The 007 finalists are all tall, white Brits. Is this really the Bond we need now?

Picture a man, seated at a poker table, wearing a white tuxedo jacket with a red carnation tucked in the lapel. He turns to you with a twinkle in his eye and asks for a vodka martini – shaken, not stirred. What does this man look like? Broad and muscular? Or lithe and spry? Is he blue-eyed or brown-eyed? Blond or brunette? Scottish, Irish, Australian or authentically British? If you were in charge of choosing the next iteration of James Bond – cultural icon and juggernaut franchise figurehead – what kind of man would you tap for the job?

With Daniel Craig having tucked his trusty Walther PPK under his pillow for the very last time in 2021’s No Time to Die, the past half-decade of rampant speculation as to who will take up the mantle of 007 seems to be speeding to a suitably high-stakes conclusion. On October 22, Deadline reported that Amazon MGM – the studio that now owns all rights to the franchise, having wrested full creative control from long-time custodians Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson in 2025 – had arranged final screen-tests to be held that week, with four actors supposedly in the mix: Callum Turner, Jack Lowden, Josh O’Connor and an unnamed mystery man.

The trio of named actors seems to suggest that Amazon MGM has no intention of reinventing the wheel when it comes to casting Bond. For years, Black actors such as Idris Elba and Regé-Jean Page were touted as possible 007s, while some dream-casters went even further: why not Jane Bond? It is the 21st century after all. But let’s not forget that this new Jeff Bezos-backed Bond must meet not only the whims of hyper-critical international audiences, but those of risk-averse tech industry shareholders as well.

Thus we have Turner, Lowden and O’Connor – each very talented, make no mistake – but each of them white, 185-187cm tall and 36 years old. So while the most agonisingly drawn-out casting process in living memory does feel a bit like it’s arriving at the most predictable possible outcome, within the relatively homogenous ranks of these three would-be Bonds there’s an intriguing diversity of attributes and attitudes that bears further scrutiny – and clues to the future of the franchise may well lie in its past.

Everyone has their favourite Bond, just like everyone has their favourite Beatle, and it’s impossible to discuss the next 007 without invoking the six men who have played him over the past 60 years and 25 films.

Ask anyone from my parents’ generation and they’ll probably tell you that the original remains the best: Sean Connery’s sly smirk, Scottish drawl and little blue shorts were the perfect fit for a Secret Service balancing the cultural revolution of the 1960s with the fog of the Cold War. Next up, eternal outlier (and native Goulburnite) George Lazenby, who played Bond but once, in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, holds a place in the heart of many modern cinephiles. Christopher Nolan frequently cites Lazenby’s outing as the best Bond film, as well as a major inspiration for Inception and Tenet.

With the ’70s in full swing and the ruffled shirts threatening to burst the very buttons off Bond’s tuxedo jacket, Roger Moore’s increasingly cartoonish 12-year tenure saw the franchise scrabbling for cultural relevance; two years after Star Wars took the global box office by storm, Bond went to space in Moonraker with less than stellar results (remember when metal-toothed henchman Jaws got a girlfriend?).

The oft-overlooked Timothy Dalton brought a flinty, vengeful Bond back to earth in The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989), both of which struggled to find their footing in a blockbuster landscape now dominated by oiled-up he-men such as Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Licence to Kill in particular feels tailor-made to win-over American audiences, playing at times like an unofficial 007–Miami Vice crossover.

For me and my millennial kin, though, Pierce Brosnan (and his Nintendo 64 polygonal likeness) remains unmatched. GoldenEye (1995) was a cultural behemoth, largely thanks to Brosnan’s suave and sensuous post-Cold War Bond. His time at the wheel of the Aston Martin came to an ignominious end, though: while the real world was still reeling from the 9/11 World Trade Centre attacks, Brosnan’s Bond was surfing tsunamis and picking diamonds out of Halle Berry’s belly button in Die Another Day (2002).

The series was promptly rebooted for the fifth time, giving us Daniel Craig’s “blunt instrument” Bond in Casino Royale (2006): a musclebound hatchet man that hearkened back to the casual cruelty of Ian Fleming’s original creation, albeit with a good deal more parkour. Over the course of five films and 15 years, Craig quickly went from “hot-shot rookie” to “over-the-hill bag of bones”, with his 2021 swan song leaving no doubt whatsoever that the first blond-haired Bond was throwing in the towel for good.

Which brings us to the here and now. At the time of writing, betting markets have shortened their odds on Callum Turner as the top pick, and fair enough – if you asked ChatGPT to imagine a hunky British super spy, it would probably spit out something quite closely resembling Turner, with his quarterback shoulder span and impish grin. Better known in some circles as Mr Dua Lipa (and yes, many have pointed out she could whip up a killer Bond theme), Turner could make for a crowd-pleasing mix of Brosnan and Moore. He’s shown his dramatic chops in period pieces such as The Boys in the Boat and Masters of the Air, while high-concept rom-coms Eternity and One Night Only proved he has the requisite goofy charm as well.

Next best odds are on Jack Lowden, who’s no stranger to spy craft, having starred in six seasons of Apple TV+’s Slow Horses. There’s a strong precedent for new Bonds cutting their teeth in TV: Roger Moore with The Saint, Pierce Brosnan with Remington Steele. And surely it can’t hurt to have a little Regency romance on the resume as well; Lowden’s about to become Mr Darcy for a whole new generation of Jane Austen fans in Netflix’s upcoming Pride and Prejudice revamp. A native Scotsman, Lowden strikes me as an intriguing combination of the original and most recent Bonds – he can glower like Sean Connery when the occasion calls for it, but his adventures in and around Slough House have proven he can take a solid beating and get back up again, which was always one of Daniel Craig’s superpowers. Perhaps blond Bond walked so our first ginger Bond could run?

Josh O’Connor is the genuine wild card here. Generally considered more internet boyfriend than calculated killer, he rose to fame portraying Prince Charles in The Crown but has proven himself a genuine chameleon since then. As comfortable in a rumpled linen suit in Alice Rohrwacher’s La chimera as he is on the tennis courts in Luca Guadagnino’s sweaty, sexy Challengers, there’s no real precedent for a performer like O’Connor taking on Bond.

The closest comparison is probably Timothy Dalton, who spent many years with the Royal Shakespeare Company before answering Broccolis’ call. And the somewhat edgier, more po-faced Dalton films might be closer in tone to what we should expect from the other critical player in all this: incoming director Denis Villeneuve.

The Canadian filmmaker is renowned for his operatic asceticism; you can probably count the combined number of jokes in Incendies, Prisoners, Sicario, Arrival and the two thus-far released Dune movies on the fingers of one hand. So perhaps a more stark and less splashy Bond is on the cards – and in that sense, Josh O’Connor might just be the inside pick.

Then there’s option four: the mystery man. Just last Saturday, after two weeks of crickets from the casting department, word leaked that both Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult have also tested for the role. So it seems our mystery man is more of a mystery men, plural – and that for all we know, every 30-something hunk with a UK passport might still get a chance to throw their hat in the ring.

Every generation gets the Bond they deserve – the Bond that best meets the current cultural moment. In our franchise-addicted decade, it could be that our new Bond is pulling double-duty as Batman (or Lex Luther). Or it could be that a total unknown is still waiting in the wings, ready to redefine the role for the next 20 years. At the end of the day, there can only be one 007, and until the producers put us out of our misery – by the end of this year, supposedly – that name is for their eyes only.

Jordan Prosser’s latest novel, Blue Giant (UQP $35), is out now.

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