Could ‘Outlander’ star Sam Heughan be the next James Bond? He weighs in
He’ll take it shaken, not stirred.
Daniel Craig’s tenure playing James Bond ended with 2021’s “No Time to Die.” Ever since, Hollywood has been abuzz on who his successor could be.
Names like Aaron Taylor-Johnson and “Bridgerton” star Regé-Jean Page have been thrown around, but what about “Outlander” star Sam Heughan?
While talking to The Post to promote his new show “The Couple Next Door” (airing Fridays at 9 p.m. EST on Starz), Heughan, 44, said about the possibility that he could be the next 007, “I don’t know. I certainly haven’t heard anything.”
He quipped, “I know every British actor that’s ever worn a suit is probably talked about [in connection with the Bond role] at some point.”
Heughan rose to fame playing the kilt-wearing 18th-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser when “Outlander” first premiered in 2014.
The show, which just finished airing Season 7 on Starz, follows Jamie’s decadeslong love with time-traveling nurse Claire (Caitriona Balfe), as the couple has deals with various wars, pirates, politics, witch hunts, years of separation, murder attempts and more.
Heughan has played the leading man for 11 years, but he’s no stranger to spy movies, as he was in the 2018 comedy action flick “The Spy Who Dumped Me.”
Although Heughan is a Scot and most actors in the role have been English, he’d be in good company since the original James Bond, Sean Connery, was also Scottish.
He’s finally done with “Outlander” — the eighth and final season doesn’t have a premiere date yet, but it’s been filmed — so his schedule could be open for James Bond.
But it turns out that coming off his long stint of playing Jamie Fraser is what gives him pause, because Heughan said that James Bond is “an iconic character” — and so is Fraser.
“I don’t know if I’d go from one iconic character to the next,” he told The Post.
“Certainly, it would be a great undertaking. But look, I’m a huge fan of James Bond,” Heughan added.
“I was recently in Switzerland where they shot part of [the 1962 Bond movie] ‘Dr. No’ and sat in the same seat that Sean Connery had a martini in.”
