Speculation about who the next James Bond actor will be has become a hot topic over the past week. Amazon MGM Studios’ upcoming film, commonly referred to as James Bond 26, is being directed by Denis Villeneuve (the Dune films) and written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), and will be the first 007 movie since Daniel Craig’s fifth and final entry, No Time to Die (2021).Credit: MGM/EON ProductionsWho Is the New James Bond Actor?Nina Gold is involved in the casting search, which has included almost every British actor of a certain age you can probably think of.Jack Barton (Heartstopper), Callum Turner (Eternity), Jacob Elordi (Wuthering Heights), Paul Mescal (Gladiator II), and Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness) were recently named on a reported shortlist, along with Scottish actor Jack Lowden (Slow Horses), who has emerged as a leading contender.In August, English presenter and novelist Richard Osman claimed that he had been told “for definite” who the new James Bond is. “The name I’ve heard is Jack Lowden,” he said on his The Rest Is Entertainment podcast (via Metro). Although he went on to say, “It is definitively not a ‘he’s definitely got it’ thing. He is definitely being strongly considered. I think he’d be amazing.”Credit: Inside the MagicEarlier this week, Lowden’s Slow Horses co-star Gary Oldman said that the producers “have picked” the new Bond actor but “have not announced it yet.”“It’s been rumored that [Lowden] is on the shortlist,” he told Canada’s The Morning Show (via The Hollywood Reporter), adding, “We’re going to find out pretty soon, aren’t we? Because they have picked him. They have made their choice, but they have not announced it yet. So my fingers are crossed for Jack.”Following Oldman’s comments, the film’s screenwriter Steven Knight seemed to suggest that the actor had already been selected. “I cannot speak about this subject,” he said when asked about the casting on BBC Radio 4’s Today program (via The Independent), before later acknowledging that knowing the chosen actor makes writing the character “a little bit easier.”After that interview, Knight told Zoe Ball on the U.K.’s Greatest Hits Radio (via Variety) that the first draft of the script is now done.Credit: MGM/EON ProductionsRelated: New ‘James Bond’ Sequels Likely, Amazon Says, Existing 007 Actor Expected To ReturnFor now, Amazon MGM has yet to announce who the new Bond actor is.But with all the talk about who will take over from Daniel Craig, clearly, many fans have been distracted from an official Bond casting announcement that took place earlier this year — and no, we aren’t talking about the popular video game 007 First Light, which stars Patrick Gibson (Dexter: Original Sin) as a young Bond.While the inevitable Bond 26 casting announcement keeps us on the edge of their seats, the wider franchise continues to move forward across other forms of entertainment — in gaming with 007 First Light and in novel form, with several titles releasing throughout 2026 and 2027, including Kim Sherwood’s Hurricane Room, Vaseem Khan’s The Man with the Golden Compass, Charlie Higson’s King Zero, and M. W. Craven’s James Bond and the Secret Agent Academy.Credit: IO Interactive under license from Amazon MGM Studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Eon ProductionsA New James Bond Has Already Been CastHowever, there’s one upcoming 007 installment that many fans seem to have overlooked: an upcoming full-cast audio adaptation of Higson’s first Young Bond novel, SilverFin, which is now being told across 16 half-hour episodes, split into two box sets for roughly eight hours of drama.Titled Young Bond: SilverFin Part 1, the audio drama series adapts Charlie Higson’s 2005 book, which was followed by the sequels Blood Fever, Double or Die, Hurricane Gold, and By Royal Command, all of which were written by the author. The series later continued under author Steve Cole, with the subsequent titles Shoot to Kill, Heads You Die, Strike Lightning, and Red Nemesis.Credit: IO Interactive under license from Amazon MGM Studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Eon ProductionsEarlier this year, per Radio Times, Big Finish Productions announced the audio series, and in June, Collider reported that young British actor Isaac Rouse had been officially cast as the story’s teenage James Bond, which has since been confirmed by the studio through its official website.Rouse, who played Ollie Chadwyck-Healey in The Crown Season 6, is 24 years old, making him one of the youngest actors ever to portray James Bond in an official production. He is joined by fellow British actor Charlotte McBurney, who voices the SilverFin character Wilder Lawless.