Daniel Craig’s final 007 movie, “No Time to Die,” is just weeks away from releasing in the U.S. While the actor has no idea which performer will take on the role of James Bond now that his tenure is done, Craig did recently tell Radio Times that it should probably not be a woman. The debate over whether or not Bond should be played by an actress comes up often, with franchise producer Barbara Broccoli committed to keeping Bond male and advocating instead for equal action roles for original female characters. Craig agrees.
“The answer to that is very simple,” Craig told Radio Times. “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 a male character. He was written as a male and I think he’ll probably stay as a male,” Broccoli previously 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.”
Rosamund Pike, who first rose to fame as a Bond Girl in 2002’s “Die Another Day” opposite Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry, has expressed similar sentiments. “I think the character of James Bond is a man. He is really,” she said in 2018. “Why not make a kick-ass female agent in her own right?”
Broccoli has tried to launch a female-led action franchise in the past with her intended “Die Another Day” spinoff centered around Berry’s character Jinx, but MGM refused to commit to the pitched $80 million budget and the project died.
Not every one agrees with Broccoli and Craig, however. “No Time to Die” star Lashana Lynch told The Guardian earlier this month that Bond “could be a man or woman” or “white, black, Asian, mixed race,” adding, “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?”
Incidentally, Lynch plays a new character in “No Time to Die,” who also happens to be the person currently holding the title of 007. Clearly, even if Bond was originally written to be a male character, 007 can be anyone.
“No Time to Die” opens in U.S. theaters on October 8.
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