Callum Turner once put it plainly: “I definitely missed four years of my life.” The line, from a 2020 interview, is circulating again this November as the British actor sits near the top of James Bond speculation. A recent X post from @MorbidKnowledge helped push the old comments back into view, but the remarks themselves date to years earlier.
During this Independent interview, Turner talked about his daily weed consumption between the age of 18 and 26 years. During that period, he was actively involved in the profession of an actor and model. However, even though he worked, there was another problem in his life.
“I was acting, doing films and smoking weed every day. I never smoked on set, but as soon as I got home, I was a real addict.”
According to Turner, this behavior can be associated with depression and frustration because Turner did not have any skills to cope with them, and he used drugs for a rather long period of time. For that reason, he admitted that this habit “definitely stunted something.”
The eight-year period of drug abuse differs greatly from the four-year period which Turner considered the lost one. In this case, the former does not refer to the clinical condition or memory loss. Turner continued his work and performed in many movies including Fantastic Beasts, Emma, The Capture, and Masters of the Air.
Turner was born and raised in Chelsea where he grew up on a council estate. At the same time, Turner’s mother, who promoted nightclubs, raised him alone. At the age of 16, Turner left school and tried to become a semi-professional football player, but failed at it. This disappointment became one of the reasons of that period of Turner’s life. There were a lot of colorful characters in the London club scene when Turner was young.
He credited the change to self-compassion. “Compassion and love” for himself, plus a clear determination not to keep missing his own life, helped him stop. In a November 2025 Vanity Fair profile he discussed therapy and personal growth more broadly, noting that by his late twenties he had done substantial work to keep the patterns he liked and let go of those he did not. The piece did not revisit the cannabis years as current treatment.
The past interview is attracting new interest, thanks to the fact that Turner has become an important figure in the next Bond debate. Pierce Brosnan, who starred alongside him in The Only Living Boy in New York, has referred to Turner as “so strong” and said the actors in contention all have presence and longevity. There are reports of final screen tests, the odds are turning in his favor, but it is not official casting.
What Turner is telling the media is a simple personal story, not a crisis story. He continued working hard at the same time he struggled with his problem, and he decided that the price was too great to continue. For a man who has become a candidate for one of Hollywood’s most coveted parts, it is just another sign of how long the journey has become from his London house to this point in the Bond debate.
