Hot on the heels of Amazon’s announcement the other day that casting is now underway on the next James Bond film, the first new name to join the fray in a while has emerged – Tom Francis.

The 26-year-old British stage actor is best known for his Olivier Award-winning performance alongside Nicole Scherzinger in Jamie Lloyd’s revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “Sunset Boulevard,” which played on the West End in 2023 and Broadway in 2024.

On screen, his work has been fairly limited with small roles in Netflix’s “You” and the George Clooney-led film “Jay Kelly”. He will soon appear in Peter Berg’s sports drama “The Mosquito Bowl”.

Variety reported the news, saying the actor has already auditioned to play the part and is just one of many performers to be under consideration by casting director Nina Gold and filmmaker Denis Villeneuve.

Francis marks the latest name to join the rumor list which is skewing younger – late 20s/early 30s – than previous Bonds who have generally been in their late 30s when cast.

Jacob Elordi, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Callum Turner are all said to be under consideration, though a spokesperson for “Shōgun” actor Cosmo Jarvis has ruled him out saying the actor is not auditioning for it.