Callum Turner Remains Tight-Lipped on James Bond Role | Vanity Fair

Callum Turner is an expert at sidestepping questions he doesn't want to answer. The 35-year-old model-turned-actor (36 if you're reading this tomorrow—his birthday is February 15) has honed that skill evading queries about his relationship with singer Dua Lipa, whom he dated for a year and a half before the couple confirmed their engagement in 2025. It's a level of stealth worthy of James Bond, who, some say, Turner is all but certain to soon play.

But those “some” don't include Callum Turner, based on a Saturday media event. The London-born thespian who's worked steadily since he entered the profession at age 20, spent Valentine's Day at the Berlin Film Festival. He was there to promote Rosebush Pruning, Karim Aïnouz’s star-studded satire about a wealthy (and yet, so so sad) family picking at each other as they languish in a lavish Catalonian villa.

It was the film's world premiere, but at a press conference for the movie, one of the earliest questions passed over stars Pamela Anderson, Tracy Letts, Jamie Bell, and Lukas Gage, and landed squarely on Turner's sturdy shoulders.

The presser had just kicked off when a journalist said they wanted to address “the elephant in the room,” and asked about the chatter surrounding Turner's rumored role in Dune director Denis Villeneuve's upcoming Bond film, the first under the franchise's new owner, Amazon (yes, that Amazon) MGM Studios.

Dua Lipa and Callum Turner pose on the red carpet for Rosebush Pruning

“It's very early for that question,” Turner responded as he swiveled back-and-forth in his seat. “I'm not going to comment on it, thank you.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning Letts interrupted at that point to say “I'm sorry, I'm the next James Bond.”

“Tracy, I thought you weren’t going to say anything,' Turner responded, to laughter from the crowd. (The 60-year-old American was clearly joking, but odder ideas have certainly been proposed!)

Turner is wise to decline comment, though. Hollywood's landscape is littered with I'd-stake-my-life-on-it Bond casting rumors that never panned out, a situation that must give him pause. Remember the swirl around Aaron Taylor-Johnson, or Tom Hiddleston, or Regé-Jean Page, or Damian Lewis? All front-runners for the gig, according to those in the know. But none have officially joined the 63-year-old franchise. as far as we know. (Don't get me started on the tragically lost opportunity that was Idris Elba, who a decade ago admitted that he'd grown too old for the job.)

In 2022, James Bond's then-owners said they were talking to potential Bonds, but Amazon's purchase hit reset on those plans. Last February, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos appeared to attempt to crowdsource contenders, soliciting ideas for the next 007 via X. A quick scroll of his responses suggests Henry Cavill was the top pick of social media users, with Vice-President JD Vance also prominent in Bezos's mentions.

Callum Turner and Dua Lipa at the 2025 Met Gala

Though it feels like it's been a long time since we saw Bond on the big screen, Daniel Craig's final run as the spy, No Time to Die, came out less than five years ago. But long before that, Craig has lost patience with questions about his successor, saying in 2015 “Look, I don’t give a ***. Good luck to them!”

Callum's response at the press event today was certainly warmer than Craig's exasperated riposte, but they certainly serve a similar energy. If part of the 007 casting process is how firmly you can shut down the media, then Turner might have just pushed himself to the top of the Bond pack.

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