Wait, what? After four agonising years of nonstop James Bond speculation, they’ve gone and done what? They haven’t given us the first black Bond (sorry, Idris Elba). Neither do we have the first female Bond (Charlize Theron from Atomic Blonde was in the running). And goodbye too to the first black female Bond (see the rumoured favourite Lashana Lynch from No Time to Die) and the first gay Bond (a missed opportunity for Jonathan Bailey from Wicked). No, instead, wait for it, the world’s most beloved spy movie franchise, newly acquired by Amazon for a reported $1 billion, has apparently opted for, well, bland — James bland.
Callum Turner, Dua Lipa’s fiancé, has apparently snagged the most coveted role in blockbusters, one that’s destined to make him a multimillionaire and secure him a revered place in cinematic history. Or at least he has according to “sources close to” the actor, who tittle-tattled to The Mail on Sunday about how Turner, for months now a Bond frontrunner, had spent the holiday season “blabbing all over town” that he had been officially confirmed as the new 007. The source added that it’s “the worst-kept secret going”.
It’s also, on the surface, a seemingly uninspired choice, and something that feels like it’s been approved at the highest levels of Amazon — its boss, Jeff Bezos, is reportedly a “massive fan” of 007 and is “closely involved in all aspects of taking Bond forward”. Because that’s exactly who you want at the helm of the 26th instalment in a creatively ambitious and innately cinematic movie series. The Amazon guy. Honestly, these tech bros, is there anything they can’t do? What’s next, Tim Cook from Apple directing Leonardo DiCaprio in an Oscar-worthy biopic?
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Point being that, from my perspective, Turner has so far proved himself, well, just a fine actor. Fine, alas, as in shoulder-shrugging competence. Just fine. Whatever. In the 2020 Austen adaptation Emma he played the cad Frank Churchill with a vague one-note inscrutability. In the George Clooney-directed The Boys in the Boat he was a gruff blue-collar rowing ace who was frequently outperformed by his own hair dye. And in the Fantastic Beasts franchise he is seemingly cast as “the straight guy”, always being outshone by his screen brother Eddie Redmayne’s zany antics. It’s notable too that the Fantastic Beasts movies are produced by David Heyman, who has been hired by Bezos to steer the Bond ship, together with the co-producer Amy Pascal and the director Denis Villeneuve. Maybe that lot see something in Turner that the camera has yet to reveal to this film critic.
Personally, I’d have gone for Josh O’Connor, a former Prince Charles from TV’s The Crown who, like Turner, is 35, and currently delivering the kind of performances (from Challengers to Wake Up Dead Man) that suggest his Bond could have been a seductive yet highly conflicted creation. Or Florence Pugh, a frequent Marvel assassin, playing a female Bond would have been an ironic, neck-snapping delight. And Bailey would certainly have injected some homoerotic tension into the franchise, capitalising on the bi-curious energy that Daniel Craig flirted with, while flirting with Javier Bardem, in Skyfall.
All of these actors, however, are too eccentric, it would seem, to be Bond. They are reminiscent also of Daniel Craig, who arrived on to the franchise as the so-called “reluctant Bond”. He created a persona, through interviews and public appearances, of the gritty “real” actor who had somehow fallen into gaudy blockbuster territory against his wishes and would nonetheless do his best while the cameras were rolling. Smartest of all, the persona was hard-wired into Craig’s characterisation of Bond, as a globetrotting curmudgeon. In Casino Royale, when famously asked if he’d like his martini shaken or stirred, his Bond snaps, “Do I look like I give a damn?” Craig maintained this dyspeptic pose assiduously throughout his five-movie tenure, even claiming in 2015 that he would rather “slash my wrists” than do another Bond film, right before securing a rumoured $25 million to do No Time to Die.
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And so the new Bond clearly had to be a break with that tradition. Why choose a complicated actor when you can have a compliant one with an internationally famous pop star girlfriend who can do the soundtrack? Yes, according to the same loose-lipped “sources”, Dua Lipa has “been saying she’d love to record the Bond theme”. Just think of the marketing opportunities afforded by that genius idea: the global press tours, the cross-promotional activities, the merchandising tie-ins, the album covers, the product placements and the endless social media memes.
And the film? We’re way beyond the film here. This is a new iteration of a global mega-brand for the next generation of digitally dwelling consumers. A hardened cynic might suggest that the next wave of Bond products, including rumoured spin-off TV shows, is ultimately about creating phone-filling content for Prime Video. And yet even a hardened cynic can remember the buzz of excitement that surrounded Craig’s casting, in 2005, followed by his then brilliantly rough and revelatory performance in Casino Royale.
And so maybe the casting of Turner is genius too, and simply acknowledges this new branded behemoth’s need for a blank-slate performer unburdened by reputation who can handle gobsmacking stunts, glamorous locations and huge hell-for-leather finales. Turner may not be a Craig or a Connery for the ages — right now he sits somewhere amid Timothy Dalton, George Lazenby and Roger Moore — but on the day, and with the right directorial coaching, he might just produce some deadpan, quip-friendly double-0 magic. At the very least, he’ll be fine.