HOW TO GET A JAMES BOND SKILLSET

Every wondered what it would take to be a reallife James Bond? Dominic Bliss looks at the skills you'd need to be the world's most famous literary spy – and how to get them

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James Bond will return". That was the reassuring, if slightly confusing, message in the credits at the end of the last Bond movie, No Time to Die, shortly after our heroic spy was blown to smithereens by a massive throng of missiles. "How can he return from the dead?" we asked ourselves.

But there’s a far more pressing question than that. “Who will replace Daniel Craig as 007?”

Speculation has been rife, especially when, in February, the long-time custodians of the movie franchise, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, ceded creative control over Britain’s favourite spook to Amazon MGM Studios. With Amazon boss Jeff Bezos (There's a dead-ringer for a Bond villain!) now calling the shots, who might they choose? Would they, God forbid, select an American actor? Or a woman even?

It has been over three-and-a-half years since No Time to Die was released. During that period, British actors such as Idris Elba, James Norton, Theo James, Callum Turner, Harris Dickinson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson have had their names thrown into ring. At 52, Elba is clearly too old. Shortly over a year ago, Taylor-Johnson was, according to The Sun newspaper, formally offered the role, but since then there has been no confirmation. In a straw poll conducted on X by Bezos, voters clamoured for Henry Cavill, the British actor who plays Superman.

And what about the bookies? Currently, most have Taylor-Johnson as favourite, followed closely by Cavill, Norton, James and Dickinson.

Whoever ends up portraying Bond must possess certain key qualities