It may have taken forever and longer but ‘No time To Die’, Daniel Craig’s fifth and final outing as the 007 agent, is almost upon us.
But would it be movie promotions without someone asking the age-old question of whether Bond would ever be played by a woman?
“The answer to that is very simple,” said Craig in an interview with Radio Times. “There should simply be better parts for women and actors of colour. Why should a woman play James Bond when there should be a part just as good as James Bond, but for a woman?”
Craig’s views mirror that of ‘James Bond’ producer Barbara Broccoli.
“James Bond can be of any colour, but he is male,” she told Variety in a 2020 interview. “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.”
Though Bond is very much a man for now, ‘No Time to Die’ did bring more women on board, both in front of and behind the camera. Lashana Lynch joined the cast as an agent heavily rumoured to be taking on the 007 code name, and ‘Fleabag‘s’ Phoebe Waller-Bridge came aboard to lend a hand to the scripting process, with Craig revealing she was the perfect fit.
“She’s got devilish humour. Her influence permeates a lot of this film. She walked that fantastic line of keeping it as a thriller and being very funny. But Phoebe didn’t come in to change Bond. She came in to spice it up for sure, but she’s a Bond fan — she wasn’t about to take him in a different direction,” said Craig.
‘No Time To Die’ releases on September 30 in the UAE.
