When Sean Connery was stepping down as James Bond, Timothy Dalton was asked if he was interested but he turned them down.

Timothy Dalton played James Bond in The Living Daylights and Licence To Kill, but the actor told Vanity Fair that he previously turned down the opportunity to replace Sean Connery after Diamonds Are Forever.

“There was a time when Sean Connery was leaving. I can’t say I was offered it, but I was asked if I’d like to do it or not,” Dalton explained. “And I said ‘No,’ because it seemed to me that the age of 24 or 25 doesn’t seem quite right for this character. … He needs to be [older]. You could play it at that younger age, but I don’t know that I’d believe it that much.”

Dalton doesn’t regret turning down the role at that time, saying, “You don’t want to follow Sean Connery, who was truly, truly magnificent — and who I had been watching in the role since I was 13 or 14. No, don’t do that.” Roger Moore ultimately became the next James Bond, appearing in seven installments of the franchise. By the time Moore stepped down following A View to Kill in 1985, Dalton was ready to take the job.

“I was doing ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ and ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ at the Haymarket Theatre in the West End of London,” Dalton said. “I wasn’t chasing it. I remember being in a hotel room thinking, ‘What the f*** am I going to do about this?’ And then I thought, ‘Well, it’s a once in a lifetime, isn’t it?’ Does good sense say, ‘Go and do something else,’ or does good sense say, ‘Take a once-in-a-lifetime and then go and do something else’? So you go and do it.“

The James Bond franchise is in a strange place at the moment. Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli are stepping away after giving control to Amazon MGM Studios, who reportedly paid around $1 billion for the privilege. Dalton previously said he was “very surprised and shocked” that Broccoli and Wilson had left, but expressed hope that Amazon will be able to do right by the franchise. “The movies have taken different courses over the years, but there is something very good about the original and I hope Amazon latch onto that and give us the kind of film that’s brought so much excitement and fun to so many people,” Dalton said. “Anyway, good luck to them, I say. I do wish them all the very, very best. They’ll be doing their best to make a lot of money, so hopefully they will make good movies.“