How many James Bond actors were British? What is 007’s birthplace and which nationalities have played the spy

Cillian Murphy has seen his chances of playing the next James Bond after his success at the Oscars last weekend, where he bagged the Best Actor award for his role in biopic drama Oppenheimer.

If Murphy were to get the prestigious role, he would become only the ninth actor to play Bond on screen, and the second Irish star to do so. Despite James Bond becoming a stereotype for Englishness, only three 007 actors to have played him were born in England, though the character is most often played by a Brit.

Those who have inhabited the role of suave superspy James Bond in screen adaptations of Ian Fleming's novels come from three continents, but odds are that the next actor to get the role will be a native of Britain or Ireland.

Which nationalities have played James Bond?

The first actor to play Bond was, of all things, an American! Barry Nelson portrayed the spy in the 1954 adaptation of Casino Royale for the anthology series Climax! 

Since EON began making the films though, producers have preferred to cast an actor from Britain and Ireland, with one exception.

Sean Connery was the first to play Bond on film, and the actor couldn’t have been more Scottish. He had the role for six EON films, and one non-EON production, Never Say Never Again.

David Niven played Bond in the only other non-EON film, a spy spoof version of Casino Royale, in 1967. The London Born actor spoke with a clipped accent and was the very image of the English gent.

Following Connery’s first departure from the franchise, Australian star George Lazenby was the next actor to take on the role, in his only Bond film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but he proven to be an unpopular choice and is often voted as the worst incarnation of the character. The Broccolis, producers of the James Bond movies, have since stated that the character should be British.

After Lazenby, it was a return to England with Stockwell-born Timothy Dalton becoming 007 for seven outings between 1973 and 1985. He was replaced by the only Welshman to have played the character on screen to date, Timothy Dalton, for two movies.

Then it was the turn of Irish star Pierce Brosnan, born in County Louth, who went on to become one of the fan favourite Bonds after his four film appearances in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The latest incarnation of Bond was another Englishman, Daniel Craig, from Chester, who took on the part in 2006 and stepped down after his appearance in No Time to Die in 2021.

Is James Bond English?

Bond has a complicated backstory - in Fleming's novels he has a mixed heritage, with his father hailing from Glencoe, Scotland, and his mother coming from the Canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. In the first novels, Fleming wrote that Bond was born in England, however, after Sean Connery took on the role, the author revised the characters backstory and decided that he had in fact been born across the border in Scotland.

Bond's ancestry is touched on in Craig's third film, Skyfall, in which he visits his childhood home in the Scottish Highlands. So it appears that the English spy has actually been Scottish for most of the character's history.

Will the next James Bond actor be Irish?

Cillian Murphy’s name has been floated as a potential for the next James Bond. Whilst, Murphy became the first Irish Best Actor Oscar winner, he has already been pipped to the post for Bond by Pierce Brosnan, who voiced support for Murphy to get the role.

The identity of the next James Bond star has not been revealed though Londoner Aaron Taylor-Johnson remains the favourite to replace Craig. Other big names in the mix include Irish actor Barry Keoghan, Peckham's Damson Idris, and, Man of Steel Star, Henry Cavill, who was born on the Channel Island of Jersey.