{"id":775920,"date":"2026-09-19T15:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T15:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/775920\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T15:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T15:50:16","slug":"james-bond-author-says-007-frontrunner-jack-lowden-is-not-a-convincing-choice-for-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/775920\/","title":{"rendered":"James Bond author says 007 frontrunner Jack Lowden is \u2018not a convincing\u2019 choice for role"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Slow Horses star Jack Lowden may be the bookies\u2019 current favourite<\/a> to play 007 at the moment, but the book franchise\u2019s new author isn\u2019t convinced that he\u2019s the man with a licence to kill. <\/p>\n

Charlie Higson, who has written the latest James Bond book, has given his thoughts on the latest frontrunners to replace Daniel Craig<\/a> as the fictional British spy \u2013 and revealed that he struggles to see any of them as the martini-drinking spook. <\/p>\n

The actor currently with the best odds of playing Bond is Scottish star Jack Lowden, while Masters of the Air\u2019s Callum Turner and Wuthering Heights\u2019 Jacob Elordi are also said to be in the running. <\/p>\n

In a new interview, Higson said he\u2019s \u201cnot sure\u201d whether Lowden has what it takes to play Bond. \u201cI like him, but it\u2019s like when Tom Hiddleston was in the running \u2013 not a convincing hand-to-hand fighter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"JackJack Lowden is the current favourite to play Bond (Getty)<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Daniel Craig you can believe him kicking the s*** out of someone,\u201d he told The Times.<\/a> \u201cAnd you\u2019ve got to believe that with Bond.\u201d<\/p>\n

The writer also said that he though Elordi would be \u201ctoo tall\u201d for the role, while Turner has \u201cunconventional looks\u201d which is \u201cno bad thing\u201d. <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, he couldn\u2019t provide any inside knowledge around the casting process. \u201cAre they gonna go for a much younger Bond?\u201d he continued. \u201cAre they gonna go for an established name, something we\u2019ve not heard of? It\u2019ll be interesting. It\u2019s quite exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

A former writer and performer on BBC Two\u2019s The Fast Show, Higson is best known for writing the Young Bond series of books. The spin-off to Ian Fleming\u2019s original novels follows a teenage James Bond while studying at Eton College. <\/p>\n

He wrote five books in the series before becoming the eighth writer to take over the adult Bond books since Fleming\u2019s death in 1964. Higson\u2019s On His Majesty\u2019s Secret Service was released in 2023, while his latest novel, King Zero, comes out this month. <\/p>\n

Since Fleming\u2019s death, Ian Fleming Publications has released 29 novels in the Bond series, written by Kingsley Amis, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd, Anthony Horowitz and Higson. <\/p>\n

\"HigsonHigson is the latest author to take over Ian Fleming’s series of Bond books (Getty)<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Steven Knight \u2013 the writer of the 26th Bond film \u2013 revealed that producers had decided who would be the next Bond<\/a> and how working on the script was proving to be \u201ca bit easier\u201d now he knew who would be playing the spy. <\/p>\n

It came shortly after Lowden\u2019s Slow Horses co-star Gary Oldman claimed that producers had already made their choice<\/a> and that his \u201cfingers are crossed\u201d for one particular name to emerge. <\/p>\n

Daniel Craig\u2019s Bond swan song, No Time to Die, was released by in 2021 and since then, fans of the franchise have been desperate to know who\u2019ll be replacing him in the next film, directed by Dune\u2019s Denis Villeneuve. It\u2019ll mark the first film in the franchise under the creative control of Amazon-owned company MGM, which took over from co-owner Barbara Broccoli last year. <\/p>\n

Last month, producer Amy Pascal said that news of the next Bond will likely be out by \u201cthe end of the year\u201d<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are being really, really methodical. Having worked with Barbara Broccoli at the studio, I mean, Daniel Craig is a hard act to follow,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[23072,71525,184846,6491,177898,6494,309,96,97745,185934,184837,20646,2839,6487,184838,185932,56,54,55,83596],"class_list":["post-775920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-23072","tag-arts-culture-and-entertainment","tag-attending","tag-celebrities","tag-charlie-higson","tag-color-image","tag-england","tag-entertainment","tag-fawlty-towers","tag-gala","tag-london-england","tag-may","tag-movies","tag-photography","tag-premiere-event","tag-theatrical-performance","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-vertical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}