It’s never a good idea to take internet rumors at face value, but we’ve heard so many times that Aaron Taylor-Johnson is poised to be the next James Bond that there’s got to be at least the slimmest sliver of truth to the speculation.
He’s the right age, he’s got the experience of working on action-packed and effects-driven blockbusters, he can pull of a tux and a grizzled badass at the flick of a switch, and he’s versatile enough to guarantee a three-dimensional performance regardless of whether the next iteration of 007 will be drawing inspiration from Connery, Moore, Craig, or something entirely brand new.
Needless to say, Taylor-Johnson won’t be in a position to confirm or deny anything for a while, but he expertly sidestepped the scuttlebutt when it was put towards him in an interview with Vanity Fair.
“It’s flattering. You can have something really positive [written about you], but you can also have something really negative that can circulate. You just want to stay in your lane, stay grounded, stay around the people that you love and love you back, and stay in that world. Because the moment you start believing the shit people say about you, you’ve lost your fucking mind. You’ve lost it.”
That wasn’t a yes, but neither was it a no. The response to his emergence as the front-runner has generated a mixed reaction, something that’ll no doubt be exacerbated when Kraven the Hunter arrives given its status as a Sony-backed Marvel Comics adaptation, but he’s shown enough over his two decades in the spotlight to showcase that he could comfortably handle the pressure of being the next incumbent of the tux, along with all the bells and whistles that come with it.