EDGE Rewind: Out Actor Luke Evans Praises Daniel Craig's More Sensitive James Bond

EDGE is reaching into its archive and sharing some of our favorite stories from the past.

Out Welsh actor Luke Evans says that Daniel Craig's take on James Bond matured the film franchise away from treating women as sex objects, and praised the move toward story over one night stands.

Though seven actors have now portrayed 007, Evans, commenting to UK newspaper the Independent, pointed to Roger Moore as a paragon of Bond's previous party boy image, characterizing Moore's run as a stretch of films in which Bond "sleeps with five women per film," and saying that after Craig's five outings as the super-spy, "that's not really what he's about any more."

Evans, "who is among the UK stars tipped to replace Craig as the next Bond, was remarking about a larger shift in the franchise, which is at once more intimate – Craig's Bond came saddled with tragic backstory – and more extravagant," the Independent noted.

"I think people are more interested in the spectacle, the story," Evans said.

"The character has had a reputation of womanizing, with criticism against this side of the character increasing over the past few years," Digital Spy recounted. "Craig's movies, however, have moved 007 somewhat past that. Craig's Bond had a romance with Léa Seydoux's Madeleine Swann over the course of the last two Bond movies, with the pair having a child in 'No Time to Die.'"

As previously reported, Evans does not see being openly gay as an impediment to being chosen for the role in the next James Bond film.

"I don't know what the current temperature is with audiences, whether they care enough to worry about what James Bond does in the bedroom," Evans told Bustle. "I don't think it really matters at all to the character if I'm really honest."

The 43-year-old singer and actor has the physicality for the part – and now, having a role as a Special Forces soldier in the upcoming Apple TV+ series "Echo 3," he also has the killer credentials that the iconic MI-6 operative needs on his resume.

Evans approached his own prospects for the part in a low-key way, telling the Independent, "I love the movies and whoever gets the role will have very big shoes to fill."