At the Zurich Film Festival on Sept. 30, Danny Boyle made his pick for the next James Bond clear: “They should cast Jack O’Connell as Bond.” Boyle directed the 36-year-old actor in Ink, where he plays British tabloid editor Larry Lamb.
O’Connell previously played a villain who appears at the very end of Boyle’s 28 Years Later (2025). The scary cult leader Sir Jimmy Crystal then becomes the main antagonist of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026).
Boyle also praised O’Connell’s performance in the 2024 Amy Winehouse film Back to Black. “He plays the boyfriend and that’s an impossible part. It was an incredible performance,” Boyle said, according to Variety.
Boyle was once attached to direct No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s final Bond film, but left the project. At the festival, he said he and writer John Hodge had developed a story before the producers lost confidence in it. Denis Villeneuve is directing the next Bond movie, whose lead actor hasn’t been announced.
O’Connell joins a conversation that also includes Jacob Elordi, Paul Mescal, Callum Turner and Jack Lowden. Earlier in September, Lowden’s Slow Horses costar Gary Oldman said he’d heard a choice had been made, though he didn’t name the actor. The new Bond film has no announced release date.