We’ve been expecting you, Mr Bond. It’s been seven years since Daniel Craig tossed the tux and officially announced his departure from the role, and five years since the last film, No Time to Die. During that time, the identity of the next James Bond has become nothing short of an international obsession – but now auditions have finally begun, with the second round set for August. Callum Turner is the supposed frontrunner, with Harris Dickinson and Jacob Elordi following close behind. But who will get the gig? It might be worth asking the one person who knows more than anyone about how to choose the perfect 007 – Debbie McWilliams, who cast the last three of them. She’s emphatic about the rumoured names. “I don’t want to see any of them as James Bond.”
McWilliams, now 74 and retired from casting, was at the heart of the Bond franchise for 40 years, from 1981’s For Your Eyes Only to 2021’s No Time to Die. Top casting director Nina Gold, who found stars for Game of Thrones and The Crown, is now in the role, but McWilliams has worked on 13 of the 25 Bond films, first with legendary producer Cubby Broccoli, who co-founded the franchise, and then with his daughter Barbara. She cast Timothy Dalton (the intense Bond), Pierce Brosnan (the suave Bond), and Daniel Craig (the edgy, blonde Bond). Outside of 007, she also happened to “discover” Daniel Day-Lewis, plucking him from obscurity in 1985 for his breakout hit My Beautiful Launderette, and actually thought he’d have made a great Bond: “He has that stature and enigma, but it’s so not his thing, he’s such an intellectual, he would have driven himself completely round the bend.”
