Dustin Hoffman and Leo Woodall in TunerImage via Black Bear Pictures /Courtesy Everett Collection
Every British actor of a certain generation is being asked if they’ve been approached to audition for the role of James Bond. One of the most coveted gigs in the world, the position remains open as Amazon officially searches far and wide for someone to fill it. Jacob Elordi has long been rumored to be a front-runner, while Callum Turner certainly has his fans as well. One name that has often come up in discussions about the James Bond role is Leo Woodall. The actor broke out with a memorable performance in the second season of HBO’s The White Lotus, and then reached a larger audience thanks to Apple TV’s Prime Target, Netflix’s One Day, and Prime Video’s Vladimir. More recently, Woodall starred in one of the most acclaimed movies of the year, which landed on the PVOD market with a bang.
The movie in question premiered at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival, where it immediately drew a positive response from critics. It was released theatrically a few weeks ago, and the reaction from a larger pool of reviewers was just as enthusiastic. The movie marked the narrative debut of Daniel Roher, who won an Oscar in the Best Documentary Feature category for Navalny, about the slain Russian opposition leader. More recently, Roher co-directed the documentary The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, which holds an 87% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
Advertisement
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
Advertisement
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
Advertisement
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
Advertisement
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
Advertisement
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
Advertisement
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
Advertisement
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
Advertisement
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
Advertisement
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
Advertisement
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
Advertisement
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Advertisement
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Advertisement
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Advertisement
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
Advertisement
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Advertisement
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Advertisement
The Best Audition a James Bond Contender Can Deliver Is Via Their Work
Roher’s movie with Woodall has an even higher score on the aggregator website. We’re talking, of course, about Tuner. It’s now sitting at a “Certified Fresh” 94%, with a consensus that reads, “Announcing Leo Woodall as a compelling star talent, Tuner enhances its nifty caper setup with a smart sense of humor and vivid characterizations.” Woodall also played an important supporting role in last year’s Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, and the World War II drama Nuremberg, which featured Russell Crowe and Rami Malek in the lead roles. Nuremberg grossed more than $50 million worldwide and has emerged as a major hit on the PVOD market. Woodall can now put Tuner in the same category as well.
Advertisement
According to FlixPatrol, Tuner was among the 10 most popular movies on the domestic iTunes chart this week. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login