George Mackay
Easily the most likely of the choices on this list, George Mackay has two strikes against him when looking at traditional Bond candidates. First, his hair is too light. Second, his face is too distinctive. If you think these are silly complaints, well… they are silly complaints. But do a little digging to find the reaction to Craig’s casting 20 years ago, and you’ll find plenty of griping about the actor’s hair color and ear shape. All this despite the fact that the Bond novels by Fleming compare the spy to Hoagy Carmichael, a man with a longer face and wider ears than Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan.
Moreover, Craig showed that a distinctive look can make for a distinctive Bond, especially if the actor has the chops to suggest sorrow in his cold eyes. Mackay certainly fits the bill here. After debuting as a Lost Boy in 2003’s Peter Pan, Mackay has gone on to do impressive work in independent films, earning acclaim for Femme and The Beast, with 1917 being his most well-known movie. It would be quite the leap to go from those productions to a franchise picture helmed by Villeneuve, but Mackay would have just the right energy to be an off-beat leading man in a unique Bond flick.
Josh O’Connor
As long as we’re talking about Bonds with idiosyncratic appearances, let’s consider Josh O’Connor. Unlike McKay, O’Connor has a higher profile, having played major roles in Challengers, Wake Up Dead Man, and the upcoming Steven Spielberg film Disclosure Day. But ever since Villeneuve landed the directing gig—reversing Eon’s tendency to deny big name filmmakers such as Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, and Danny Boyle—a B- or A-list star doesn’t seem impossible.
With his lanky frame, curly hair, and pronounced ears, O’Connor certainly doesn’t fit the usual Bond mold. But O’Connor does have an off-kilter energy that captures something about the secret agent. Anyone who has watched a Bond film knows that 007 isn’t a spy, not really. He walks right into the bad guy’s lair and introduces himself with his real name. He succeeds in his missions thanks to his ability to charm everyone, from women to the villains themselves, even when it doesn’t make sense. O’Connor has just that type of appeal.
Jack O’Connell
Bond films tend to be either serious and brutal or goofy and slick. After five Craig movies that fell into the former category, conventional wisdom suggested that the pendulum would swing toward the lighthearted. But with Villeneuve as director, Bond isn’t going to be driving submarine cars anytime soon, which means that we need another 007 in the mold of Connery and Craig. And if there’s one thing those two actors brought to the character, it’s a sense of danger.
No young British actor has been as charming and scary onscreen as Jack O’Connell. Whether playing an ageless Irish vampire in Sinners or the charitable killer Sir Jimmy in 28 Years Later, O’Connell is at once alluring and unnerving. Moreover, there’s a roughness to O’Connell that can remind viewers that Bond didn’t grow up in the lap of luxury. He’s the son of an arms company rep, and was shuffled around after he lost his parents at the age of eleven. O’Connell can clean up nice, slicking back his hair and slipping into a tux. But he can retain that edge of menace necessary, a reminder that no matter how many martinis he enjoys, Bond always carries a license to kill.
