Who Is Jack Lowden, The New James Bond Contender According To Gary Oldman?

You can have a hundred Spider-Mans, a million Batmans, but somehow, the who-plays-him-next question is never quite as strong as it is with James Bond. 

Over twenty-five films spanning sixty-four years, six actors have played the gentleman spy to huge acclaim (or criticism, depending on what you think of them). All of which only makes the question even more difficult: who will be the next gentleman who can accurately portray the suave Britishness and cold-blooded courtliness of 007?

Everyone from Callum Turner and Idris Elba to Jacob Elordi has been theorised to be in the race (and Elordi isn’t even British, by the way). And now, when we have news that Daniel Craig’s successor has finally been chosen, the newest man on the shortlist is a man many don’t know about as much as the others in the list. Say hello to Jack Lowden.

All That Has Been Said Till Now

So to begin with, some time back, former James Bond casting director Debbie McWilliams (she’s cast the last three Bonds to date and was the one who discovered Daniel Day-Lewis) revealed the standard for what it takes to be cast as MI6’s most valuable spy in an interview: “It is absolutely essential that he retains a total enigma… I don’t want to see any of them (the popular frontrunners) as Bond because we now know so much about them.

“We want to know as little about them personally as possible, because that’s what spies are. We don’t need to know where he goes shopping or who his parents are, or where he lives. We never want to see him at home. And a vital element of the whole thing is his job description. He’s licensed to kill, and we have to believe that he can do that. If you don’t, then you’ve lost the audience.”

So that’s a goodbye to Harris Dickinson and the likes. 

Cut to this last weekend, when Gary Oldman told Canada's The Morning Show that Amazon MGM had already picked the next James Bond, and that he was rooting for his Slow Horses co-star Jack Lowden to be cast as Bond.

This was also confirmed two days later by upcoming Bond film screenwriter Steven Knight (yep, the Peaky Blinders guy). Pressed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on whether he'd written the script with a specific actor in mind, Knight admitted that knowing who'd be saying the lines made the job easier, he explained, though the character still had to come first.

Wait, Who Is Jack Lowden?

For starters, he’s not a complete nobody. You’ve seen him in your favourite movies, actually. And if you’re a Saoirse Ronan fan, you probably know already that Lowden is her husband; the two met at Mary Queen of Scots, where Lowden's Lord Darnley opposite Saoirse Ronan's title character sparked an off-screen romance.

More famously, he played Collins in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. You might remember him as the RAF pilot flying a Spitfire alongside Tom Hardy’s character Farrier in the film's first aerial fight scene.  

Besides these, Lowden became a regular in British television, starting with his breakout role in the BBC's 2016 miniseries War & Peace. He also played solicitor James Libson in Denial, the Holocaust-denial courtroom drama alongside Andrew Scott, and returned to work with Tom Hardy as an FBI agent opposite the Venom actor in Capone. 

Most recently, he made headlines as the new Mr Darcy opposite Emma Corrin in the Netflix adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. 

Lowden Has Played A Spy Before

Everything aside, the biggest thing working in favour of Lowden is probably the fact that he has already played a spy in Slow Horses. Since the Apple TV+ spy drama premiered in 2022, Lowden has played River Cartwright, the disgraced MI5 trainee exiled to Slough House, the department where Britain's intelligence service dumps its embarrassments. Gary Oldman's Jackson Lamb runs the place with contempt and cigarette ash, and the friction between Lamb's disdain and Cartwright's dogged decency forms the show's backbone. It also earned both actors Emmy and BAFTA nominations along the way.

Lowden’s Slow Horses castmate James Callis has publicly campaigned for Lowden James Bond for some time now. But more importantly, the casting director for Slow Horses, Nina Gold, is also casting for the new Bond movie, making the rumour mill more certain of the new leading man.

All said and done, whether Oldman's confidence turns out to be inside information or an educated guess, it will play out well for the Apple TV+ show either way. When Season 6 of Slow Horses premieres September 16 this year, all eyes will be on the MI5 reject to judge whether he is fit to be in MI6