{"id":793186,"date":"2026-07-10T17:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T17:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/793186\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T17:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T17:00:08","slug":"james-bond-casting-vet-on-callum-turner-jacob-elordi-karlovy-vary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/793186\/","title":{"rendered":"James Bond Casting Vet on Callum Turner, Jacob Elordi: Karlovy Vary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWho 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\u00a0Karlovy Vary International Film Festival<\/a>\u00a0(KVIFF<\/a>), she stopped short of handicapping specific contenders \u2014 names like Callum Turner<\/a>, Jacob Elordi<\/a>, Idris Elba<\/a> and Harris Dickinson<\/a> have been floated \u2014 but she had plenty to say about what the role demands. <\/p>\n

\n\tMcWilliams 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 \u2014 whose final outing as 007 came in 2021 \u2014 was among her picks.<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked point-blank who the next Bond will be, she was characteristically direct. \u201cI neither know, and I have no opinion,\u201d she said. But she warmed to the subject as the conversation, moderated by Variety senior editor Leo Barraclough, developed.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn whether Bond could be non-white or a woman, McWilliams was unequivocal. \u201cNo, I don\u2019t think so. Ian Fleming wrote a character, and that\u2019s the character that stays.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhatever the next Bond looks like, one quality is non-negotiable. \u201cPart of his job description is licensed to kill. So you\u2019ve got to think that he could pick a gun up and shoot you,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s got to have a kind of threat about him.\u201d Pierce Brosnan, she noted, didn\u2019t quite have that \u2014 \u201cbut he embodied a different side of him. He was very good looking and suave, and all the rest of it.\u201d Craig, by contrast, \u201cchanged that somewhat in that he was much tougher.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHer big-picture conclusion on the search for the next Bond: \u201cThere\u2019s no set rule. It\u2019s whoever fits the bill, frankly, and it will be different for different directors and different producers \u2014 and it\u2019s about to change dramatically.\u201d That change is now in the hands of Amazon MGM Studios<\/a>, which in February 2025 struck a deal<\/a> with longtime franchise stewards Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to take full control of the Bond<\/a> character and its IP.<\/p>\n

\n\tMcWilliams offered a candid account of how Craig came to be cast. \u201cIt took a long time,\u201d she said. \u201cI scoured the world.\u201d Initially, \u201cnobody was particularly interested\u201d \u2014 and Craig himself was \u201cquite reluctant\u201d to take the role. The turning point came when Broccoli saw him in the 2004 thriller Layer Cake and asked to meet him.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also revealed the thinking behind one of the franchise\u2019s most inspired casting decisions: bringing Judi Dench in as M. \u201cTraditionally, the role had been played by a man,\u201d McWilliams recalled, \u201cand I said in a meeting, \u2018You do know that the head of MI5 is now a woman \u2014 Stella Rimington.\u2019 And so Barbara went, \u2018Okay, where\u2019s Judi Dench?’\u201d McWilliams had her reservations \u2014 Dench was \u201cat the height of her classical career\u201d \u2014 but the actress was in the room the next day. \u201cShe was absolutely thrilled to be asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe audience was also treated to a surprising confession: \u201cI\u2019ve never read a James Bond book in my life.\u201d Her casting decisions, she explained, were always based on the scripts alone.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the subject of AI, McWilliams was blunt. Asked about AI \u201cactor\u201d Tilly Norwood, who recently landed her first role, she said: \u201cI can\u2019t bear the thought of it at all. I think it\u2019s the death knell of the whole film industry.\u201d She conceded, however, that younger generations are more open to it. \u201cWe have to embrace it. People say it\u2019s going to make a huge difference \u2014 that it\u2019s the industrial revolution of filmmaking. But how it\u2019s going to work out, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn #MeToo, she was equally direct: \u201cIt was horrific what used to go on.\u201d But she expressed cautious optimism that things have genuinely improved on set and in casting rooms.<\/p>\n

\n\tMcWilliams also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International<\/a> Casting Directors Association at the festival, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the art and craft of casting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who will be the next James Bond? Few people are better placed to weigh in than Debbie McWilliams,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[338,49,24827,48,75,88567,64675,77,23483,25926,266291,266292,266293,337],"class_list":["post-793186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-amazon-mgm-studios","tag-ca","tag-callum-turner","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-harris-dickinson","tag-idris-elba","tag-international","tag-jacob-elordi","tag-james-bond","tag-karlovy-vary-international-film-festival","tag-kviff","tag-kviff-2026","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}