In the Ian Fleming novels, James Bond is clearly intended to be in his late 30s / early 40s. The same seems to hold true for all the movies. Bond is not a young

In the Ian Fleming novels, James Bond is clearly intended to be in his late 30s / early 40s. The same seems to hold true for all the movies. Bond is not a young man by any stretch of the imagination. He is a world-weary traveler well-versed in high culture, espionage, elite military tactics. His cultural knowledge is explained by virtue of his upper class birth and upbringing; its likely he served in the military before being recruited by MI:6, and of course the espionage is the hallmark of the latter agency. That said... when Jonathan Goldsmith was auditioning for part of The Most Interesting Man in the World, the ad agency called his agent and said, "We really like him, but we think he might be too old," and she replied (quite masterfully), "How could the Most Interesting Man in the World be young?", implying it would take a lifetime to acquire the achievements. So I guess the answer is, be old and good-looking, like Goldsmith, or Sean Connery.