Jack Lowden has been tipped as the front-runner to play the next James Bond, with 007 producers said to be ‘strongly considering’ the Slow Horses star.
Speculation about who will take over from Daniel Craig has been rife for months and recently heightened after Amazon MGM Studios announced in May that auditions were finally taking place.
Presenter Richard Osman has now teased that he has been told who is likely to take on the role.
Speaking to his co-host Marina Hyde on the latest episode of his podcast The Rest Is Entertainment, Richard said: ‘Someone told me for definite who the new Bond is the other day, but I mean that’s happened before. The name I’ve heard is Jack Lowden.’
Richard cautioned: ‘It is definitively not a “he’s definitely got it” thing. He is definitely being strongly considered. I think he’d be amazing.’
Marina agreed, pointing out that at 36, Lowden is ‘a good age. You have to have the longevity. They’ve got to do at least two movies and he’s a good age for it.’
Jack Lowden has been tipped as the frontrunner to play the next James Bond, with 007 producers said to be ‘strongly considering’ the Slow Horses star
Richard said the actor has ‘real Daniel Craig energy’, adding that he ‘is such a brilliant actor. Can be funny, can definitely do action. I mean, I think he’d be sensational.’
Lowden, who also had a role in Christopher Nolan’s epic Dunkirk, is set to star as another leading man, Mr Darcy in Netflix’s anticipated Pride And Prejudice adaptation, coming to the streamer later this year.
Lowden’s wife, the actress Saoirse Ronan, has previously backed her husband for the 007 role.
When she co-hosted a 2024 BBC Radio 2 show with Scottish DJ Edith Bowman, Bowman brought up her belief that Lowden would be a great choice for the iconic role, adding that she had been making a similar argument for years.
In response, Ronan said: ‘I’m going to start counting how many times you plug him for Bond on the radio.’
When Bowman replied she had been doing so for six years, Ronan responded: ‘Hasn’t happened yet though,’ before adding: ‘There’s time, there’s time’.
Richard and Marina’s podcast was discussing new research which reveals the public’s top picks for Bond are Tom Hardy, 48, Henry Cavill, 43, and James Norton, who recently ruled himself out, admitting at age 41 he feels relieved he is now seen as ‘too old’.
The podcasters pointed out that the public can’t necessarily be relied upon to pick the right actor.
Speculation about who will take over from Daniel Craig has been rife for months and recently heightened after Amazon MGM Studios announced in May that auditions were taking place
‘If you look back at every single James Bond that has ever been appointed, not a single one of them would have been chosen by the public, apart from maybe one,’ said Richard, referring to 1995-2002 Bond Pierce Brosnan.
‘You have to rely on the film producers to choose someone the public doesn’t know they want… Daniel Craig definitely wouldn’t have been chosen by the public. They were furious about it at the time.’
‘That was Barbara Broccoli’s call completely the Daniel Craig call,’ Marina agreed. ‘And it was really ballsy because everyone was like “what on earth are you talking about?” The second they see Casino Royale they’re like “oh yeah, no you’re right, that is the right call”.’
Bond producer Amy Pascal gave an update on the audition process last week explaining: ‘We are being really, really methodical. Having worked with Barbara Broccoli at the studio, I mean, Daniel Craig is a hard act to follow.’
‘And it’s got to be something really different that is stirring and exciting and different,’ she added.
In July, casting director Debbie McWilliams said 007 should remain white and male amid speculation that the character could be reinvented.
McWilliams, who cast the previous 13 Bond films, said Ian Fleming ‘wrote a character, and that’s the character that stays’.
Speaking at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in an onstage interview moderated by Variety, McWilliams was asked by an audience member whether the spy could be a woman or a person of colour. ‘Not in my opinion. No,’ she replied.
‘Ian Fleming wrote a character, and that’s the character that stays. That’s what I think. I mean, other people might think otherwise, but I don’t think that.’
Richard Osman has now teased that he has been told Jack is likely to take on the role. Speaking on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast, Richard said: ‘Someone told me for definite’
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McWilliams retired from her casting career prior to Amazon MGM Studios acquiring creative control of the James Bond franchise in 2025. The job of finding the next Bond now falls to casting director Nina Gold and director Denis Villeneuve.
McWilliams was also asked when she cast previous Bonds, such as Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, what she looked for in a leading man.
‘Well, I mean, I’ve said this several times before, but part of his job description is license to kill,’ she explained. ‘So you’ve got to think that he could pick a gun up and shoot you. So he’s got to have a kind of threat about him, you know.’
‘I’m not sure that Pierce Brosnan had that particularly, but he kind of embodied a different side of him. He was very good looking and suave, and all the rest of it.’
‘And Daniel sort of changed that somewhat into the fact that you, you know … he was much tougher.’
She added, ‘There’s no set rule. It’s whoever fits the bill, frankly, and it will be different for different directors and different producers.’
‘And, you know, it’s about to change dramatically, is all I can say. And I’m not sure whether I’ll be paying my money to go and see it or not. But there isn’t an easy answer to that question.’
Auditions for the new Bond finally opened in May, five years after the famed spy’s last outing on the big screen.
That announcement was delayed after the Broccoli family, which held an iron grip on the franchise for decades, handed over creative control to Amazon MGM Studios.
The production company, which was formed when Amazon bought MGM in 2022, has been quiet on who might fill Craig’s boots, but in May it teased there will be ‘exciting 007 news’ in the coming months.
In a statement revealing it was auditioning actors for the role, Amazon MGM Studios said: ‘The search for the next James Bond is underway.
‘While we don’t plan to comment on specific details during the casting process, we’re excited to share more news with 007 fans as soon as the time is right.’
At the end of June, insiders told Deadline that director Villeneuve had begun informing talent who had made the next round of auditions.
