We’re in a James Bond Fever Dream Now

“Next James Bond ‘REVEALED,’” reads a headline published by The Sun last week. “After a loose-lipped co-star blabs secret after ‘a few lagers.’” The article suggests that Josh O’Connor, who has recently been named in the wider press as a last-minute hopeful in the race to find the next Bond actor, is the shoe-in to be 007—all based on what one of O’Connor’s cast mates in the theater production Golden Boy might have maybe told a stranger while drunk at The French House in London.“They said that he had confided in them about getting the role when the cast of Golden Boy had celebratory drinks after the play finished its run on Halloween,” the article continues. So, there it is: we have our next Bond! Source: someone told someone else down the pub. No, really, honest!This is nothing against O’Connor, mind. As Ben Allen argued in the latest edition of GQ’s Intermission newsletter, he would make for a killer, surprising pick, suggestive of an “actually new direction” delineating from the hyper-machismo that defined Bond through to the end of the Craig era. His characters tend to be quieter and more introspective; his performance style is similarly subtle. (The hipster choice? Maybe, but obviously a great one.) But the article is a symptom of how utterly insane the maelstrom of reports around the next Bond have become as we seemingly enter the casting endgame, with screen tests reportedly taking place in October. Further, producer Amy Pascal has said that we can probably expect an announcement to come before the end of the year.Over the past weekend, Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult emerged out of nowhere as having taken part in those aforementioned screen tests. Both would’ve come as whiplash to anyone who has had a passing interest in the endless Bond casting conversation: sure, they’ve been in and around the pack over the years, but given neither are called “Callum Turner” or “Jack Lowden,” the only speculated names taken seriously for much of 2026, they’re big—but both welcome!— shocks. I’m as much of an RPatz supremacist as anyone else who likes to think they know ball about films, the actor routinely being the best thing about his projects, from Nolan’s Tenet and all of his zany arthouse movies to both The Odyssey and Primetime this year. Much love to our man Hoult too, an underrated cornerstone of franchise cinema writ large, from X-Men to the new Superman. But still: what the hell?In their own article about Pattinson and Hoult joining the race, Variety might’ve actually buried the most baffling lede: according to them, Harry Styles has “had discussions about the part,” while they also note that The Gentlemen’s Theo James—long thought out of the running—is actually yet to be ruled out. No shade on Styles, but he hasn’t been in a film since he briefly dipped a toe in acting in 2022’s Don’t Worry Darling and My Policeman, neither of which exactly kickstarted his movie career. And, like, he’s Harry Styles. Bond song? Yeah, we can see the vision. But the idea of him actually being 007 feels more like the product of an ayahuasca fever dream.Regardless, Styles’s suitability for the role isn’t really the point. What’s more insane is that the Bond casting conversation only seems to have hit a level of psychosis as it nears the finish line: every other hour, the reported frontrunner switches from Lowden to Turner to O’Connor or Pattinson, a fever pitch of speculation and rumor-mongering that was tired before it was tired. Gary Oldman reckons it should be Lowden! Pierce Brosnan backs Turner! As one person astutely put it on Threads: “OH MY GOD JUST PICK A JAMES BOND. DO ANY JAMES BOND, JUST JAMES BOND A JAMES BOND.”But it’s not just Bond himself, it seems. As I sat down to write this piece, an email hit my inbox from the publicist for a betting company. Subject line: “Maya Jama odds slashed to star in the next Bond film.” Damn it. Just bring back Pierce.This article originally appeared in British GQ.