Callum Turner has brushed aside the latest talk that he is in line to become James Bond, saying he finds the speculation amusing and knows nothing about the role. The 36-year-old actor, one of the rumoured frontrunners to play 007 after Daniel Craig stepped down, said he is hearing the same chatter as everyone else.
Turner told The Hollywood Reporter he was not going to comment on the Bond chatter, before adding: “I know as much as you do – really, I know as much as you do.” He went further when asked about the speculation, saying: “I will tell you what’s so funny about the Bond thing: Even your best friends ask you, people text you that you haven’t spoken to for 10 years – and you know nothing!”
The renewed interest in Turner comes as the franchise remains in a high-profile casting period. Amazon MGM Studios has taken creative control of Bond, and it was announced in August last year that the next film will be written by Steven Knight and directed by Denis Villeneuve. Harris Dickinson and Jacob Elordi are also being linked with the part, while other actors named in the odds have kept quiet about whether they want the role.
Turner, who married singer Dua Lipa last week, has become one of the most talked-about names in the race after rising to fame in the Fantastic Beasts films and later appearing in Masters Of The Air and the romantic comedy Eternity. But his own account cuts against the idea that anything is decided: he said he genuinely knows nothing and called the whole thing “such a weird thing of something happening and nothing happening at all.”
The contrast is hard to miss. Turner is being treated as a frontrunner, yet he is saying the same thing he told the publication again and again: there is no secret offer, no inside line and no sign that he has been told anything about the next 007. Until the studio moves, the Bond rumour mill remains just that.
That uncertainty is familiar in Bond circles. Sir Idris Elba has already played down years of speculation around his own chances, saying the rumours were “not realistic” and “never legit.” For now, Turner’s answer is the clearest one available: he is laughing at the talk, not confirming it.
