The Bond markets have crashed again. James Bond, that is. This time, it’s down to a shrewd insider: BBC television presenter Richard Osman. On the latest episode of his podcast The Rest Is Entertainment, the House of Games host dropped some juicy 007 casting gossip that soon made headlines. “Someone told me for definite who the new Bond is the other day, but, I mean, that’s happened before,” he teased. “The name I’ve heard is Jack Lowden.”

He quickly clarified to co-host Marina Hyde that it's far from actually being a done deal; instead, he asserted, the actor is just “definitely being strongly considered” for the role. Either way, it has sent the British bookies into a frenzy, with Lowden leaping into third place around the 5/1 mark on most sites. Of course, this is far from the first time that a new name has shot up the prospective Bond rankings. The rumor mill has been churning out names ever since Daniel Craig announced he was departing the role almost five years ago; of those names, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Harris Dickinson, Jacob Elordi, Henry Cavill, James Norton and Theo James are still widely believed in the race. Since late 2025, Callum Turner has been riding high on the Polymarket rankings, a red-hot favorite who has rizz and ruggedness in equal measures.

Now, Lowden is the latest to zoom ahead in this wild car chase. And you know what? We can vibe with it. Over the years, the Scottish actor has killed it through major roles in TV dramas like War & Peace and The Passing Bells, with a big-time gig coming via Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, where he played an RAF fighter pilot. (It's sort of Bond adjacent, if you squint — though Ian Fleming's double-O was a Navy guy.) For the purposes of Bond, his most famous role is more important than any other: he has starred in every season of Slow Horses, Apple TV's mega-hit spy drama, since 2020, playing MI5 agent River Cartwright.

Of course, Bond is MI6. He deals with foreign espionage—and mysterious, maniacal bad guys living on evil islands—not the domestic mundanity of the civil service. But still, Lowden's time on the show translates to having direct experience of playing a British spy. Take that alongside his handsome profile, and it's kind of easy to imagine him holding up the PPK, even if Cartwright is more accustomed to screwing up the operations and fluffing his lines than the debonair charmer, and ruthless operator, that is 007.

Speaking to their difference as characters, Lowden brushed off any Bond parallels when discussing Cartwright in an interview with British GQ back in 2022. But as one Redditor put it two years ago: “[Cartwright is] very skilled but he does lots of reckless things because he’s bored and he wants to be James Bond.” Maybe they're not so different. Either way, purely by dint of being a British spy show, Slow Horses reads like a James Bond warm-up.

Survey his career beyond Slough House, and you can see why Lowden might be under such strong consideration. He has many of the actorly specs required of the next James Bond. Take crime drama The Gold, where he has the swagger and sharp wits on lock, riffing off a sense of threat that ricochets across every scene. He’s also got mega-film experience (you know, Nolan!) but still feels like a fresh choice, versus someone who’s already got the keys to a Los Angeles mansion. Bond is always bigger than the man who plays him; the tux would neither swamp nor restrict him, but fit just right. And he even shares Bond’s Scottish roots.

There is one catch: he isn't a perfect fit for the reported brief. “It’s got to be something really different that is stirring and exciting and different,” said producer Amy Pascal of the casting in a statement from Amazon MGM released back in May. While Lowden is undoubtedly stirring and exciting, it’s hard to argue that a conventionally attractive guy in his mid-to-late 30s might be “different.” Then again, it's not like any of the other frontrunners are a huge break from the existing Bond archetype. We'll just have to wait until the end of the year to find out if Osman's source was right. In the meantime, drop us a line if you catch Lowden at the bar ordering a shaken martini.

This story originally appeared in British GQ.