Oceans of digital ink have already been spilled about Denis Villeneuve‘s new James Bond movie, and especially about who will play the lead character. With previous Bond Daniel Craig having left the series dramatically at the climax of No Time to Die, there’s a vacancy for cinema’s top secret agent, and fan castings have been inescapable.
Now, Debbie McWilliams, who headed up the casting for every Bond movie since 1981’s For Your Eyes Only before retiring, is weighing in on the subject. While she won’t be part of the casting process this time, she still has strong opinions about the role, having had a hand in selecting previous Bonds, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Craig.
McWilliams recently spoke at the Karlovy Film Festival in Czechia at a panel moderated by Variety. There, she asserted that she believes the character should remain a white man, as he’s traditionally been portrayed: “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.” The most important characteristic for McWilliams, however, is the danger Bond represents: “…part of his job description is ‘license to kill,’ so you’ve got to think that he could pick a gun up and shoot you…he’s got to have a kind of threat about him.”
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
What Do We Know About the New James Bond Movie?
The next Bond movie will be produced by Amazon MGM Studios; they purchased total control of the franchise from Eon Productions’ Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, whose father, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, started the Bond film franchise with Dr. No in 1962. Villeneuve, fresh off his epic science-fiction Dunetrilogy, will take the directing reins. It will be up to him and veteran casting director Nina Gold (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) to choose the next Bond; casting is already underway, although it’s too soon to say when the new 007 will be announced. What we do know is that the new Bond will be young enough to play the role for an extended series of films, which will likely eliminate many popular fan-casts, including Idris Elba and Henry Cavill.
Although it may be some time before a new Bond film graces cinema screens, Bond is having success in another medium. IO Interactive’s new video game, 007 First Light, has been a hit with critics and audiences, selling 3 million copies within its first two weeks of release. The game features Patrick Gibson (Dexter: Original Sin) as Bond, as well as performances from Gemma Chan and Lenny Kravitz; it even includes a Bond theme from singer Lana Del Rey, complete with a Bond-style opening sequence.
Denis Villeneuve’s new James Bond movie is in development; no release date has yet been announced. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
