Who will be the next James Bond? Few people are better placed to weigh in than Debbie McWilliams, who cast the actors who played 007 for four decades. Speaking at a packed talk on Friday at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), she stopped short of handicapping specific contenders — names like Callum Turner, Jacob Elordi, Idris Elba and Harris Dickinson have been floated — but she had plenty to say about what the role demands.
McWilliams began her career in 1972 and has worked on more than 100 feature films and television productions. She is best known for casting the last 14 Bond films, helping to shape some of the most memorable performances of the past four decades. Daniel Craig — whose final outing as 007 came in 2021 — was among her picks.
Asked point-blank who the next Bond will be, she was characteristically direct. “I neither know, and I have no opinion,” she said. But she warmed to the subject as the conversation, moderated by Variety senior editor Leo Barraclough, developed.
On whether Bond could be non-white or a woman, McWilliams was unequivocal. “No, I don’t think so. Ian Fleming wrote a character, and that’s the character that stays.”
Whatever the next Bond looks like, one quality is non-negotiable. “Part of his job description is licensed to kill. So you’ve got to think that he could pick a gun up and shoot you,” she said. “He’s got to have a kind of threat about him.” Pierce Brosnan, she noted, didn’t quite have that — “but he embodied a different side of him. He was very good looking and suave, and all the rest of it.” Craig, by contrast, “changed that somewhat in that he was much tougher.”
