Callum Turner: Masters of the Air, The Boys in the Boat and Fantastic Beasts

Callum Turner played a rower, an American bomber pilot and a wizard's brother before the press started asking whether he would be the next James Bond. The question is still open. What is on record is a career that began with a football pitch in Fulham and a modelling contract, and that reached Steven Spielberg's Apple TV+ series and a George Clooney film.

Turner was born on 15 February 1990 in Hammersmith, London, and is {age} years old [5] [7]. He is a British actor [5].

Chelsea, football and modelling

Turner grew up on the World's End estate in Chelsea, raised by his single mother, Rosemary, who was a club promoter [3]. His first love was football. He played centre back for the Brunswick Club youth team in Fulham, and at 16 he briefly joined the set-up at Fisher Athletic. The commute from college was too much, and he gave it up at around 17 [3].

Around the same age a stylist friend of his mother's got him into modelling, and he spent about two years travelling [3]. He worked for brands including Reebok and Burberry [5]. Back in London at 18, he took a job at Dover Street Market while he chased acting work, and he signed with an agent through Casting Call [3].

First screen roles

His early credits included Queen and Country and the series Glue, both in 2014, and Green Room in 2015 [3]. Turner later called those first three professional years his "drama school" [3]. In 2014 he was named a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit [5].

Fantastic Beasts

The role that reached the widest audience was Theseus Scamander, the Auror older brother of Newt, played by Eddie Redmayne, in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald [4]. Turner was cast through casting director Fiona Weir and a meeting with director David Yates, then screen-tested with Redmayne [4]. He had roughly two to four months to prepare. He told ET that he studied what it is like to have a younger brother, since he has a half-brother he did not grow up with [4]. He described Theseus as a protective carer whose smothering affection clashes with what Newt needs [4].

He returned to the part in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore [5]. In 2024 he called the role his biggest acting lesson to date [3]. He also played Evan in the indie Mobile Homes opposite Imogen Poots, and he had filmed The Only Living Boy in New York about a year before the first Fantastic Beasts film [4].

The Capture

On television, Turner was nominated for a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for The Capture [5].

The Boys in the Boat

In George Clooney's film about the 1936 University of Washington rowing team, Turner plays Joe Rantz [3]. To look the part he trained by rowing for two months, four hours a day [3].

Masters of the Air

Masters of the Air is an Apple TV+ war drama from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, with a reported budget of $250 million [3]. Turner plays Major John "Bucky" Egan opposite Austin Butler as Gale "Buck" Cleven and Anthony Boyle [3] [2]. To match the real pilot's build, he deliberately gained weight [3].

TheWrap described Egan as "troublemaking yet endearing" [2]. Turner said he felt a "soul connection" to the role before he auditioned. In the series Egan writes letters to the families of soldiers who died, drinks heavily as a way of coping with combat, and is later captured and held in a prisoner of war camp [2]. Turner dedicated the finale, in which Egan replaces the Nazi flag at the camp with the American flag, to his own grandfather, who was also a prisoner of war in the Second World War [2]. He called himself and Butler "kindred spirits" [2].

2025 and 2026 projects

In 2025 Turner appeared in Eternity with Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen [7]. In 2026 he starred in Will Gluck's One Night Only, written by Travis Braun, in which he plays Owen opposite Monica Barbaro [1]. KQED describes Owen as a Manhattan pizzeria owner who planned to propose to his girlfriend, played by Maya Hawke, in a near future where premarital sex is legal on one night a year [8]. Universal set the digital release for 8 September 2026 [1].

He is also a lead in Rosebush Pruning, directed by Karim Aïnouz and based on the 1965 Italian film Fists in the Pocket [9]. Brit + Co reports that he replaced Josh O'Connor and that it was shot in Catalonia over seven and a half weeks [9]. The outlets disagree on the release: Brit + Co gives 24 July 2026 through Mubi, while Numero says Mubi has it from 21 August 2026 [9] [7].

Numero also lists a series adaptation of Neuromancer due in 2027, in which he plays Henry Dorsett Case, and the projects Alone Together, The Comebacker and a remake of Possession with Margaret Qualley [7].

The James Bond rumours

In 2026 Turner became the name most often tied to the next Bond film. Numero reports that British bookmakers made him the favourite, and notes that the part has not been cast [7]. Newsweek says Amazon MGM Studios holds the franchise with full creative control, Denis Villeneuve is confirmed as director, and no release date is set [6]. It describes an anonymous Daily Mail source claiming the casting was confirmed as an unverified claim, and says it had not received a response from Amazon's press office or Turner's publicists [6]. It lists James Norton, Theo James, Harris Dickinson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson among others reported to be in contention [6].

This page treats Bond as a rumour until Amazon MGM or Turner says otherwise. Newsweek also describes him as engaged to the singer Dua Lipa, while another outlet already calls her his wife, so the sources differ on that detail [6] [10].