolanus at the Olivier Theatre in London, stepping out on stage every night beside David Oyelowo and performing for celebrity guests like Oprah Winfrey.
From Shetland to Shakespeare – Yell actor stunned by National Theatre opportunity
As well as his acting and motion capture work, Aquilina has also worked as a stuntman recently on major TV productions such as MobLand – which stars fellow Bond Pierce Brosnan – and Sky’s violent epic Gangs of London.
He also makes an appearance in Guy Ritchie’s In the Grey, released this month, alongside Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal – with Cavill seen ‘knocking out’ Aquilina in the finished movie.
Aquilina set he was set to appear in a couple of episodes of an upcoming TV show, but could not disclose any details yet.
After growing up in Yell, Aquilina said he was grateful for his “wild child upbringing” and “just being allowed to go out and be a little weirdo” by his parents – which he said had fuelled his love of acting.
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