The woman responsible for casting three of the most beloved James Bond actors has made her feelings clear about the current frontrunners for the role, and she doesn’t want any of them.
Debbie McWilliams, the longtime casting director who worked on Bond films for 40 years and discovered Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig for the part, has said she would not want to see Jacob Elordi, Callum Turner or Harris Dickinson take on the iconic spy.
Speaking to The Independent, McWilliams, who retired before Amazon acquired the franchise, was candid about why.
“I don’t want to see any of them as Bond because we now know so much about them,” she said.
“It is absolutely essential that Bond retains a total enigma. 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.”
All three actors, Elordi currently dating Kendall Jenner, Turner freshly married to Dua Lipa and Dickinson a rising star of increasing public profile, have become familiar presences in the tabloids, which McWilliams sees as precisely the problem.
She pointed to her own discoveries as evidence of what works.
“Timothy and Pierce weren’t particularly well known. Daniel had had a career in independent films and a fairly colorful romantic life beforehand, but he wasn’t a household name, and that helps enormously.”
Her prescription for the next Bond is refreshingly simple: “I want to see somebody who is completely out of the blue.”
On the question of whether Bond should remain male, she was equally firm.
“It’s how Ian Fleming wrote it. Why would you want to change that? They haven’t changed Harry Potter to Alice Potter or to a different ethnicity. That’s how it was written and that’s how it should remain, I believe.”
The search for the next 007 is now officially underway.
Amazon confirmed in May that casting had begun, with Denis Villeneuve directing the 26th instalment in the franchise.
Casting director Nina Gold, whose credits include Game of Thronesand the casting of Daisy Ridley as Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, is leading the search.
The screenplay is being written by Peaky Blinderscreator Steven Knight, with Amy Pascal and David Heyman producing.
McWilliams may no longer be in the room where it happens, but given her track record, her instincts are worth listening to.
2026-06-30 08:17:00
