Why does anyone want to play James Bond? The franchise seems to spit out its leads, leaving them wrecked and disillusioned. “I’d like to kill him,” Sean Connery famously said of Bond, that “dull, prosaic English policeman”; it was Daniel Craig who finally managed to do it, a fifth film torturously pulled out of him because Barbara Broccoli agreed to knock him off. As soon as his Bond took a missile to the bonce, Craig dived right into playing all the oddballs he could get, with Benoit Blanc as palate cleanser. Bond might never be an actor’s most interesting role, but it is always the one that leads the obit.
With the auditions for the next Bond under way, reports recently emerged that the official contenders were Jack Lowden, Josh O’Connor, Callum Turner and a mysterious fourth actor who no one seemed to know. But over the weekend multiple sources confirmed to the Hollywood trades that the mysterious fourth – and fifth – contenders were Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult. Both great actors, but one of them has made a casting decision that has dragged on, and on, and on, suddenly feel genuinely exciting for the first time.
Pattinson is an undeniable screen presence who injects a sense of the unpredictable into everything he does; I can’t think of many actors who so obviously, visibly relish doing the job. Given the clear reluctance of Bond’s handlers to cast anyone who isn’t white and male in the role, Pattinson is a rare contender who could – despite hitting that demographic – transform Bond into something entirely new, if given some slack. The 40-year-old seems to prioritise variety over all else: unhinged dauphin (The King), seductive southern preacher (The Devil All the Time), bumbling clone (Mickey 17), anxious boyfriend (The Drama), terrible husband (Die My Love), demented mermaid fetishist (The Lighthouse), preening TV host (Primetime) or snarky opportunist (The Odyssey).
Crucially, he seems to like playing weirdos, and has an ability to freshen up hackneyed characters. Take his Bruce Wayne, who is not a playboy superhero but a deeply traumatised man finding purpose as a vigilante. “I mean, it’s kind of such an insane thing to do: the only way I can live is to dress up as a bat,” he once told GQ. He’s not wrong, but he’s also the first Batman to get it.
All of which might make it unlikely Pattinson would agree to play Bond if asked: his recent choices suggest he seeks out spiky, provocative auteur films, and will only make allowances for big franchises if he can play a little freak. But he is blessed with the required square jaw, strong brow, ability to brood, and a high pain tolerance for franchises (Batman, Twilight, Dune, Harry Potter). Pattinson is not suave in the classic sense, but he is incredibly magnetic. And if it counts for anything, he’s the only one of the five actors to have already worked with the next Bond director, Denis Villeneuve (on Dune III).
Plus, how many actors can you name who have lied about watching a clown die in a clown car explosion when he was a child, or invented a pasta dish while bored in lockdown, or gone on a chatshow to extol erotic spitting (“It’s pretty great,” he told a nonplussed Jimmy Kimmel), or pretended to have a rap persona called Big Tub and the Tabbycats?
If he is cast as Bond (let’s be honest, unlikely) and given the space to do what he wants with the role (even unlikelier), at least Pattinson won’t need a few Benoit Blancs to recover afterwards. Bond, on the other hand, might never be the same again.
