Gary Oldman says the hunt for the new James Bond is over

Speaking with the Canadian news program The Morning Show, Oldman, in a manner befitting his Horses character Jackson Lamb, said Amazon MGM Studios’ casting is in the bag while keeping his co-star, Jack Lowden, in the conversation. “It’s been rumored that [Lowden] is on the shortlist,” Oldman said, presumably glowering as someone who bears the burden of top-secret information on their capable shoulders. “We’re going to find out pretty soon, aren’t we? Because they have picked him. They have made their choice, but they have not announced it yet. So my fingers are crossed for Jack.”

Insofar as Oldman is correct, no outlets have been able to extract information from the studio about the claim’s veracity—even though, as Bond’s new bosses (it acquired the franchise from the Broccoli family in 2025), they’ve inherited one hell of an effective questioning technique. For what it’s worth, Steven Knight, who’s writing the new Bond film for Villeneuve, has also said that all this casting subterfuge is at an end, saying to Radio 4’s Today on Tuesday that “It does make life a little bit easier if you know who that person is, but also you have to write the character, not the actor.”  

Presently, the race for the 007 role has pulled in such names as Lowden (who wouldn’t be so bad, now that we’re thinking on it), Jacob Elordi, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Callum Turner, and even Tom Holland. Yet somehow Jack O’Connell’s name apparently lies unmentioned by any sensible insider like, oh, we dunno, a room-temperature martini.