Norton, James Norton?
BBC One's new crime thriller McMafia is certain to shorten the Grantchester actor's odds of becoming the next 007.
The first episode - airing on Monday, January 1 at 9pm on BBC One - has Norton's character Alex Godman wearing a tuxedo in his first scene, and he later dons some trunks for a dip in the ocean (à la Daniel Craig).
But, despite the surface similarities, Norton insists he's not angling for the role. "I did warn James [Watkins] and Hoss [Amini, series writers] that, if they wrote the first scene with me getting out of a black cab in a tux, they would maybe stir some of the rumours!
"To be honest, I'm personally very thankful that Daniel Craig's going to do at least one more film. I'm a big fan of his."
In fact, Norton insisted that his character Alex couldn't be any further from the suave agent 007 - instead, he's the son of exiled Russian gangsters, who ends up dragged deeper and deeper into the shadowy world of organised crime.
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"The beauty of the writing is that it's not 'villains and heroes'," Norton said, adding that he in fact drew inspiration from another famous film icon.
"We talked a lot about Michael Corleone in The Godfather, because we had a sort of similar premise."
McMafia is based on the non-fiction book by Misha Glenny, which takes its title from a story about the Chechen mafia.
The group used to sell its name to different criminal organisations across Russia - all of whom not only had to pay for use of the term "Chechen Mafia" but also had to promise they would be suitably ruthless, to maintain the group's reputation.
The mafia had become a chain, like McDonald's - a McMafia.
Events in the TV series are loosely based on real stories of criminality and corruption, with Norton hoping that it serves as not just "a great drama" but also "a catalyst for a conversation which we're desperately in need of having".
"The whole point of the show - the suffix Mc - is that the corruption is global. The tentacles reach boardrooms and governments, so the corruption is by no means limited to Russia.
"I think for all of us it's been an extraordinary eye-opener as far as how far-reaching this corruption is, and how complicit we are. Misha gave us amazing facts - like a quarter of all tomatoes we use are farmed using slave labour, and most of the mobile phones we use have conflict minerals in them, which have been mined by children.
"The extent to which we are all complicit in this corruption is extraordinary, and terrifying."
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