Gandalfe ... I reckon you've hit the nail on the head. Lee is a professional film actor, while the others are sports stars who have occasionally "acted" in films.

Maybe they don't have SAG cards?

That's also why the tallest actor, period, is Matthew McGrory (from Big fish) at 7'4", not Muresan.

How tall was Andre the Giant? Though he's probably categorized more as a wrestler, though, right?

Maybe they don't have SAG cards?

Nah, they have to have SAG cards, I figure.

I can see some of that argument, but I figure by the time you are the name above the title, you're an actor too, no matter how you normally make your money -- Muresan, NSM. Shaq, MJ, yeah. Rodman even had a gig on a TV series.

Richard Kiel, aka Jaws from Star Wars.

You mean Moonraker....

Where the cute lead guy came over all fangy whenever he got grindy with the girl. I've been all over netflix and imdb.

Assuming you're not taking the piss and meaning BtVS, might I suggest the pant-wettingly awful Vampire High?

I think Don Cheadle would be a good James Bond,

A resounding no. I think Don Cheadle is a cracking actor, and v. cute, but the risible Dick Van Dyke accent he did in Ocean's Eleven absolutely rules him out as Bond. I'm sure he could be a ballsy action hero with panache and wit and all that stuff, but he's really not Bondish, imho.

Colin Salmon isn't just a bloody good actor, he's a bloody good actor with the gravitas and the quintessential Britishness and Bondishness going on already - he can totally do this. He'd make an excellent Bond. I don't know if it'll happen, because the notion of British=posh and white is deeply ingrained in USAians, and multicultural Britain isn't really what they want to buy, as far as I can see. But maybe that's changing gradually. I hope so. I was delighted that Bend it Like Beckham did so well in the US - maybe there's getting to be more of a realisation that British doesn't just mean pink and posh. I'd love to see Salmon as Bond.

(The notion of Englishness/Scottishness/Welshness/Irishness is very blurry for non-Brits, so the fact that most of these 'English' actors who've played Bond aren't English is neither here nor there - they're still British, and most non-Brits use English and British interchangeably. Hell, so do most English people.)

edited to add:

Emotionally I agree with Jimi re: employing British actors. However, it's true enough that I'm always 'Yay! Go Team!' whenever I see a Brit playing Americans in American movies. Upon reflection I agree that if the actor really is good enough for the part, then the accent and background and whatever that they have when they're being themselves is neither here nor there. (I'd be cool with Denisof as Bond, for example, because quite apart from being one hell of an actor and utterly shaggable to boot, he can do the accent and he lived here for years - he understands that England isn't some Victorian pastiche of tea and scones and this informs his acting.)

No piss being taken Fay, and I'm sooo gonna check out Vampire High!

Sarah Vowell's not only not an actor, she's not acting in The Incredibles. She's reading. To great effect, but she's reading.

What do you see as the signs of that? And, in voiceover work, what difference does it make?

Also -- I saw The Apple last night. It is ... transcendently bad in a whole new way that borders on genius. How often is deus ex machina a literal plot device in modern film?

What do you see as the signs of that?

She sounded exactly precisely the same as the one piece of her radio work.

And yes, there's a huge difference between reading and acting. It just seems to so happen that her reading was what someone else might have faked to act Violet -- certainly not casting aspersions on her performance -- acting or reading, it was a performance, and great voice-work.

I mean, I can sure read. I know no one's going to be hiring me for voicework, though, because I don't act.

I've been hearing about The Apple for months. I feel like I need to see it, as each person's description tops the one that came before. I wonder where I'll be able to get it. I'm guessing the usual rental spots won't work.