(NEXSTAR) — While “007” fans eagerly await an announcement of who’ll be the next James Bond for the upcoming Denis Villeneuve-directed 26th installment, at least one actor, whose name has been circulating in fancast conversations, has officially said it won’t be him.
This week, Welsh actor Taron Egerton (the “Kingsman” franchise) exclusively told Collider definitely “no,” he wouldn’t consider being Bond.
“I don’t think I’m a good choice for it,” Egerton, 35, told Collider. “I think I’m too messy for that… I think I wouldn’t be good at it, and I think there’s so many cool, younger actors who would be great for it. I think it would be wasted on me, probably.”
Egerton, who most recently starred in the Apple TV+ series “Smoke,” rose to fame starting in 2015, after his role in “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” and its 2017 sequel. The spy-action series has drawn many comparisons to (and takes inspiration from) the Bond series, leading many online to suggest his name as a potential predecessor to Daniel Craig.
While Egerton suggested “younger” actors for the role, it’s so far unclear what age range Amazon MGM Studios, who now owns the property, is aiming for. Though Egerton is 35, Craig was 38 when he filmed 2006’s “Casino Royale,” and that’s actually on the younger end of average ages for first-time Bond actors.
The announcement of Academy Award-nominated Canadian auteur Denis Villeneuve (“Dune” films) as director has also increased the cinephile fervor over the casting, as he’s one of the most celebrated (and respected) current filmmakers in the world.
Recently, U.S. sports betting odds tracker and news outlet VegasInsider.com released odds data based on a variety of factors to determine who, by the numbers, has the biggest odds of becoming the next 007.
The top contender, according to Vegas Insider, is British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson (“28 Years Later”), who leads the top 15 with 239/100 odds of being the next Bond. The outlet notes, however, that Taylor-Johnson’s age (35) could be a strike against him. The data also reflects an implied probability of Taylor-Johnson’s casting as 29.5%.
Taylor-Johnson fueled speculation back in June, when a Deadline reporter asked him on the “28 Years Later” red carpet about his next project, to which the actor responded: “I can’t talk about it.”
He’s next expected to star in Robert Eggers’ “Werewulf,” alongside his “Nosferatu” co-star Lily-Rose Depp.
The top five actors with the highest odds of a Bond casting include “White Lotus” star Theo James in second (537/100), internet boyfriend Harris Dickinson (567/100), “Mufasa: The Lion King”‘s Aaron Pierre (589/100), and Spider-Man himself, Tom Holland, in fifth place (127/100).
Josh O’Connor (“Challengers”), previously rumored to be a frontrunner for the role squashed Bond chatter back in January, when he told Deadline he believed the rumors began as a joke he made in Variety’s Actors on Actors video series, which pairs two or more actors together for discussions on film and career. In O’Connor’s episode, he was joined by Craig (“Queer”) and joked about it being “funny” if he played Bond.
“Suddenly, I was James Bond,” O’Connor told Deadline. “If I am Bond, I don’t know about it.”
Vegas Insider found O’Connor’s odds to be dead last in its top 15 ranking, with just 3.8% implied probability and 633/25 odds to become James Bond.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
