The woman responsible for casting three of James Bond’s most beloved actors has made her feelings clear about the current favorites for the role, and she doesn’t want any of them.
Debbie McWilliams, the longtime casting director who worked on the Bond films for 40 years and discovered Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig for the role, said she wouldn’t want to see Jacob Elordi, Callum Turner or Harris Dickinson take on the iconic spy.
Talk to The IndependentMcWilliams, who retired before Amazon acquired the franchise, was candid about why.
“I don’t want to see any of them as Bond because we know a lot about them now,” she said.
“It’s absolutely essential that Bond remains a total enigma. We want to know as little as possible about them personally, because that’s what spies are. We don’t need to know where he shops, or who his parents are, or where he lives. We never want to see him at home. And an essential part of all that is his job description. He has the right to kill, and we have to believe that he can do it. If you don’t do that, then you’ve lost the audience.”
All three actors, Elordi who is currently dating Kendall Jenner, Turner newly married to Dua Lipa and Dickinson, a rising star increasingly in the public eye, have become familiar presences in the tabloids, which is precisely what McWilliams sees as the problem.
She cited her own findings as proof of what works.
“Timothy and Pierce weren’t particularly well-known. Daniel had already had a career in independent films and a pretty colorful romantic life, but he wasn’t a household name, and that helps enormously.”
His prescription for the next Bond is refreshingly simple: “I want to see someone who is completely out of the blue.”
On the question of whether Bond should remain a man, she was equally firm.
“That’s how Ian Fleming wrote it. Why would you change that? They didn’t change Harry Potter to Alice Potter or some other ethnicity. That’s how it was written and that’s how it should stay, I believe.”
The search for the next 007 is now officially on.
Amazon confirmed in May that casting had begun, with Denis Villeneuve directing the 26th installment in the franchise.
Casting director Nina Gold, whose credits include Game of Thrones and the casting of Daisy Ridley as Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakensconducts the research.
The screenplay is written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, with Amy Pascal and David Heyman producing.
McWilliams may no longer be in the room where this happens, but given his track record, his instincts are worth listening to.
