Since Daniel Craig’s final outing as James Bond in “No Time to Die”, many actors have been touted as the next 007. The latest – and reportedly most likely – is 33-year-old Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
The British actor is “taking his martinis shaken, not stirred, after being formally offered the job”, said The Sun. “Bond is Aaron’s job, should he wish to accept it. The formal offer is on the table and they are waiting to hear back,” an insider told the paper.
This appeared to corroborate reports that Taylor-Johnson “floored Barbara Broccoli with an incredible screen test in Slough two years ago”, said Annabel Nugent in The Independent.
‘Burly machismo and suave Britishness’
Born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, Taylor-Johnson made his first professional stage appearance in “Macbeth” aged six. As a teenager he appeared in several films, including comedy drama “Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging”. His breakthrough role came in 2009 when he played John Lennon in “Nowhere Boy”.
“If toughness is the benchmark of a great Bond,” said Nugent, “well, Johnson could take that bench and fling it into the ocean without breaking a sweat.”
He demonstrated his action-hero credentials as the lead in “Kick-Ass”, and as Quicksilver in “Avengers: Age of Ultron”. He has also just finished the Marvel superhero film “Kraven the Hunter”, in which he plays the title role of the Spider-Man foe.
Bond is also famously dapper, and in that regard “Taylor-Johnson, an avatar of burly machismo and suave Britishness, would make an excellent 007”, said Nugent. Having risen to fame “playing soft-spoken, shaggy-haired boys”, it might be hard to imagine him “sipping a dry martini without spitting it up and ordering a Jägerbomb instead”, she added. “But people change; they grow up.”
And can he carry off a tux? “Quite frankly – yes,” said Bethany Minelle on Sky News, as he “was named one of GQ’s 50 best-dressed British men in 2015”.
‘A great compliment’
Asked last week whether he was going to “step into Bond’s shoes”, said The Sun, the actor replied: “I find it charming and wonderful that people see me in that role. I take it as a great compliment.”
When Christina Newland at Rolling Stone asked again, she said she was “greeted with a predictable poker face” and told that he “can only really talk about the things I’m going to show and tell”.
“Working out who will play the world’s favourite spy is now possibly more thrilling than whatever beautifully shot yet ever so slightly disappointing adventure he ends up filming,” said Dominic Maxwell in The Times.
Cillian Murphy was the frontrunner until recently. But “however sculpted his cheekbones, however fine an actor he is”, he turns 48 in May, said the paper. And “like Idris Elba before him, now 51, he’s surely too senior for the potential Bond club now”.
The “scorching-hot choice” when “Bridgerton” launched was 35-year-old Regé-Jean Page, but his “star has waned slightly”.
Debbie McWilliams, the “legendary casting director” who brought Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan and Timothy Dalton to the role, told The Telegraph she thought Taylor-Johnson was an unlikely successor. “In the 40-odd years I have worked on Bond, I have never read any predictions that have been true,” she said. “Not one.”