Actually, Robert Pattinson Would Make a Perfect James Bond

My colleagues and editors are sick of hearing me say it, but I believe it with my whole chest: The actor playing James Bond should never be more famous than James Bond. There’s something about Bond—his cultural footprint, and the dangerous yet seductive life he leads in his stories—that makes him too big to be a footnote in a great actor’s resume. James Bond creates leading men; James Bond is not for leading men to create.So you have to know why it’s not easy for me to say this either: Robert Pattinson would be fantastic, and exactly the new James Bond we’re looking for.You’ve probably heard by now that Amazon, which acquired full creative control over all things Bond from longtime owners Eon Productions and the Broccoli family, has been searching for the next 007 in a movie to be directed by Denis Villeneuve.What was once an arena of speculation has exploded into a circus, with different names being bandied about at once. Namely: Callum Turner, Josh O’Connor, and Jack Lowden. (There is obviously a specific type of white man they’re going for here.) Just when it seemed as if the new Bond would finally be unveiled, there came a rush of two really big names suddenly in the running. Among them is Pattinson, reported by The Hollywood Reporter on November 6, along with Nicholas Hoult. Pattinson secretly auditioned for the role during a break in filming for The Batman: Part II, which halted filming in October when Matt Reeves attended to a personal matter.No shade to Hoult or any of the other actors, but Pattinson is now the most interesting candidate despite a whiff of overexposure this year. Between The Drama in the spring, The Odyssey in the summer, Primetime in the fall, and soon Dune: Part Three in the dead of winter, 2026 has been shaping up into a banner year for Pattinson. Not since Twilight has the man been so prolific on our screens.But even before the year began, Pattinson had long ago outgrown his image of a tween heartthrob. He’s a prodigious talent capable of daring choices and executing on them in a way you can’t ever expect. (Who else would say "cock" like this?) His popular line from The Odyssey—“Somebody get these beggars out of here!”—didn’t become a meme on its own. Pattinson made “Beggars” sound like a slur, and in the same breath, his nervous blinking and quivering smile cemented Antinous as an unconfident weasel whose puffed-out chest was, in fact, hot air. Unlike previous Batmans, who often played the Caped Crusader like a knight in matte black armor, Pattinson’s interpretation was/is that of an antisocial weirdo everyone stares at like a freak. Which he is.Like Batman, Bond has also been a role that people misunderstand, sometimes even by the men who play him. (It is not my biases talking here, I really do think Daniel Craig is the only actor to ever nail the nuances and pathology of the character.) Bond is stylish and can say the right thing at the right time, be it to enemies or lovers. But he’s not a dashing or noble hero. He’s a brute in Brunello Cucinelli. A thug with a $9,000 Omega. He literally kills for a living—and had to kill to get that right—and his attachment to his job is downright destabilizing.Recall in Skyfall, after Judi Dench’s M orders Moneypenny to shoot, Bond copes with endless drinking, womanizing, and gambling. That might sound like a fun weekend in Vegas, but in the context of Bond, his fallout from discovering his expendability led him to a really, really dark path. It is not normal to drink shots with a scorpion on your hand, nor is it healthy to be up in the morning reaching for booze from behind the bar. Bond might live a life many of us men dream of, but it comes at a severe cost. I don’t know what kind of Bond movie Villeneuve has in mind, but if the creative team is lining up like this, we’re in for something special.You can’t exactly guesstimate what kind of 007 Pattinson might be based on his previous roles. There is truly little common ground between Batman and Bond. But one thing is for sure: if Pattinson gets the part, we are in for a goddamn show.