With the subsequent Bond film “No Time To Die,” on the schedule to premiere in theaters on Oct. 8, there’s a lot of talk about whether James Bond should be played by a woman.
Former on-screen James Bond Daniel Craig said no, no, a thousands times no.
“The answer to that is very simple,” Craig told the Radio Times magazine. “There should simply be better parts for women and actors of color. Why should a woman play James Bond when there should be a part just as good as James Bond, but for a woman?”
He’s not the only one who thinks Bond needs to played by a male actor. The producer of the film franchise, Barbara Broccoli, says she agrees, and that anyone who thinks a female might play Bond in the future to relax—it isn’t likely.
“I always feel that Bond is a male character, that is just a fact,” she told Good Morning Britain in 2017. “We have to make movies about women and women’s stories, but we have to create female characters–and not just turn a male character into a woman for a gimmick.”
Recently, she added that there are places for plenty of strong female characters to com into play—just not AS Bond.
“He can be of any color, but he is male,” Broccoli explained. “I believe we should be creating new characters for women — strong female characters. I’m not particularly interested in taking a male character and having a woman play it. I think women are far more interesting than that.”
The idea of a woman playing Bond got started after posters of No Time To Die portrayed London actress Lashana Lynch. While she is said to play an M16 agent named Nomi, rumors have begun that she may take over the 007 title.
“With Bond, it could be a man or woman,” Lynch told the Guardian. “They could be white, black, Asian, mixed race. They could be young or old. At the end of the day, even if a two-year-old was playing Bond, everyone would flock to the cinema to see what this two-year-old’s gonna do, no?”
“We are in a place in time where the industry is not just giving audiences what it thinks the audience wants,” she added. “They’re actually giving the audience what they want to give the audience.”
Do you think Bond should ever be played by a woman, or only a man?