While she's open to the idea of casting an actor of any color or race to be the next British spy, Barbara Broccoli insists that a woman will never become 007.
- Jan 16, 2020
AceShowbiz - With "No Time to Die" having been said to be Daniel Craig's last time to reprise his role as James Bond, many speculations have arisen about who will be the next 007. Rumors have circulated for some time that Lashana Lynch would succeed Craig as the MI6 agent since her character takes over Bond's famous code number in the upcoming movie, but it's now pretty much confirmed that she will never be the first female Bond.
In fact, producer Barbara Broccoli has ruled out a female Bond in the future. While she's open to the idea of casting an actor of any color to be the next British spy, she has firmly stated that Bond will always be a male.
"He can be of any color, but he is male," she says in an interview with Variety. "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."
Broccoli had made a similar comment in 2018. "Bond is male. He's a male character. He was written as a male and I think he'll probably stay as a male," she told The Guardian. "And that's fine. We don't have to turn male characters into women. Let's just create more female characters and make the story fit those female characters."
Among those who have been thrown as the possible next depicter of Bond are Idris Elba, Richard Madden and Sam Heughan. Elba, however, suggested in an interview with Vanity Fair that he would never take on the role because of the big pressure that comes with it.
"Of course, if someone said to me 'Do you want to play James Bond?' I'd be like, 'Yeah!' That's fascinating to me. But it's not something I've expressed, like, 'Yeah, I wanna be the black James Bond,' " he said in 2019.
He went on explaining, "You just get disheartened when you get people from a generational point of view going, 'It can't be.' And it really turns out to be the color of my skin. And then if I get it and it didn't work, or it did work, would it be because of the color of my skin? That's a difficult position to put myself into when I don't need to."
"Game of Thrones" alum Madden said he's "more than flattered" for people to consider putting him in the role, but noted that it's nothing more than a rumor. "Outlander" star Heughan, meanwhile, said in December of last year, "I'm waiting for the call...still waiting for the call."
