In the latest episode of Stuff My Phone Really Wants Me To Care About, somewhere between “taffeta pants” and “the gym”, is this: James Bond.

Over the past couple of weeks, showbiz outlets have been breathlessly reporting on the Bond audition process. Allegedly, the search for the next actor to take on the role of this emotionally repressed master deceiver has moved into its final stages. (Why they’re holding auditions when they could simply send the casting team to any pub in E8 on a Friday night and have their pick of some of the best in the business is another question, but I digress.)

Stars like Josh O’Connor, Jack Lowden and Jacob Elordi (surely not) are all under consideration, and Robert Pattinson has also apparently joined the race. I know all of this through no fault of my own. I am not seeking this information out. Instead, my algorithm has been eagerly serving up posts and articles about it, like a cat that has brought something weird in from the garden and laid it at my feet.

Now listen. I am someone who reads with the seriousness that some reserve for analysing the FTSE 100. This type of thing is my bread and butter, my raison d’être. But when it comes to James Bond, I am just entirely unmoved. So, while I understand that the casting process is kind of big news, given the franchise’s legacy and place in British cinematic history, I must at this juncture stand up and be counted. Like the man in the Norman Rockwell painting of the courtroom, I will bravely voice an important question, speaking on behalf of all those who are definitely also thinking it: in 2026, is anyone actually, in any way, arsed who plays James Bond?

By now, Bond is kind of a dated proposition. When you’re from the UK, going to see the films mostly feels like one of those national identity things you’re expected to just sort of – like smiling in a tight-lipped way at other people in a queue, or talking about traffic – rather than something anyone is actually that enthusiastic about. Of course, the role comes with heritage – the first movie in the series, , starring Sean Connery, was released in 1962 – and a certain level of prestige (only one actor every generation or two, after all, lands the part). But does any of that actually matter when you think about the films themselves, which, fundamentally, have been shit for ages?

If I consider the most recent crop of Bond films – the Daniel Craig era – and the space they actually occupy in my mind, I immediately go to an image of my dad watching on Sky Movies at 11pm on a Saturday and falling asleep on the sofa 20 minutes in. As I recall them, these movies feel bloated and boring, a bit of a regressive wet dream of masculinity – fast cars, big explosions, womanising, even if Bond does now do it all with a bit of anguish in his eyes – which feels more embarrassing than relevant in 2026.

When Craig was cast in 2005, the entertainment landscape was extremely different, and Bond movies still felt like a unique event, I guess because of their budgets and glossiness. The same can’t really be said now. These days, spy, detective and general action anti-hero roles are ten-a-penny (, , , and so on and so on and so on), and often these parts are a great deal meatier than anything the James Bond series has to offer.

This feels like an especially salient point given that any actor accepting the part must understand that Bond is for life (alright, a decade or so), not just for Christmas. With Bond comes the near-certainty that the role will dominate your career during some especially prime years. Craig is a good example – though he’s a wildly versatile actor, he only really had room to be known for other, more interesting stuff once it was clear that his Bond tenure was coming to an end. (He began playing another breakout character, ’s hammy detective Benoit Blanc, in 2019, two years before the release of his final Bond movie, , in 2021). As tempting as the part might be, then, it’s a shame to think of actors like Lowden and, particularly, O’Connor, who has played so many different types of roles up to this point, falling foul of the same fate.

Whoever gets it, of course, will, in a way, find themselves preserved in amber as part of cinema history forever. It’s an iconic role, and I’m sure that by the time the first film is released, there will have been many efforts to update the franchise so that it makes sense as part of the media diet of younger audiences (rumour has it they’re thinking about casting an AI cat as Q!). I’d just wager that getting them to actually give a shit – given that Bond doesn’t really feel special anymore, thanks to its last, very MOR run, and its new place as one of many franchises kind of doing the same thing – will probably be a bit of a difficult job.