Josh O'Connor has spent years building a reputation as one of Britain's most quietly formidable actors — a BAFTA winner, a Golden Globe recipient, a man who made Prince Charles compelling television. But in April 2026, his name is trending for reasons that have less to do with his craft and more to do with the tabloid machinery that surrounds anyone who works closely with a Hollywood star. The question of whether his chemistry with Mila Kunis on Netflix's Wake Up Dead Man is straining her marriage to Ashton Kutcher has sent search traffic surging. Meanwhile, back in Ireland, his 2022 drama Aisha — one of the most critically acclaimed Irish films in years — quietly aired on RTÉ2, reminding audiences what O'Connor actually does best.
This is the strange duality of being Josh O'Connor right now: gossip column fodder and serious awards contender, sometimes in the same news cycle.
Who Is Josh O'Connor? The Career Behind the Headlines
Josh O'Connor, 35, emerged from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and spent years in British independent film before The Crown made him a household name. His portrayal of a young, alienated Prince Charles in seasons three and four of the Netflix drama earned him a BAFTA and a Golden Globe, and demonstrated a particular gift: O'Connor excels at playing men who are emotionally constrained by circumstance — people who want more than their context allows them to have.
That quality made him an ideal fit for Luca Guadagnino's Challengers, where he played a down-on-his-luck tennis player locked in a triangle with Zendaya and Mike Faist. The film became a genuine cultural moment in 2024, and O'Connor's physically committed, emotionally raw performance confirmed what The Crown had suggested: he's not a one-note actor riding a prestige television wave. He's the real thing.
Wake Up Dead Man extends that trajectory. Directed by Rian Johnson — best known for the Knives Out franchise — the Netflix mystery casts O'Connor as a priest opposite Mila Kunis's detective. It's an unusual pairing that reportedly generated genuine on-screen heat, and it's that heat that's now generating headlines.
The Mila Kunis Chemistry Reports: What's Actually Being Claimed
According to reports published on April 10, 2026, sources close to the situation say that Kunis and O'Connor developed strong chemistry during the filming and promotion of Wake Up Dead Man, and that the two have remained in frequent contact since. The reports suggest this ongoing closeness has tested the patience of Kunis's husband, Ashton Kutcher, 48.
It's worth being precise about what is and isn't being claimed here. No source is alleging an affair. What's being described is a close professional friendship — the kind that forms on intensive film sets — that has apparently persisted in a way that one party in a marriage finds uncomfortable. That's a meaningfully different story than the headline treatment it's receiving in some corners of the internet.
Kunis and Kutcher have been married since 2015. They have two children: daughter Wyatt, 11, and son Dimitri, 9. Their relationship has faced public scrutiny before — most notably in 2023, when both wrote character letters in support of convicted rapist Danny Masterson, a decision they later publicly apologized for. The Masterson controversy significantly damaged their public image, and tabloid attention on their marriage has remained elevated since.
O'Connor, for his part, is currently in a relationship with actress Alison Oliver, 28, whom he reportedly met at her sister's wedding in September 2024. Oliver is known for her role in Conversations with Friends, the Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney's novel — making this one of those quietly glamorous literary-adjacent celebrity pairings that tends to fly under the radar until it suddenly doesn't.
Wake Up Dead Man: The Netflix Film at the Center of It All
Before the gossip, there's the actual film. Wake Up Dead Man is Rian Johnson's third entry in his mystery franchise, following Knives Out and Glass Onion. Johnson has built this series on the premise that the classic whodunit can be reinvented by changing the social dynamics at play — who has power, who is suspected, and why. Each film has featured a different detective and a different ensemble.
Casting Mila Kunis as the detective and Josh O'Connor as a priest suspect/witness is a characteristically smart Johnson move. Kunis brings a certain defiant intelligence to her roles; O'Connor brings ambiguity. A priest who may or may not know something about a murder is exactly the kind of morally complex role O'Connor handles with precision. If you're interested in the broader landscape of mystery films and thrillers on streaming platforms, Crime 101 on Prime Video offers a look at similar thrillers worth watching.
The film's 2025 Netflix release made it one of the platform's major events of that year, and Johnson's franchise has proven that mystery films can work in the streaming era when the writing is sharp enough. The press tour that O'Connor and Kunis participated in — the one now being analyzed for interpersonal dynamics — was itself a sign of how seriously Netflix was backing the project.
Aisha: The Film That Deserves More Attention Than the Tabloids
While the gossip cycle focuses on Wake Up Dead Man, Irish audiences were reminded on April 10, 2026, of a film that arguably represents O'Connor's most significant dramatic work: the 2022 drama Aisha, which aired on RTÉ2.
Directed by Frank Berry and co-starring Letitia Wright, Aisha tells the story of a Nigerian asylum seeker navigating Ireland's immigration system. O'Connor plays Conor, an Irish man who works in the direct provision center where Aisha is housed, and the film is a quiet, devastating examination of bureaucratic cruelty and the humanity that persists within it.
The film holds a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes and won three Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTAs), including Best Director for Frank Berry and Best Script. That's not a minor independent film quietly dying on a shelf — that's one of the most critically validated Irish films of the decade. The fact that it's only now reaching a wider television audience speaks to the distribution challenges facing films that prioritize difficult subjects over commercial accessibility.
O'Connor's performance in Aisha is a reminder that beneath the prestige television work and the Hollywood franchise appearances, he has a genuine commitment to socially serious material. It's the kind of film that actors cite when they want to explain what they actually care about, as opposed to what they're known for.
The James Bond Angle: Ambition in Plain Sight
One detail buried in the recent tabloid coverage is worth extracting and examining on its own terms: a source claims that O'Connor "desperately wants to be the next James Bond."
This is not a trivial ambition. The Bond franchise has been in a prolonged succession crisis since Daniel Craig's tenure ended with No Time to Die in 2021. Producer Barbara Broccoli and the rights-holding Eon Productions have been characteristically secretive about casting, but the speculation has been relentless. Names floated have included Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Regé-Jean Page, and Tom Hardy, among others.
O'Connor's case for Bond is stronger than it might initially appear. He's British, physically capable (as Challengers demonstrated), and has proven he can carry a franchise-level project. He's also at the right age — 35 — to begin a multi-film run. His range, demonstrated across The Crown, Challengers, Aisha, and now Wake Up Dead Man, suggests he wouldn't be a one-dimensional Bond. The character has always been more interesting when played by someone with genuine dramatic weight.
Whether this is an actor's expressed professional aspiration or tabloid speculation dressed up as insider sourcing is impossible to know from the outside. But it's consistent with the trajectory of someone who has methodically built the kind of credibility that earns consideration for major franchise roles.
What This Actually Means: The Tabloid Industrial Complex and Serious Actors
There's a broader pattern worth naming here. When a serious actor — one with O'Connor's track record — becomes the subject of tabloid coverage about interpersonal drama with a co-star, it creates a specific kind of narrative friction. The coverage tends to flatten the actor's work into background context for a relationship story, which misrepresents both the actor and the situation.
O'Connor has spent fifteen years developing a craft. He's made films about Nigerian asylum seekers in Ireland and played emotionally suffocated British royals and anguished tennis players. The current news cycle, in which he's primarily discussed in terms of his alleged effect on Ashton Kutcher's marriage, is a category error — though one that's almost impossible to avoid when tabloid attention lands on anyone connected to someone as famous as Mila Kunis.
The smarter read of this moment is that O'Connor's visibility is high enough now that his name generates traffic, which is itself a form of industry power. Being talked about — even in tabloid terms — is different from being ignored. The actors who never generate this kind of attention are usually the ones who haven't broken through to genuine mainstream recognition. In that limited sense, the gossip column moment is a signal, not just noise.
What matters more is what comes next. If O'Connor does secure a Bond audition, or if his next major project demonstrates continued range, the current tabloid cycle will be a footnote. If the work isn't there, it won't matter how many headlines he generates.
Frequently Asked Questions About Josh O'Connor
Who is Josh O'Connor dating?
Josh O'Connor is currently dating actress Alison Oliver, 28. The two reportedly met at Oliver's sister's wedding in September 2024. Oliver is known for her performance in the Hulu drama Conversations with Friends, based on Sally Rooney's novel. The relationship has kept a relatively low profile compared to O'Connor's professional visibility.
What is Josh O'Connor's role in Wake Up Dead Man?
In Wake Up Dead Man, Rian Johnson's Netflix mystery film, O'Connor plays a priest who becomes involved in the investigation at the center of the plot. Mila Kunis plays the detective pursuing the case. The film is the third entry in Johnson's mystery franchise following Knives Out and Glass Onion.
Is there any truth to the Mila Kunis and Josh O'Connor rumors?
The reports are based on anonymous sourcing and describe an ongoing close friendship between co-stars, not an affair or romantic involvement. Both O'Connor and Kunis are in committed relationships — O'Connor with Alison Oliver, Kunis with husband Ashton Kutcher, whom she has been married to since 2015. The claims center on frequent post-filming contact that reportedly concerns Kutcher, not any specific misconduct.
What is the film Aisha about, and why is it significant?
Aisha is a 2022 Irish drama directed by Frank Berry, starring Josh O'Connor and Letitia Wright. It follows a Nigerian asylum seeker navigating Ireland's direct provision system, with O'Connor playing an Irish worker at the facility who develops a connection with her. The film holds a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes and won three IFTA awards including Best Director and Best Script. It aired on RTÉ2 in Ireland on April 10, 2026.
Could Josh O'Connor actually become the next James Bond?
O'Connor has reportedly expressed interest in the role, and he meets the baseline criteria: British, physically credible, and dramatically capable. The Bond franchise has been in casting limbo since Daniel Craig's final film in 2021. O'Connor would be a credible candidate, though the decision ultimately rests with producer Barbara Broccoli and Eon Productions, who have not confirmed any direction in casting. Multiple other names remain in public speculation.
Conclusion: The Serious Actor in the Tabloid Moment
Josh O'Connor is, by any reasonable measure, one of the most talented British actors of his generation. He has an BAFTA, a Golden Globe, a 98% Rotten Tomatoes film, and a franchise hit with Challengers on his résumé before turning 36. The tabloid attention around his relationship with Mila Kunis on the set of Wake Up Dead Man is a distraction from that record, but it's also evidence of how far he's come: you don't generate this kind of speculation unless you're working at the level where co-starring with Mila Kunis in a Rian Johnson Netflix film is a reasonable career move.
The more durable story here is the April 10 airing of Aisha on Irish television — a quietly extraordinary film about asylum and human dignity that won the awards it deserved and is finally reaching a wider audience. That film is what O'Connor will be remembered for long after whatever is or isn't happening in Ashton Kutcher's marriage fades from the news cycle.
Watch Aisha. Read about the Bond speculation with appropriately calibrated skepticism. And remember that the most interesting thing about Josh O'Connor remains, as it always has been, the work.
