Saïd Taghmaoui was cast as the lead villain in the upcoming James Bond film, but Danny Boyle’s departure leaves the actor’s role uncertain.

Saïd Taghmaoui has been a working actor for years now, but he most recently won our hearts as the lovable Sameer in 2017’s Wonder Woman. Since that time, Taghmaoui was slated to play the lead villain in the upcoming James Bond flick, directed by Danny Boyle. However, after the troubled film lost Boyle as director, Taghmaoui’s role in the Bond universe is uncertain.

As Variety reports, Taghmaoui told The National, a newspaper based in Abu Dhabi, that it was Boyle who selected him for the role. However, since Boyle departed, his role is up in the air as the Bond producers are debating the nationality of the movie’s big bad.

Taghmaoui explained the situation to The National, expressing what seemed to be a bit of (more than justified) frustration over the situation.

“I’m supposed to do the next James Bond, playing the lead bad guy. I was cast by Danny Boyle, and just now he left the project, so of course there’s some uncertainty. We don’t know who the director will be, and the producers don’t know if they’re going to go Russian or Middle East with the baddie right now. I literally just received a message saying: ‘If they go Middle East, it’s you. If they go Russian, it’s someone else.’ It’s the story of my life. Always on that line between something that could change my life and something that disappears.”

And Taghmaoui’s worry over being recast might be a very real possibility. Variety reports that some of the “creative differences” that led to Boyle’s departure from the film could be the studio’s preference to have Tomasz Kot play a Russian villain in the movie, though there’s been no additional details added from Boyle or the production company to explain Boyle’s departure.

For his part, Taghmaoui is aware of the stereotype of casting an Arab man in the role of a villain, but he wasn’t worried about it for this particular film. “If you knew how many movies I refuse because of my conscience, honestly. There is a lot of cliché and stereotyping, and you always have to try to be real – at least that’s what I try to do. There’s always a danger, but there are also always people with good intentions and people with bad intentions.”

We’ll have to wait and see if Taghmaoui has a future in the Bond universe. Production is set to start this December to prepare for a 2019 release, so decisions are likely to be made very soon about the film’s official cast and crew.