Why Robert Pattinson playing James Bond is too good to be true

The James Bond candidates are sprouting like mushrooms, each bigger and more colourful than the last. After months in which the vacant spy role seemed destined to go to a semi-proven up-and-comer – probably someone like Callum “Dua Lipa’s husband” Turner or Slow Horses thoroughbred Jack Lowden – the names now being linked to the part have taken on a decidedly starrier edge. First there was the news that Josh O’Connor is testing for the role. Then, this weekend, it was reported that Robert Pattinson is also among the contenders. At this rate, we’re seemingly hours away from learning that Daniel Day-Lewis has thrown his hat into the ring.

Pattinson, in particular, would be a major coup for the spy franchise; at this point, there is a strong case to be made that he is the most interesting A-list actor working today. Since breaking out as a teen heartthrob in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Twilight, the British star has gone on to work with a litany of prominent directors – among them the Safdie brothers (Good Time), Bong Joon Ho (Mickey 17), Lynne Ramsay (Die My Love), Claire Denis (High Life), James Gray (The Lost City of Z), Brady Corbet (Childhood of a Leader) and Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse), as well as Christopher Nolan and David Cronenberg on multiple occasions. He is versatile and idiosyncratic – always the best part of a bad film, and often the best part of a great one. This year alone, it’s been an unbroken string of wins: a lead role as Zendaya’s freaked-out fiance in the buzzy indie The Drama; a turn as the snarling, meme-spawning villain of The Odyssey; and, most recently, playing the oil-slick TV host Chris Hansen in the superlative biopic Primetime. All this, and a plum part in Dune: Part Three still to come.

There is little doubt that Pattinson would make a fascinating Bond. He already proved he can handle it, more or less, with his role in Nolan’s Bond-inspired 2020 blockbuster Tenet, in which Pattinson ingeniously interpolated shades of Christopher Hitchins into his part as a time-traversing espionage ace. And yet, there are reasons to doubt his suitability for the part. On a very basic level, Pattinson is currently Batman. You can’t be both Batman and James Bond. That’s just common sense – it’s too much swag for one man to handle. Some steaks are indeed too juicy, some lobsters too buttery.

Much has been made of casting in the Daniel Craig mould – ie, plumping for a lesser-known actor on the upswing of their career. Someone who isn’t going to be bigger than the role, which Pattinson, in some ways, would. He will always have other opportunities, other prominent roles, with great filmmakers, waiting just out of view. The assumption is that Amazon – which now has creative control of the Bond franchise – will be seeking someone who can play the role in multiple films over multiple years. (Surely they don’t have the energy to go through all this casting rigmarole again in half a decade’s time? I know I don’t.) If Pattinson were to take on the part, it’s hard to see him committing to anything like Craig’s run, which spanned five films and 15 years. Age is also a not insignificant factor. At 40, Pattinson is four years older than O’Connor, Lowden and Turner – not a chasmic age difference, but when you’re talking about peak stunt-credibility years, it’s not nothing.

The flipside to this is that Amazon may not be looking to emulate the past James Bond model at all. Their choice of director is telling – Dune and Arrival filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is easily the most exciting director to take on a Bond film, a proven blockbuster auteur at the top of the game. Perhaps his Bond outing merits a proven star to match. (It can’t hurt, either, that Villeneuve and Pattinson have already worked together, on the new Dune movie.) It would be a show of ambition on Amazon’s part – and, in a way, on Pattinson’s. The expectations would be sky-high, and anything less than a Bond movie for the ages would feel like a bit of a letdown.

At a certain point, of course, it becomes moot to speculate on all matters Bond, given how antically the casting weathervane seems to swivel around. You don’t have to look very far back to recall a time when the world was convinced that Aaron Taylor-Johnson had the role in the bag. Or Lowden, a mere few weeks ago. You know what they say: diamonds are forever, but so is the James Bond casting process.

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