Who Will Be The Next James Bond?

Daniel Craig's franchise-altering tenure as James Bond ended over three years ago, when No Time to Die eventually killed the British spy at the end of the film. (I guess they did find the time to die, after all). Ever since, fans have been clamouring to predict the next actor to step into 007’s stylish shoes. There's an awfully crowded field of candidates. And if you’re a British heartthrob with a certain degree of notoriety, chances are you’re in the running for the role.

Josh O'Connor (Challengers) is the latest actor thrust into the race. He's featured in a Hollywood Reporter prediction for 2025 that has really caught steam with fans. There's no reporting that suggests the La Chimera star is officially up for the gig, but it felt like it couldn't have been a coincidence that Variety's latest "Actors on Actors" conversation just so happened to feature both Craig and O'Connor. The two even talk about Bond. In the video, O'Connor is particularly interested in Craig's workouts. He asks him about the specific length of time it took for Craig to quickly bulk up for a Bond-ready body. Are we reading too far into this, or is the universe trying to tell us something?

For the longest time, rumours suggested that Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Nosferatu) was the man for the job. According to The Sun, EON Productions—which produces the Bond films—even sent Taylor-Johnson a contract for the role. Everyone expected him to say yes (who wouldn’t?!), but that was in March. We also haven't heard a peep from Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the long-time custodians of the Bond franchise. Ultimately, the decision is theirs alone.

It's anyone's game! Until we know for sure, check in below on the search for the next James Bond.

Josh O'Connor

Josh O'Connor is a surprisingly divisive pick in the Esquire office. While some are excited by the idea of his Challengers bad boy donning a tuxedo and ordering martinis, others can't break the image of his character sleeping in his car. There's also no official news that O'Connor is in the running just yet. That said, he's one of the most promising up-and-coming British actors in Hollywood today. Remember who else was viewed as a controversial casting choice? Daniel Craig. I'd stay tuned!

Aaron Taylor-Johnson

It’s no surprise that Kraven the Hunter himself is seemingly leading the race. According to The Sun’s sources, Taylor-Johnson is the producers’ top choice. “Bond is Aaron’s job, should he wish to accept it,” said an anonymous source. “The formal offer is on the table, and they are waiting to hear back.”

When asked about the job this past March, he said, “I find it charming and wonderful that people see me in that role. I take it as a great compliment." Does this mean we’ll see Taylor-Johnson in the Bond suit soon? It certainly sounds like it, but the Nosferatu actor is still tight-lipped on the subject.

He told Esquire that Kraven the Hunter was the only project "in front of me," and that it was "not really for me to say anything." Since then, he's largely echoed similar sentiments in other interviews. Recently, he told Rolling Stone UK, "I can only really talk about the things I’m going to show and tell." Namely, Nosferatu and Kraven. "I’m here to promote those," he said.

Earlier, Matthew Belloni of Puck wrote that Taylor-Johnson met with Broccoli and “the meeting went well.” Belloni added that Taylor-Johnson “fits the younger direction the Broccolis want to go, accomplished but not particularly famous” but might see his celebrity increase this year to a point where he’s “ironically, too famous to take on Bond." That was a year ago.

Regé-Jean Page

After his breakout performance on Netflix’s Bridgerton, Page rose to meteoric fame, which meant that Bond rumours inevitably came knocking. But if the British heartthrob is your preferred horse in this race, don’t get your hopes up; he insists that anything you’ve heard is just part of the Bond rumour mill.

“I think there might be an element of cultural translation to be done here,” Page said on The Tonight Show. “If you’re a Brit and you do something of any kind of renown that people regard well, then people start saying the B-word. It’s like a merit badge. You get the B-word merit badge. I’m very, very glad to have the badge. I’m glad to be in such wonderful company of people who have the badge. But it’s a badge.”

Months later, asked again how he feels about the rumours, Page joked, “Yeah, it gets clicks.” He continued, “It’s got nothing to do with me—nothing to do with anything that has happened in any rooms or any meetings. It’s literally just a thing for people to talk about. So it’s flattering, but it’s just a game.”

That said, in August 2021, a source confirmed to Page Six that Page’s name was being bandied about by Bond producers, so there’s still some hope for anyone on Team Page.

Idris Elba

Elba has been the frequent name mentioned in the Bond race since 2014, when the Sony email hack revealed an email from then–studio co-chair Amy Pascal that said, “Idris should be the next Bond.”

When Elba tweeted, “My name’s Elba, Idris Elba” in 2018, the rumour mill went wild, forcing the actor to later explain himself. “I took the piss a little,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019, “but I was also reminding people that I never got referred to as James Bond. So, I was like, hello, my name is Elba, Idris Elba. It was a joke. I swear to God.”

After decades of white actors inhabiting the role of Bond, Broccoli and Wilson have long been pressured to cast an actor of colour. In 2019, Elba opened up to Vanity Fair about the concerns he’d have if cast as the first Black Bond: "You just get disheartened when you get people from a generational point of view going, “It can’t be.” And it really turns out to be the colour of my skin. And then if I get it and it didn’t work, or it did work, would it be because of the colour of my skin? That’s a difficult position to put myself into when I don’t need to. James Bond is a hugely coveted, iconic, beloved character that takes audiences on this massive escapism journey. Of course, if someone said to me, “Do you want to play James Bond?” I’d be like, Yeah! That’s fascinating to me. But it’s not something I’ve expressed, like, “Yeah, I wanna be the Black James Bond.”

Following the premiere of No Time to Die, Elba confirmed, “No, I’m not going to be James Bond.” Asked if he’d consider taking on the role down the road, he replied, “Who wouldn’t? How amazing would it be to have a Black James Bond? It’s a sign of the times when we can stop talking about Black, white, and colour.”

In late 2022, Broccoli and Wilson finally offered a clear response to the Elba rumours. Broccoli told Variety, “We love Idris. The thing is, it’s going to be a couple of years off. And when we cast Bond, it’s a ten, 12-year commitment. So he’s probably thinking, ‘Do I really want that thing?’ Not everybody wants to do that. It was hard enough getting [Daniel Craig to do it].”

There you go. Unfortunately, it’s more evidence that we’ll never see what we’re sure would’ve been the greatness of Elba in the role.

Tom Hardy

In April 2018, Hardy sent the Internet into a tizzy when he Instagrammed a screenshot of a news story saying that he had been selected as Craig’s replacement. “In my tux and on the runway Gtg,” the caption read. Turns out it was all an April Fools’ joke, but the rumours have never stopped swirling around Hardy, who remains a favourite of betting houses and fans alike. He has always stayed mum on the matter, but even Pierce Brosnan, a former Bond himself, has high hopes. “I think Tom Hardy could be a good Bond,” Brosnan said. “I’d be happy to see him do it. You need an actor who can put a bit of wiggle into it—that’s what makes Bond.”

Richard Madden

The Game of Thrones alum has long been a popular fan choice for the role of Bond. Madden would be the rare performer who’s actually a lifelong Bond devotee (he’s seen all the movies, and he read all the Ian Fleming novels as a teen), but like Page, he’s quick to discredit the Industrial Bond Complex. “The papers make up a story on a Sunday so they can discredit that story on the Monday so they can sell papers on both days,” Madden told British GQ. “Everyone just loves the rumour mill on that topic. I’m just the current one. There’ll be a different one next week.”

Lashana Lynch

Lynch has already made history as the first woman and the first person of colour to inherit the 007 mantle, however temporarily. In No Time to Die, her character, Nomi, inherits Bond’s MI6 designation when he goes into exile. When the news broke, toxic fans hurled racist and misogynist abuse at Lynch, complaining that a Black woman couldn’t be 007. Lynch, for her part, didn’t let the vitriol get her down. “It doesn’t dishearten me,” she said. “It makes me feel quite sad for some people because their opinions, they’re not even from a mean place—they’re actually from a sad place. It’s not about me. People are reacting to an idea, which has nothing to do with my life.”

Broccoli has dismissed the possibility of a female Bond, but hope springs eternal for those betting on Lynch. What’s to say Broccoli and Wilson couldn’t be moved to change their minds with enough pressure from fans?

Cillian Murphy

When Netflix’s Peaky Blinders—a gritty series headlined by Murphy about 1920s gangsters in the UK—became a smash hit, the Bond rumour mill inevitably began to swirl around the leading man. “Everybody is getting excited about the new series of Peaky Blinders and it seems as though [gamblers] are no different,” Harry Aitkenhead, who works at the online-betting site Coral, told the Daily Mirror in 2019. “We’ve been inundated with bets lately on Murphy landing the role as the next James Bond, and he’s certainly a leading candidate now.”

“It seems to be a way of generating business for bookies,” Murphy himself told GQ in October 2019. “So someone who happens to be in a TV show and wears a tux occasionally in a TV show…. But having said all of that, it’s incredibly flattering to be in that conversation.”

This story originally appeared on Esquire