Glance over the names of the rumoured James Bond contenders, and aren’t they all, well, a bit starry? Oscar nominee Jacob Elordi? Paparazzi magnet and recent Dua Lipa betrothed Callum Turner? Future cinematic John Lennon, Harris Dickinson? All attractive propositions from a headline-grabbing perspective, but maybe wrong for a role designed to be slippery and mysterious – and which, bar Roger Moore at the time he was cast as 007 in 1972, has always been filled by an actor who was vaguely recognisable but wasn’t yet super-duper famous.
Retired casting director Debbie McWilliams, who helped put Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig in the tuxedo over the years, certainly agreed, telling The Independent in June that “it is absolutely essential that [Bond] retains a total enigma,” adding: “I don’t want to see [Elordi, Turner, Dickinson et al] 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 … 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.”
