Danny Boyle, the British filmmaker who was once attached to direct Daniel Craig's final outing as James Bond, has thrown his weight behind a new name for the role: Jack O'Connell. Speaking at the Zurich Film Festival, Boyle said the 36-year-old actor should be the one to inherit cinema's most durable franchise.
"They should cast Jack O'Connell as Bond," Boyle said, according to Variety. He went on to praise O'Connell's turn in the 2024 Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, in which he played Blake Fielder-Civil, and his performance as the tabloid editor Larry Lamb in Boyle's own film Ink, a Rupert Murdoch biopic that premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
"Have you seen Back to Black? It's a wonderful film. He plays the boyfriend and that's an impossible part. It was an incredible performance," Boyle said.
A director who knows the franchise from the inside
Boyle's endorsement carries unusual weight because he was, briefly, part of the Bond machine. He and screenwriter John Hodge developed a story for what became 2021's No Time To Die, but Boyle left the project over what were described as creative differences. Cary Joji Fukunaga ultimately directed the film.
"When they asked me to do Bond, we came up with the story and they lost confidence in it," Boyle said in Zurich. "It's a shame, because it could have been really good."
He also expressed enthusiasm for the man now steering Bond 26, Denis Villeneuve, the Canadian director behind Dune and Arrival. "Villeneuve is amazing," Boyle said, before joking that he would not want to release a film in the shadow of Christopher Nolan's upcoming The Odyssey.
The shortlist remains a guessing game
O'Connell's name has surfaced in speculation about the role, but he has not been treated as a frontrunner in the way that Jack Lowden, Callum Turner, Jacob Elordi and Jack Barton have. O'Connell first became known through the E4 series Skins and has since built a film career that includes the Oscar-winning Sinners and Boyle's 28 Years Later.
Boyle is not the only established figure to weigh in. Gary Oldman recently said on the Canadian talk show The Morning Show that he would choose his Slow Horses co-star Jack Lowden for the part. "Jack, it's been rumored that he's on the shortlist," Oldman said. "We're going to find out pretty soon, aren't we? Because they have picked him. They have made their choice, but they have not announced it yet. So my fingers are crossed for Jack."
The producers have offered little clarity. Amy Pascal, who is producing Bond 26, recently suggested that an announcement could come before the year is out. "I would say the end of the year is a good bet," she said. "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."
Production on Bond 26 is expected to begin in 2027, with a release planned for 2028. For now, the identity of the seventh 007 remains one of the most closely guarded secrets in European cinema, with Boyle's intervention adding another name to a debate that will run until the studio finally speaks.
